Thursday, February 23, 2017

Week of February 23


                Thursday Thoughts February 23




I think we would all agree that this week was tough.  Actually for many of you, last week wasn't the greatest either.  We looked forward to a long weekend and from what I heard, many people spent the weekend in bed.  Personally, my week was jolted on last Wednesday when my oldest son was in a car accident down the street.  He's fine.  The car is totaled.... but he's fine.  Each day we wake up with our minds fixed on how the day will flow.  We make plans and have good intentions but all sort of unexpected twists and turns derail those plans.  I have come to the realization that I must approach each day expecting the unexpected.   At an elementary school, the unexpected is more like the norm.  With so much going on and many things coming at us from all directions, I want to remind you (and myself) to embrace everyday as a fresh start, a "do over" if you will.  We hit a rough patch but overall things are going well.  Hold on to the hope that each day will be better in some way than the day prior.  

P.S.  A special thank you to the mystery person(s) who keeps showering me with acts of kindness.  I spent the better part of the week being a detective and trying to figure out who you are but now I have moved on to true thankfulness (and you are really good at remaining anonymous).  





Staff Spotlight

This week I would like to shine the spotlight on Kat Fowler.  Saying that Kat had big shoes to fill is an understatement and could even be insulting.  It implies that there was an expectation that she was to come in and mirror everything that had previously been done in the media center.  Upon meeting Kat and spending some time with her this summer, I knew that she would take inventory of what we were doing, what we needed to do and merge the two together. A visit to the media center will result in students coding, editing videos, putting on puppet shows and even building with Legos.  Today I saw students creating video games with Bloxel (which I had never heard of prior to today).  She is expanding the Maker space into a "Maker room" and still finds time to read to children.  During the book fair, several staff members made me aware of the fact that Kat implemented a "Caught Reading" program where she gave students who  might not get to make purchases a fun way to select a book of their own.  When she had to take unexpected leave for a family matter, Kat made sure she forwarded lesson plans for each grade level while she was out of town.  It would have been easy for her to cancel classes but that was the furthest thing from her mind.  Kat has a style that is all her own and she is making her mark on Medlock.  The media center is on the MOVE and we appreciate all that she is doing.



Kindness: A Lesson Plan

Classroom activities and resources for developing a vital character trait.

National Random Acts of Kindness Day, February 17, is a day when acts of kindness are encouraged and celebrated by people and organizations throughout this country. February is also the month when many celebrate Valentine’s Day—a day devoted to love. Young students pass out small greeting cards bought in bulk to all their classmates, and older students have “Heartgrams” delivered to each other during the class period before lunch time.
If you’re a teacher (or think back to your K–12 school days), what feelings does this day invoke? There are lots of hugs, smiles, and laughter (and candy), and more importantly, feelings of being cared for, seen, cherished, liked, admired, and even loved. Aren’t these emotions we’d like to foster everyday?
So why not celebrate and practice kindness intentionally in our classrooms and schools more routinely? Research tells us there are three domains of learning: cognitive (thinking), motor (physical), and affective (emotional/feeling). And as the Greek philosopher Aristotle supposedly said, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

Kick-Start Kindness: Activities

1. Good Things This is an activity that takes less than five minutes but is a surefire way to set a positive and caring tone for the class period or day. Ask each student to respond to their neighbor using one of these talking stems: “One good thing in my life is. . . .” or "Something good that happened is . . .” Tell the students that their thing can be big or small; for example, last night they had pizza for dinner, or someone got a pet turtle, or just passed their driver’s test. Once they have shared with an elbow partner, ask for volunteers to share their own or their neighbor’s good thing. This is an opportunity for students to share their lives and also be celebrated and affirmed by their teacher and classmates.
2. The Write Around This writing activity gives students a chance to silently appreciate one another while building writing fluency. Give them each a handout that has several sentences starters on it, with space for writing after each one: 
  • One idea I’ve gotten from you is . . .
  • I really like your personality because . . .
  • I know I can count on you when . . .
  • I really appreciate when you . . .
  • Some adjectives that describe you are . . .
  • I am impressed by the way you . . .
  • I look forward to seeing you because . . .
Each student writes their name at the top of their paper, and you collect them. Randomly pass them out. Ask for silence and then tell the students they have three minutes to write something about that person. They can respond to more than one sentence starter if they like, and multiple students can respond to one. After a few minutes, ask them to pass the papers to another person. Do several rounds. Collect them and pass them back to the owners. You won’t believe the smiles you will see. 
3. Shout-outs Model this one for students for the first few weeks (perhaps it will take a month or two, if it’s a tough or shy crowd): “I really like how . . .,” “I noticed that . . .,” or “I’d like to give a shout-out to . . . for bringing her best to her group today!” Eventually, in their own ways, they will begin to echo your sentiments to each other, and this will become a class routine. Be sure to make time for it. You can fit a lot of shout-outs in the last three to five minutes of class.
4. Appreciation Box For students less inclined to share with the whole group, create a box and place it in the back of the room with small slips of paper or sticky notes. The teacher and the students can leave appreciations for classmates in the box. This may take some modeling and encouragement. Every few days, take out the appreciations and read them aloud. I saw a fourth-grade teacher design a treasure chest appreciation box, and she and her teaching assistant would put slips of paper in it all day and then read them aloud five minutes before the bell rang for the kids to go home. Soon the students started writing appreciation notes for each other. It was transformative, she told me: “We became a family.” 
5. Temperature Check Begin class by asking your students this simple question: “How are you feeling today?” This emotional check-in is an acknowledgment that we are all human and that we have feelings and emotions that sometimes change day to day. Students can turn and talk, or share with the whole class. As their teacher, this also alerts you to any fragile feelings or moods in the room to be mindful of, or to possibly meet with the students about privately after class.
For students, building on their vocabulary of words to express emotions and feelings addresses the importance of affective learning. You can help give your students richer vocabulary by providing this list of words for feelings. Compiled by the Center of Nonviolent Communication, it can be shared with secondary students; for younger students, provide a shorter, simpler word list.
6. Buddy Up Depending on the age of students you teach, you (and your students) can create a clever, appropriate title for this activity (for example: wingman/woman, copilot, collaborator, colleague). Partner them up; they are in charge of helping each other. Miss a day of class? She will get handouts and information for you. Don’t understand something? Consult first with your pal, then the teacher. This one-on-one collaboration and support builds community in the classroom and sends a message that students are trusted and capable of assisting each other. Let students self-select sometimes; at other times, you select the partners. Change partners every week, every other week, or once a month—you decide.
7. Community Circle Kindness shines through when we really listen to each other. Remove the barrier of desks or tables and sit in a circle as a whole class. Only one person may speak at a time; the rest listen. Even though you facilitate, posing a question or topic for the students to speak about, it’s important that you be in the circle too—not as leader, but as a member.
Choose a talking piece (stuffed animal, mini globe, or basketball, for example) and make one pass around the circle with everyone first checking in. (See these guidelines from Center for Restorative Process.) The only voice is the person holding the object. Consider including a community circle in the agenda when something happens inside or outside of the classroom (a traumatic event in the neighborhood or world, or an argument that involved multiple students, or theft in the classroom). Making space and time for a circle like this that speaks to social-emotional learning—where students share their thoughts and feelings, and can relate with one another—will positively effect academic learning as well.

Resources on Kindness

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has the slogan “Help Turn the World Kind”—could you adopt and adapt a version of this in your classroom? Perhaps students can make a collective sign that says something like, “Compassionate Classroom Alert!” (This sounds like a great lunchtime poster-making party to me.)
The foundation offers dozens of K–12 lessons through the website. Thematic units feature “developmentally appropriate, standards-aligned lessons that teach kids important social and emotional skills (SEL).” These multiple-lesson units offer such themes as “How Can I Be Kind?” (grade 2), “Taking Care of Ourselves” (grade 5), and “Understanding Each Other” (grade 7).
In the blog post “Resources for Creating a Radically Compassionate Classroom,” I share resources for classroom walls and strategies and activities that promote a compassionate learning space, one that supports inclusion of all students.
According to the research of Adena Klem and James Connell, students who perceive a teacher as caring have higher attendance and better grades and are more engaged in the classroom and at school. Think about this research. If we grow that caring community beyond the teacher, extending it to how classmates interact with each other, how might that further transform and evolve the learning environments where we teach?

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Week of February 9

              Thursday Thoughts February 9







Years ago, when I was a teacher, I loved Valentines Day.  The children were excited about exchanging cards and candy.  And a day full of fun activities served as a brief diversion from our normal routine.  In fact, it just seemed that everyone was generally a bit kinder to each other on Valentines Day.  While I personally don't think you need a commercialized day to tell people that you love them, it is nice to have a day dedicated to showing kindness and love toward others.  Before we can teach anything, children need to know that we love them and that everyday is a fresh new start.    It is my hope that you are planning something fun and exciting for your students on Tuesday.  Make it a special day and most importantly, make sure all students know that they are loved.

Staff Spotlight

This week I would like to shine the spotlight on Patty Neumeister.  It is no secret that Patty is quite possibly the most upbeat person  on staff.  Just a few minutes around her and you will walk away smiling. She has a song (or can make one up) for just about anything.   She goes out of her way to help others and instills this same spirit of service and kindness in her students.  Patty's passion for literacy is contagious.  This year her students are writing letters to famous authors.  Amazingly, some of the authors are writing back to the students.   If you visit her classroom, you will see that the students can't contain their excitement about this venture.  They quickly tell you the names of the authors to whom they have written and are happy to share the responses that have been received so far.  Talk about authentic engagement!  At Medlock  Bridge, our mission is"to educate and inspire all students to be lifelong learners."  Thank you Patty for working hard to fulfill this mission.  


30 Of The Best Books To Teach Children Empathy


by Teach Thought Staff
January 22, 2017
Often confused with sympathy and compassion, empathy is, put simply, the ability to feel what another person is feeling. Unlike sympathy or compassion, empathy doesn’t require you to feel for  them, though it can lead to those emotions. Empathy, rather, is a starting point for understanding both ourselves and other people from the inside out.
In “How To Teach Empathy,” Terry Heick said that “empathy is both a cause and effect of understanding, a kind of cognitive and emotional double helix that can create a bridge between classroom learning and ‘real life’ application.”
Since storytelling is such a powerful tool to communicate the human condition, we’ve created a list of 30 stories that do exactly that. Each of the following books in the collection we’ve created below were selected for the ability to provide an especially apt demonstration of, or opportunity to learn, empathy.
Most of the books are useful to teach empathy to almost any student of any age. In fact, it could be argued that a student doesn’t need a story at all–music, the news, art, film, YouTube videos, and other media forms are also useful here. It’s also true that they don’t necessarily need a “empathy story.”
Most literature, by design, promotes empathy with characters in stories, especially when told through a first-person narrator. Still, a book created expressly to showcase empathy can be an even more precise teaching tool. Though the list below tends towards K-8, there are many that would work well in a high school classroom as well.
Take to the comments below and let us know if we missed any of your favorites books to teach empathy in the classroom!
30 Of The Best Books To Teach Children Empathy
30 Books To Teach Children Empathy | El Deafo
Going to school and making new friends can be tough. But going to school and making new friends while wearing a bulky hearing aid strapped to your chest? That requires superpowers! In this funny, poignant graphic novel memoir, author/illustrator Cece Bell chronicles her hearing loss at a young age and her subsequent experiences with the Phonic Ear, a very powerful—and very awkward—hearing aid.
The Phonic Ear gives Cece the ability to hear—sometimes things she shouldn’t—but also isolates her from her classmates. She really just wants to fit in and find a true friend, someone who appreciates her as she is. After some trouble, she is finally able to harness the power of the Phonic Ear and become “El Deafo, Listener for All.” And more importantly, declare a place for herself in the world and find the friend she’s longed for.
30 Books To Teach Children Empathy | Wonder
2. Wonder
August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder, now a #1 New York Times bestseller and included on the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.
30 Books To Teach Children Empathy | Fish in a Tree
The author of the beloved One for the Murphys gives readers an emotionally-charged, uplifting novel that will speak to anyone who’s ever thought there was something wrong with them because they didn’t fit in. “Everybody is smart in different ways. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid.”
In Wonder, readers were introduced to memorable English teacher Mr. Browne and his love of precepts. This companion book features conversations between Mr. Browne and Auggie, Julian, Summer, Jack Will, and others, giving readers a special peek at their lives after Wonder ends. Mr. Browne’s essays and correspondence are rounded out by a precept for each day of the year—drawn from popular songs to children’s books to inscriptions on Egyptian tombstones to fortune cookies.
Having spent twenty-seven years behind the glass walls of his enclosure in a shopping mall, Ivan has grown accustomed to humans watching him. He hardly ever thinks about his life in the jungle. Instead, Ivan occupies himself with television, his friends Stella and Bob, and painting. But when he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from the wild, he is forced to see their home, and his art, through new eyes.
With honesty and humor, the main characters bridge the miles between them, creating a friendship that inspires bravery and defeats cultural misconceptions. Narrated in two voices, each voice distinctly articulated by a separate gifted author, this chronicle of two lives powerfully conveys the great value of being and having a friend and the joys of opening our lives to others who live beneath the same sun.
Inside Out and Back Again is a New York Times bestseller, a Newbery Honor Book, and a winner of the National Book Award! Inspired by the author’s childhood experience of fleeing Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama, this coming-of-age debut novel told in verse has been celebrated for its touching child’s-eye view of family and immigration.
Cerulean is on the brink of collapse. The decay wasn’t fast, it wasn’t obvious, but now the world stands on the precipice. Woven forests floating on an ocean around a star, Cerulean’s once vibrant treescape has grown dim over generations of arboreal life, and the creatures of the forest have forgotten the light.
This is the delightfully warm and enjoyable story of an old Parisian named Armand, who relished his solitary life. Children, he said, were like starlings, and one was better off without them. But the children who lived under the bridge recognized a true friend when they met one, even if the friend seemed a trifle unwilling at the start. And it did not take Armand very long to realize that he had gotten himself ready-made family; one that he loved with all his heart, and one for whom he would have to find a better home than the bridge.
Life carried on for the community of Port William, Kentucky, as some boys returned from the war and the lives of others were mourned. In her seventies, Nathan’s wife, Hannah, has time now to tell of the years since the war. In Wendell Berry’s unforgettable prose, we learn of the Coulter’s children, of the Feltners and Branches, and how survivors “live right on.”
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world.

‘Island of the Blue Dolphins’ is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana’s quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.
Jayber Crow, born in Goforth, Kentucky, orphaned at age ten, began his search as a “pre-ministerial student” at Pigeonville College. “You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out—perhaps a little at a time.”
14. Paperboy
Little Man throws the meanest fastball in town. But talking is a whole different ball game. He can barely say a word without stuttering—not even his own name. So when he takes over his best friend’s paper route for the month of July, he’s not exactly looking forward to interacting with the customers. But it’s the neighborhood junkman, a bully and thief, who stirs up real trouble in Little Man’s life.
This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s list child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow.
Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie’s wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man’s capacity for inhumanity to man.
In the town of Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871, Georgie Burkhardt is known for two things: her uncanny aim with a rifle and her habit of speaking her mind plainly. But when Georgie blurts out something she shouldn’t, her older sister Agatha flees, running off with a pack of “pigeoners” trailing the passenger pigeon migration. And when the sheriff returns to town with an unidentifiable body—wearing Agatha’s blue-green ball gown—everyone assumes the worst. Except Georgie.
In this groundbreaking memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Ibtisam Barakat captures what it is like to be a child whose world is shattered by war. With candor and courage, she stitches together memories of her childhood: fear and confusion as bombs explode near her home and she is separated from her family; the harshness of life as a Palestinian refugee.
Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
Billy has long dreamt of owning not one, but two, dogs. So when he’s finally able to save up enough money for two pups to call his own, he’s ecstatic. It doesn’t matter that times are tough; together they’ll roam the hills of the Ozarks. Soon Billy and his hounds become the finest hunting team in the valley. Stories of their great achievements spread throughout the region. But tragedy awaits these determined hunters—now friends—and Billy learns that hope can grow out of despair, and that the seeds of the future can come from the scars of the past
Terribly unhappy in his family’s crowded New York City apartment, Sam Gribley runs away to the solitude-and danger-of the mountains, where he finds a side of himself he never knew.
Twelve-year-old Marie is a leader among the popular black girls in Chauncey, Ohio, a prosperous black suburb. She isn’t looking for a friend when Lena Bright, a white girl, appears in school. Yet they are drawn to each other because both have lost their mothers. And they know how to keep a secret. For Lena has a secret that is terrifying, and she’s desperate to protect herself and her younger sister from their father. Marie must decide whether she can help Lena by keeping her secret–or by telling it.
The first book in Deborah Ellis’s riveting Breadwinner series is an award-winning novel about loyalty, survival, families, and friendship under extraordinary circumstances during the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.
Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom—the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged, because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. And she’s determined to let everyone know it–somehow.
Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was.
The New York Times bestseller A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys’ account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child’s-eye-vision, Alephonsian, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns: how they endured the hunger and strength-sapping illnesses—dysentery, malaria, and yellow fever; how they dodged the life-threatening predators—lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike—that dogged their footsteps; and how they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them.
A boy and his father have come to the Vietnam War Memorial to look for the boy’s grandfather’s name among those who were killed in the war. They find his name surrounded, but far from lost, in the rows of print that “march side by side, like rows of soldiers.” “I’m proud that your grandfather’s name is on this wall,” says the boy’s father. The boy agrees, adding, “but I’d rather have my grandpa here.”
Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie’s house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs. It will take the love of his family and the strength that Leslie has given him for Jess to be able to deal with his grief.
E. B. White’s Newbery Honor Book is a tender novel of friendship, love, life, and death that will continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. It contains illustrations by Garth Williams, the acclaimed illustrator of E.B. White’s Stuart Little and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, among many other books.