Avoiding Avoidance: Leading Students Through Tough Conversations (online reflection #2)

One day this week my mentor teacher asked me to read through two chapters of The Misfits with the students and then help them with a summary of the text. We started this novel last week so the students knew the basic plot summary and traits for each character, but we were just getting into the nitty gritty details. (If you’re unfamiliar with The Misfits, it’s about four middle school students who do not fit in with their peers and have banded together to talk about important topics in their lives. More information and reviews here.) So, here I am, just starting the fourth chapter and I read out loud: “Tuesday morning, we get to school, and what do we find scrawled in big ugly marker on Joe’s locker but the word Fagot” (Howe 31). Joe, one of the Misfits, is described as gay with effeminate qualities.

Woah. I was not prepared for that. My red face and bulging eyes were a clear indication that I had been taken off my guard. This was the first time I had ever said a word that was not in the PC realm in front of my students. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for exposing students to realities they will face in the future and teaching them how to respond to these situations in constructive ways, I just wish I had known this was coming. When my mentor teacher told me we would be doing a novel study over The Misfits, I should have done more research. I should have familiarized myself with the language and conflicts we would be reading about. Believe me, I have learned my lesson. A question remains, however, about how exactly to lead my students through a conversation about issues and themes such as bullies, LGBTQ inclusion, and body image. How do I encourage my students to talk about these topics without arguing or offending their peers?

                Even though 6^th graders aren’t exactly as mature as, say, college students, I believe they can still engage in discussions and conversations about sensitive and important topics. The Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) provides a plethora of resources for teachers to plan, lead discussions, and teach students about LGBTQ issues (their website can be viewed here.) One strategy I found particularly interesting was the ThinkB4YouSpeak campaign, which raises awareness of anti-LGBTQ language and how what you say affects those around you. This is so important for students this age because they are just learning these popular phrases and that calling someone or something gay gives it a negative connotation. If we can preface these types of texts with getting our students to become aware of how they use this language, we can open doors for students to be more reflective and get them thinking about the consequences of their words and actions.

               

                I think a lot of teachers try to sweep important discussions like these under the rug so they do not ruffle any feathers or cause conflict between their students. However, if we are going to read texts with mature content, we need to prepare our students with the tools necessary to see different points of view. Philosophical chairs is a safe and productive way for students to engage in a topic and communicate their opinions and values. In this strategy, students have the freedom to change their minds about a topic based on the discussion and are encouraged to pose questions for other students based on their comments (more information here.) Providing students with the opportunity to discover new information and work through topics with their peers is a great way to create a safe environment where all students feel free to be who they are. In the future I will most certainly be more prepared and equipped to handle those tough conversations with my students so that we are all able to connect to the text on a deeper level than if we had not explored those topics beforehand.

Works Cited

Howe, James. The Misfits. New York: Atheneum for Young Readers, 2001. Print.               

Do I HAVE to do This? (online reflection #1)

     As I finish my third week of pre-student teaching, I am already seeing my students test their boundaries. What will I let them get away with? Will I do the work for them if they put it off for too long? Many times throughout the last few weeks either my mentor teacher or I will give the students directions on an assignment only to receive blank stares. At times I feel as if I have to walk around to each individual student and re-explain the task in order for them to get started. Ideally, we want our students to be self-starters – to receive a task and get to working right away, raising their hand if any questions arise. My question is this: how do we encourage and teach students to be self-starters? Is it by using motivation techniques, explaining the directions more thoroughly, both, or something else entirely?

     In the last few days I have tried different techniques in hopes of prompting my students to begin working without me having to repeatedly tell them to get to work. For example, the students were instructed to pick an article in a Choices magazine and do a one-pager over the article. The one-pager needed to include the title, author(s), at least two quotes, personal responses to the quotes, and an image to go along with each quote. While walking around, I noticed several students who had not started reading or working on their one-pager. I first asked the student if he or she had any questions about what they were supposed to do, which many of them did (this was one of the first times they had worked on a one-pager). After clearing up any confusion, I let them work for a while before I returned to their desk to see how they were doing. If they were working steadily, I praised them and encouraged them to keep working hard. If not, I asked them what their next step was going to be: did they need to find two quotes, write their response, or draw an image? I noticed a huge difference in the students’ willingness to keep working rather than if I had just said, “get back to work”.

     This has all been great and is working so far, but how do I take this a step further and get students invested in their work? One Edutopia article, “Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves” by Larry Ferlazzo, suggests that student-teacher relationships are among the most important factors for student motivation. My favorite suggestion from Ferlazzo’s article is using praise: he states that, “. . . praising effort encourages the idea that we primarily learn through our hard work . . .” (Ferlazzo). Admiring a student’s hard work rather than just the product of their work is an easy way to promote a positive student-teacher relationship as well as get them invested in their work. Another tip I definitely plan on utilizing is to just be flexible. As Ferlazzo says, we need to “. . . keep our eyes on the learning goal prize” (Ferlazzo). We can all get caught up in making sure the student does the assignment 100% correctly, but this may cause us to lose sight of our goal in assigning the work in the first place. Do I want students to show me they are capable of producing a one-pager, or do I want students to be able to pull important details from a piece of text and respond to the text in thoughtful ways?

     Ultimately, it is the student-teacher relationship that is one of the biggest determinants of student motivation. While giving praise and keeping our goals in mind are two excellent strategies, I have only just begun discovering the different ways to achieve this goal.

Edutopia article can be found at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/strategies-helping-students-motivate-themselves-larry-ferlazzo