Creating a Positive
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By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
A student taking this course for credit posted an interesting list of characteristics of a successful adult student. You can find the list on the DePaul Training Centers website
I think many of the points on this list are equally characteristic of successful young students, and, when missing, offer warning signs that might alert you that a student is at-risk of dropping out. My student points out that a key warning sign is the lack of desire to engage in the activities and interactions taking place in the classroom or program.
She says that “when a student begins to move away from the characteristics on the list, I am aware they are at risk.”
THE LIST for Successful Adult Learners
The following is a list of some characteristics of successful students. Characteristics of a successful student transfer into positive work place behaviors. This list is a description of what a hard-working student does and what a teacher likes to see. By learning these characteristics, you may better understand the day-to-day and class-to-class behavior of successful students. The idea is to provide you with guidelines you can follow which will help you get down to the business of becoming a serious, successful student and future office professional.
· Successful students attend class regularly and on time.
· Successful students have the ability to work independently and monitor his/her own progress.
· Successful students listen and train themselves to pay attention.
· Successful students take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
· Successful students turn in assignments that look neat and sharp. They take the time to produce a final product that looks good, and reflects care and pride in their work.
· Successful students demonstrate that they care about their grades and are willing to work to improve them
· Successful students demonstrate a willingness to receive instruction/direction from an Instructor and follow through with the presented expectations.
· Successful students ask appropriate questions and are active participants in their learning.
· Successful students pay attention in class and are courteous and polite.
· Successful students have the ability to apply reading strategies to extract important information from text and apply this information to their work. Our classroom textbooks are written at approximately a 9th grade reading level.
· Successful students have the ability to apply upper elementary level English skills to writing assignments.
QUESTION: What do you consider the characteristics of a successful student?
High school
Middle school
Elementary
Please post your thoughts and ideas to this blog.
Topics: Creating a Positive, Kids at Risk, Questions | No Comments »
How to Reach Out to Kids from Military Families
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
Thank you to Rosanne Parry, author of the wonderful book, Heart of a Shepherd, for this article. Her ideas are a perfect way to start off our new administration - simple ways that we can be of help to those who are in service to our country.
Heart of a Shepherd will be available in bookstores everywhere on January 27th in hard cover, audio book, downloadable audio, and ebook formats.
“As the spouse of a Desert Storm veteran and a one-time teacher in a military accommodation school I have been concerned about the isolation of military families from mainstream society. Most people, although they support the troops, have no idea what a deployment costs a family on the level every day’s quiet needs. It is one reason why I chose a reservist’s family with a deployed parent for my first novel, Heart of a Shepherd. My story is set on a ranch in eastern Oregon and covers one boy’s journey of his father’s deployment. I hope it offers an honest look at what it means to send someone you love to a war. And I hope, as teachers (and mentors), we can find a way to creatively shepherd the children of soldiers through their parent’s deployments and beyond.” Rosanne Parry
To learn more about Rosanne, and her books, visit her website
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This December saw the return of one of the largest deployments of Oregon soldiers we have seen in the last six years of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Military families have seen unprecedented stresses and one of the things that has made the last six years unique is that we have deployed reservists more than ever before and deployed them multiple times. The children of these reservists are not in military accommodation schools on army bases surrounded by a cohort of classmates who are in the same boat. Reservists’ children are in your schools, sometimes the only child in their class with a soldier parent.
Fortunately, there are many things a teacher or mentor can do to support a student during a parent’s deployment. Just the daily structure of the school day and the consistency of working with the same teacher (mentor or even friend) is helpful. Here are some more ideas for helping a child cope with a military deployment.
- Acknowledge the soldier’s absence and encourage communication. A simple note or email to the family as soon as you learn of a deployment expressing your support and willingness to help sets you up for success over the coming months.
- Be patient with a student’s mood swings. It is extraordinarily stressful to have a parent in combat, and some children feel ambushed by sad and angry feelings that crop up with little warning. Establish ahead of time a secret sign and a place your student can go if he or she needs to scream, cry, tear up all the newspapers in the recycling bin, or just sit quietly and collect their thoughts.
- Be sensitive about news coverage. Some families stop reading and watching the news altogether because it is too upsetting. If current events are a part of the curriculum, consider alternate assignments.
- Display the flag respectfully in your classroom. It’s a small gesture that means a lot to military families.
- Avoid harshly partisan political discussions if you can. Although they are among the strongest supporters of free speech, many military families avoid expressing their political views while their loved ones are serving in a war zone. Political conversations can be quite painful.
- Watch for economic distress. There are many unanticipated expenses which go along with deployment: unexpected travel, phone bills, medical bills, and the loss of a reservist’s income. Discretely help the family take advantage of food stamps, WIC, reduced lunch, scholarships and clothes closets.
- Adjust the homework load. This student will have many extra chores and less oversight from the remaining parent, so consider shortening the homework, offering tutoring and time to complete work at school or adjusting due dates.
- Communicate good news with the deployed parent. Take pictures at school when the student is in the play or spelling bee or science fair. Email a copy of an outstanding essay, a high scoring math test or a work of art. Describe in loving detail a smart, kind or funny thing this student did at school. It means the world to a soldier far from home.
- Honor holidays, especially Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day. Invite a veteran from a local veterans organization to address you class. Remind the class why we celebrate these holidays.
- Pray. Most military families are people of faith. If you are too, tell you students that you are praying every day for their soldier’s safe return.
One More Idea: Children can be very kind and compassionate, especially if they have a little encouragement. On the kids page of my website there are some ideas for what a child can do to support a friend with a deployed parent.
Topics: Creating a Positive, How to Help, Relationship Strategy | No Comments »
Poetry: Another Way Create Shared Meaning with Kids
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Friday, December 12th, 2008
This idea is from Making Connections student Emma B. She says that the results of this activity were remarkable.
In Linda Christensen’s book , Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word , she describes a process for helping students create their own poems modeled after George Ella Lyon’s poem, “Where I Am From.” The students read the poem and discuss it. Then, they brainstorm their favorite foods, family sayings, celebrations, items found around their homes, people important to them, and places they like to visit. The brainstorming sessions can lead to rich classroom conversations and sharing.Many teachers used this poem at the beginning of each school year as a getting-to-know-you activity—with amazing results. However, this works at any time to help kids feel more connected. (Note: Try this as a way to discover how kids celebrate their holidays.)More ideas:• A sixth-grade teacher has students write “I Am From” poems in October and shares the results with family members at the fall parent-teacher conference. He says, “It took some time for parents to really feel comfortable with a new teacher with their kids. The “I Am From” poems made conversation with the parents really relaxed, because we were going over these funny things that the kids were interested in that surprised them. Sharing the poems made all the difference.”
• A high-school teacher uses the “Where I’m From” poems to get to know her students and their families.” It is such a safe way to experience poetry. Plus, it requires so much thought about what really matters in one’s life and what the things are that have truly shaped the students into the individuals they have become.”
For instructions and examples of this activity, see: Where I Am From Poem.
Topics: Creating a Positive, Culturally Competent, Recommended reading | No Comments »
Positive Progress May Come in Small Steps
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Thank you to Making Connections student Shelly, for allowing me to post this comment from our class discussion about the importance of a positive attitude when working to build relationships with (challenging and challenged) kids.
I am currently caring for a young boy with whom I have begun to build a solid relationship. He is a very loving child and for the most part well behaved. The problem both his teachers and I (his foster parent) are encountering is that he has an anger control problem. On the surface he does not appear angry but when he is teased or provoked in any way by other children his immediate reaction is to use physical attack to express his emotions of irritation. His teachers and I have focused on teaching him cognitive behavioral skills to help him re-train myself to react differently. We have been working with him for six months now and he is like a new child. The last three months there has been not one incident of anger at school or at home.
When we first began that journey there were days I thought to myself that I could not handle this boy and wondered if I could even help him. In those times I found it helpful to remind myself of even the smallest of victories in this boy’s progress. These attitudes and strategies helped me.
Positive Progress Points to View
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Counting the days, moments, or interactions between episodes helps to visually see the progress.
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Noticing and responding to non-verbal and verbal signals from the child letting you know hisneeds are fulfilled, for example, he feels safe, comfortable and accepted.
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Talking with others who have been in or are in the same or similar situations with children allows you to see that progress is possible and you’re not the only one dealing with such problems.
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Talk with teachers, daycare providers, and family about the child’s progress.
Topics: Creating a Positive, How to Help, Relationship Strategy | No Comments »
After-school success began with Mrs. B. (and Everybody Benefits)
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
There was a great column by Andy Parker in today’s Metro Section. Parker writes about a mentoring program that has been making a profound difference in the lives of Clackamas County kids and families by offering after-school, summer and language programs to hundreds of families. Part of what makes this program work is the high school students that drop in one or twice a week to work with kids.
I am always on the lookout for stories that show how, when schools, families and the community work together, everybody benefits, and this story came with its own statistics. “The result, (of the afterschool mentoring program) measured by Portland State University, shows higher attendance, fewer behavior problems and rising academic performance for a majority of the 100 or so kids in the Lot Whitcomb program every year.”
The program, begun years ago, at a school “long considered Clackamas County’s poorest elementary school,” has been so successful, that the program is now expanding to four more schools in the North Clackamas School District. In fact, “on Tuesday, Susan Castillo, Oregon schools superintendent, came … to tell the educators and nonprofit leaders (who fund and run this program) they’d been chosen as one of seven outstanding school/community partnerships in the state.”“It proves,” said school counselor Ellen Baltus, who “has been running this program for years now”, “what can happen when we all just do our part. Everybody does a little bit, and it works.” Or, said another way, everybody benefits.
Topics: Community Service, Creating a Positive, In The News | No Comments »
In Their Own Words: Poems to help you get to know your kids
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
As a 4th grade teacher I always had students write an ” I am” poem.
They write about who they are and things that are important to them in their lives, like their families, friends, and hobbies.
The poems usually start out something like this:
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I am from the brown brick apartment with the flowers in the yard.
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I am from the round wooden table in the kitchen where I do my homework.
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I am from the mom who works at Fred Meyer and the grandma who who works there, too.
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I am from riding bikes and skateboarding on Prescott.
And, so forth, like that. I think to make this a way for the kids to visually express who they are. To get them started, I give them a each big piece of white paper and put out magazines, colored pencils, and markers. This allows the kids to create a visual representation of who they are to go along with their poem. This also is a great way to show me and the other kids a lot about who they are and where they come from.
This idea is submitted by teacher, Emma Burcart
Topics: BACK TO SCHOOL, Creating a Positive | 1 Comment »
Understanding Students
By Shelly Brock | Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Casual conversation and careful observation are some important factors in getting to know the kids you work with. Understanding that each child is an individual with learning skills and needs that are unique to their character allows teachers and mentors to approach the individual needs of each student at a one on one basis. Another method of getting to know your students is sending the students home with “parent homework”. For example, asking parents to write a paragraph or two about their child can help give teachers and mentors valuable insight into the characteristics of each student.
Topics: Creating a Positive | No Comments »
Where are the Role Models?
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Friday, September 19th, 2008
Sometimes questions seem to pop up in several places at the same time. I had a great conversation at Portland State
University about the problems that kids have after they graduate (after all the effort to NOT DROP OUT). My companion pointed out that (based on her personal experience as well as research) even when they make it through school, some kids find themselves unable to continue to college.
There are many reasons that kids don’t go on to college; financial reasons, or family responsibilities for example. But for some, even if they are able to attend, they don’t because they simply have no idea what they might be or do if they get there.This subject has also been mentioned frequently in the Making Connections course. There has been discussion about how to keep the students who make it through school connected – with learning, with work, and with the desire and inspiration to continue to move forward in their lives. Students state that they are looking for ways to inspire the kids who are currently in school (at every grade) with the idea that if they STAY in school – they can go on after school to do something they love, or at least, are interested in.No matter the discussion, the same question keeps coming up - where are the role models? How can teachers and mentors connect their kids with people of every color and kind - who can demonstrate by their simple presence, that there is a place in the world of work for people of every description?
One student expressed this question perfectly. “What I want to work on this year is introducing the kids to some successful minority community members. I am thinking about how I can do this in the most effective way, because I want my kids to get to know (and see) business people, doctors, scientists, lawyers, dentists, college professors, business owners, financial planners, engineers, and the like. I want my kids to know that there are more possibilities for them besides being a teacher, working in a factory, in construction, or selling drugs. I really believe that the students need to see successful people who look like them.”
I agree that this is an important issue, so I am including some ideas that teachers and mentors can use to think creatively about find interesting people who do interesting things. I hope that readers will add to my list, even add specifics. If you would like to volunteer to share your experiences with work and school, please post your information and ideas to this blog.
• Talk to your friends and colleagues who do interesting work, and have interesting hobbies and sidelines. Ask them to talk to your kids about the things they needed to learn in school to be able to do what they do now.
• Ask these same people about the people they know. Build a list - think of this as your personal backpack of connections.
• Seek out people who do interesting or valuable things - who have NOT gone through the traditional college path - but needed to learn skills to do their work.
• Read the newspaper – this can be a great activity for students. Ask each student to find a story about someone who does something that is interesting to them (mountain rescuers, firefighters, soldiers, artists having an opening show, dancers, photographers, lawyers who win a case, doctors, veterinarians at the zoo …. the possibilities are endless. These articles are useful in several ways – it allows you to build a list of jobs that people do, it lets you get to know your kids a little better, it provides names and organizations connected with the work that people actually do, and, at times, contact information. Use this list to start thinking creatively with your students about ways to invite people to come to your classroom, program or school.
Years ago, I was a TAG teacher - working with kids of many colors. One African American girl seemed shy and was having a hard time connecting with the class. I tried all everything I knew to connect with her and draw her out - with minimal results … until …We were doing a unit on whales, and the kids had invited a speaker to come from Greenpeace to talk to them - purely randomly, a young black woman came into the classroom. My student literally snapped to attention - she was riveted by this woman. She spoke in class, asked questions and dsiplayed a great sense of humor. What a difference! Long story short the changes stayed. She was a new girl - bright, involved and far more confident. When I asked her at the end of the term what she wanted to be - she (who in the beginning wanted to ‘have no responsibilities’) wanted to be a Marine biologist. So the key to finding role models may not be to look for people who fit a description, but to keep your classroom and program open to the many people who may be part of your community. Trust that color is not the only diversity your kids need to see, and that the perfect role model may look different, but still bring that perfect something into the life of a kid, without YOU needing so hard to make things happen. Present as many possibilities as you can, as you go through your classwork and activities, and trust that the details will take care of themselves.
Topics: Creating a Positive, Inspiration, Mentor Stories | 2 Comments »
Bullies & Victims: What Teachers, Mentors and Parents Need to Know
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
Kids who feel unsafe in school are more likely to drop out. Even in the most caring school communities, many kids face disrespectful and sometimes abusive behavior, from other kids. Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of bullying knows that make life in school and in the neighborhood unpleasant or even terrifying. Bullying is definitely a challenge that some students face today. It is an issue covered in the course, but well worth mentioning here. The following article, from Skipping Stones Magazine (a great resource) has information that help teachers, mentors and parents identify and address bullying behaviors in their classrooms, programs and communities.
Students can get bullied due to factors such as race, social status, sex, age, disability, physical features, or being otherwise different.
Bullying can take the form of name calling, teasing, fighting or attacks, taking money, vandalizing belongings, and may result in anger, fear, sadness, insomnia, lack of appetite or withdrawal from activities. Falling grades, mood or habit changes, drug or alcohol problems or self-esteem issues may also result. There is a fine line between bullying, school violence and violation of human rights. Bullying even violates some of the articles in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For example, Article 12 of this declaration states: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” To empower your students against bullying, you may wish to share the following advice with them:
• Be kind and respectful to yourself and others. Minimize or avoid contact with people who diminish others.
• Believe in yourself. People can make you feel inferior only with your permission. If you strive to be a good person each day, no one can diminish you on the inside.
• Practice withholding judgments of yourself or others. Take the time to get to know people to end gossip (myths).
• If you are a bystander, report incidents of harassment to an adult. You will not be tattling. Rather, you will be alleviating the suffering of another student and creating a support network for someone in need of your empathy and compassion.
• If, as a bystander or victim of bullying, you do not get help from one adult, continue to look for an adult who can help and seek support from family and friends.
If students, teachers and parents everywhere work on this issue, eventually there will be less school violence in the U.S. and around the world. Everyone has the right to live in peace on Earth—free from harassment and intimidation. — Patricia Wong Hall, educator,
Topics: Creating a Positive, How to Help, RESOURCES | 3 Comments »
How to Create a Boy-Friendly School
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
The subject of how boys are struggling in school and in life seems to come up regularly in the media. Two years ago, PBS ran a powerful documentary, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys, which “explores the emotional development of boys in
This week, there is an article in Newsweek, Struggling School Aged Boys. Though the medium is different, the message is the same. Many boys, (according to the research) an extraordinary percentage of them, are having emotional or behavioral problems that are affecting their lives, and their ability and willingness to stay in school. Many of the problems are severe enough to cause parents to consult a doctor or health care professional.
As an educator, parent, and citizen of the nation that leads the world in fatherless families, violence and failing boys, I can’t stop thinking about the faces, and the voices of the boys in the film, and the issues and problems of the boys I see and hear about every day. So, the questions keep playing in my head … How can we do a better job of raising our boys? And, what can Oregon educators do to create a boy friendly school - a place where boys feel safe, welcome and able to learn and be themselves?To clarify my thoughts, I contacted Marilyn Brown-Dikeos, whose program Empowered Learning includes strategies that teachers, mentors and parents can use to help boys feel safe and respected in the classroom. She offers the following insights and strategies.
1. Honor the risk of learning. Trying to learn something new can be risky for a boy who is afraid to fail. Help your student’s understand that learning is a process that includes trying, doing, and making mistakes. It is not about achieving perfection. Value a student’s attempts to master a new subject or skill. Celebrate effort and recognize even small accomplishments along the way.
2. Provide safe entry points to learning. Group learning and project based activities offer multiple entry points for students. The ability to choose a role or task which will allow him to work from his strength may help a boy feel confident enough to enter into an activity.
3. Allow students to self-evaluate. Many boys struggle in school because success and failure are tied up with their sense of themselves. A boy who gets a bad grade or fails a test is likely to feel stupid and embarrassed in front of his classmates. Rather than risk failing again, some boys simply stop trying. One way to work around this is to allow students to grade themselves according to the criteria you set. When they turn in a paper ask, “What grade do you think you earned?” Allow them to tell you how they might have done better. Remind a boy that understanding how to do better next time shows that he is learning.
4. Treat them with respect and kindness. Just because boys don’t show their emotions, we tend to treat them as if they aren’t there. In fact, research shows that boys are even more sensitive and more eager to please than girls. Treat them as if they are fragile. They are.
5. Provide opportunities for boys to talk about their feelings – through sports or chess or other games. Boys need to be reassured that their inner lives are NOT shameful, that play violence is not violence. Use their violent games and fantasies as a starting point for conversation or story writing.
6. Boys need to move around. Recess time is being eliminated as school days are shortened. Try to find ways to build action and motion into your activities and schedule.
7. Boys need to feel safe. They need an adult to talk to about bullies, fear, humiliation and their need to be protected. They also need an adult to show them that men are caring, compassionate and kind.
8. Offer opportunities for boys to resolve their own conflicts. Conflict resolution takes communication skills, the ability to listen, willingness to compromise, and often, creativity. It can help boys reflect on their actions, and see them from someone else’s point of view. Best of all, the ability to resolve a conflict without rage and aggression can result in friendship, something that no boy can succeed without. Related Resources: For more information about this subject, help for parents, and classroom ideas, visit the following websites
Raising Cain: Boys in Focus
http://www.pbs.org/opb/raisingcain/
The PBS Parents Guide to Understanding and Raising Boys
http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys/index.html
Boys in School
How to help boys adjust to school and schools adjust to boys.
http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys/school.html
Buy the Program
Raising Cain (DVD)
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=2175911
Topics: Boy Friendly Schools, Creating a Positive, How to Help, RESOURCES, Relationship Strategy | 1 Comment »
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