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Earth’s Classroom
The Art of the Great
“What makes a great teacher?”
I don’t know if you have ever wondered about this, but this question that has plagued me for years.
Over three decades, I’ve worked with hundreds of principals and vice principals, facilitated hundreds of teacher trainings and been in classrooms with thousands of students. I’ve also had an opportunity to work with administrative staff: librarians, office staff and other support staff.
And during this time I’ve had an opportunity to talk with lots of them.
In these conversations it became evident that the who and the how come before the what.
In other words who you are and how you engage with students come before what you teach.
Don’t get me wrong. Knowledge and skill in the chosen field of study is vital. But who we are speaks louder than subject matter. And how you deliver the material as well as how you deal with the day to day, moment by moment relationships in the classroom and on the campus is the maker or breaker of excellence.
Here’s the good news. We can develop the who and how. We can improve!
When we look at it this way, self-development is really not an option. Instead it is a responsibility for every teacher, principal, vice principal and support staff on the campus.
Every Day
School Bullying – Start the Dialogue Early
Here’s a great little video I saw on You Tube. I thought that those of you who are confronting bullying situations in your school might want to show this at your parent events as you initiate an anti-bullying program in your school. It’s short and light yet makes the point.
You can use this video to open the conversation with parents about talking with their kids about bullying. Then you might share what you are doing about it and how you (parents and the school) can work together to create a safe school environment.
Choosing Friends
My anti-bullying program is called Breaking Out of the World Game. I believe that almost every person on the planet is caught in this incessant generational cycle of US against THEM and Me against YOU. I call this conflict the World Game.
You see for generations and generations humans have had to fight. We have had to fight for food, shelter, resources and more. This fight is part of our DNA, it is part of who we are. Without this internal fight we may not have survived as a species through the prehistoric age. In the modern world this fight has moved from survival to things like the best grades at school, the best job, the most friends, highest revenue in companies etc.
The World Game forgets that Relationship is Everything, without human connections we are not humans!
So how do you explain this fundamental concept to students, well you need to take it very very slowly. You need to scaffold the concept over a lot of lessons so that students get the basic concept and then see how to change their behaviours over time. The use of my Comfort Zone model is the way to do this.
Recently I had the great privilege of working with a fabulous class of 6th graders from a school here in Hawaii. Our discussion about the World Game lead to this great activity about choosing friends. From our classroom discussion the students decided that choosing friends was really important and needed to be done carefully, so we launched into how to choose friends.
This is the classroom activity that I designed, you can do the same with your class:
- Divide the class into teams of 4 or 5.
- Hand each team a large sheet of butcher or poster paper and a set of poster pens.
- Ask each team to draw a line down the middle of the sheet.
- Title the left column: Fake Friends
- Title the right column: Real Friends
- Ask the students to list the things makes a Fake Friend or a Real Friend
- Give the teams 12-15 minutes to fill their charts in.
- Have each team share their charts. Based on the following guidelines.
- Everyone must share something.
- One person introduces each member of the team.
- One person shares the process they went through to complete their discussion and the chart.
- Two or three students share the material.
- One person ‘wraps’ or reviews and ties together the presentation to close.
Close with a full room discussion on recognizing the difference between fake friends and real friends in real life and surrounding yourself with real friends.
Changing Lives
What Do Your Students Want From You?
Hopefully in your personal life you have worked out what you want from your partner, family or friends. I am sure you have worked out what you want from your manager or the school you work at. Have you ever taken the time to ask your students what they want?
I have a wonderful exercise that I do with students. I divide the class into teams of 4 or 5. I give each team a large sheet of butchers paper and some colored markers. Then I ask them how their teachers can support them and help them achieve the results they want in their lives.
Teams have 20 minutes to discuss the question and brainstorm or list their answers. When they are complete. I give each team 3-5 minutes to discuss and pick their top 5 items from the list.
Each team then shares their results with the whole class.
I have asked this question of students for many years and almost without exception I have gotten the following items in many of the teams’ top 5 items:
- I want my teachers to know me by name.
- I want my teachers to listen to me.
- I want my teachers to respect me.
- I want my teachers to take me seriously.
I invite you to do this activity with your students to see what their answers are and how they align to my results.
As the principal of a school, why not try this activity with your staff. I would go so far as preparing your own personal and private list of things you expect to be on the top 5 list. See how well you know your team, or how well you think you know your team.
In the coming weeks – maybe even years – I will discuss the terms “listen to me”, “respect me” and “take me seriously”. These are vitally important concepts, that go the absolute heart of what it means to be a human being. You see if you are not listened to, respected or taken seriously, aren’t the people around you ignoring you?
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