Working with Parents

Students Aren’t Robots

Bret OlsonLeave a comment

Students aren’t robots, in fact they’re exactly the opposite – they’re humans.

Not only are they humans, they are teenage humans.  Hormone filled, emotional, impressionable teenagers…eeek!  There couldn’t be anything less predictable wandering our halls than 600+ teens.  Nothing could be more different from a predictable and programmable robot than a teenage human being.

This is why, recently, I’ve asked our Year Level Managers to start scheduling parent meetings with all of our students (and their parents) who’ve shown a pattern of arriving late to school.  See, up until now, we’ve sent each student the same exact “agreement” letter once they’ve reached a certain amount of ‘late to school’ infractions.  The problem, once again, is that our students aren’t robots.

If our students were robots then ‘agreements’, lessons, and consequences that were exactly the same for each student would work perfectly for all of them.  It would be glorious, we’d find the perfect lesson and consequence that helped all students arrive to school on time and our problem would be solved.  However, as I’ve mentioned, our students aren’t robots.

So, back to the meetings…my theory (that our students aren’t robots) proved to be true right out of the gates.  The first set of meetings were all completely different situations.  The first student was having a hard time arriving to school on time because she would wake up and look at social media on her phone for such a long time that she ended up leaving the house late every day.  The next student just couldn’t get out of bed because he was staying up until two or three in the morning each night.  The third student was doing everything right but her older sister was so slow in the morning that she ended up being late herself too often.  How effective is the same ‘agreement’ letter for these three kids and can you really apply any fair consequence to all three students?  

Our rationally developed and 95% effective Behavior Expectation System just wasn’t doing the trick for that remaining 5% of our students.  The reason it didn’t work for everyone…well, I think you’ve figured it out by now, ‘our students aren’t robots’.  We needed a touch of the human side to get involved in the process and, from what we’ve seen so far, it was very necessary.

I’m sharing this today because I want to encourage you to work on responding to the individual needs of our students more appropriately.  Sometimes it seems more efficient for the entire class to go through the same lesson, lab, or assessment but is that actually the most effective way of learning for each student?  Being ‘late to school’ is no different from trying to learn academics in the grand sense that our students all have different stories.  One student may learn very differently than their peers.  Most students, in fact, don’t learn the same way as those sitting next to them…they are humans.  

Our students aren’t robots.  I know that’s obvious but I think the exaggeration of the point allows us to realize that, sometimes, we operate as though they are very much the same person.  Even if we could take away the crazy swings that hormones cause in our students we’d still be faced with 600+ individual and unique human beings.  Perhaps 95% of students fit the molds we’ve created, but what are we doing in our classrooms, with our Behavior Expectation System, and every other aspect of education to make sure that all 100% of our students are receiving the best education possible?

We’re All Counselors: Helping Our Students Navigate Their Way in a Wild World

Bret Olson1 Comment

Our kids/students need us (adults) more than ever right now.  I don’t just mean right now, as in this instant, but rather right now as in “this day and age”.  I’m not here to be a Chicken Little and tell you that the sky is falling but, because the digital age is well upon us, our kids are exposed to any and everything that becomes popular…anywhere!  While that can be a good thing, it is often scary and potentially dangerous.  Our kids need us, they need adults they can trust, talk to, and learn from…we have to be available for them, to listen and to provide guidance.

This isn’t new, it’s been going forever but the realities of what our kids see/hear/experience online each and every day are frightening, it’s not what we grew up with!  A few years back a frightening story came out of my hometown about two middle school age girls who tried to stab their best friend to death because they had been following an online character called Slenderman, it was crazy!  Guess what – HBO optioned it for a documentary.  This happened, literally, blocks away from where I grew up.  Where I ran, rode my bike, and stayed out until the street lights came on…then went back out after dinner for more fun!  The closest we came to this sort of thing was sneaking bootlegged scary movies (which were hard to come by!) into the basement at sleepovers.  Now this sort of thing is everywhere and our kids are gobbling it up!  

Recently I have seen a few more examples of the realities of what our students are facing on social media and on TV/Netflix.  Most popular right now, the television show “Th1rteen R3asons Why”  (based on the 2007 book of the same name by Jay Asher) has taken the young-adult world by storm, it is being watched by most of our high school students and a large amount of middle schoolers.  I haven’t seen this myself but Amy is watching it and has engaged me in some pretty deep conversations about the realities of what our kids are facing each day as teens.  According to Wikipedia, “the show revolve(s) around a student who kills herself after a series of culminating failures, brought on by select individuals within their school.”  There has been a lot written recently about this show.  Headspace (the same Australian group who produced the wonderful Mindfulness app I’ve used) has shown concern that people who have been exposed to the show may be at an increased risk or danger level because of it.  Like I said before, I’m not here to be Chicken Little but we most certainly need to work hard to understand all of the risk factors our students are being exposed to on a regular basis.  13 Reasons Why is just one example of what’s out there for our kids, it’s TV and fictional but no doubt gives our students ideas or reasons to further consider thoughts they’ve already had.  If they have no one to turn to for answers, conversations, or help then we’re not doing our job – we teach more than the content in the textbook!

Since I haven’t seen 13 Reasons Why myself I can hardly pass judgement on the show (or the book) but I am most certainly concerned that lines that have previously been respected are now being crossed.  In this show, the moment when the main character takes her own life has been shown and narrated in detail.  This sort of thing has previously been (unofficially) recognized as off limits for TV or movies but no longer does that seem to be the case.  What is yet to come is anyone’s guess but it will most surely be further away from this previously uncrossed line.  Even scarier than the prospects of what highly publicized media companies will produce next is the reality of what is spreading around the internet unsanctioned and unchecked, this is the part of the internet where our students live.

As I was planning and beginning to write this post it came to my attention that the newest topic of discussion for many of our middle schoolers is the “Blue Whale Challenge”.  I’ve done a little research (granted not all of the websites are the most reliable) but they all say the same thing, the Blue Whale Challenge (it goes by other names as well) is a “suicide game”.  Talk about scary!  It has taken hold in Russia and parts of Europe where people are extremely worried about the potential effects for teens and others who may be looking for an outlet or even a chance to “fit in”.  The fact that this conversation has spread to our community is extremely concerning but, as you can tell from my previous tone, not entirely surprising.  It’s out there, it’s on the internet and it’s popular with their age group – it’s going to find a way into their world one way or another.  Eeek.

So what do we do?  What is our role?  It’s a scary proposition for sure, especially for those of us who aren’t trained counselors, psychologists, or mental health advisors.  However, we still have a role.  We have to be good for our students, we need to build positive relationships with them so they know they have people to talk to.  School should be the safest (physically and mentally) place for our students.  They should know who they can turn to and feel comfortable approaching anyone.  It’s not our role to initiate discussions with them about 13 Reasons Why or the Blue Whale Challenge but it is our job to watch and listen for signs.  Kids cry out for help in many ways to many different people.  If you see these cries, or even suspect that you’ve seen one, then share it with someone.  Our counselors are amazing and we’re very lucky to have a school psychologist.  They are resources for us just as much as they are for the kids, don’t be afraid to approach them.  We’re on the front lines, we know these kids better than anyone (sometimes even better than their parents) and more than anything we care about these kids and would be devastated to see anything happen to them!

This is my cry for help, it’s me asking you to be the best for kids every single day in every possible way.  I know it’s not easy and it may not be realistic for us to be our best all the time but whatever we can give to these kids without sapping ourselves of our own physical and emotional health, that’s what we should be giving…please.

What Gets Parents Involved?

Bret Olson1 Comment

Conferences this week were a huge success and all the parents were very pleased with their interactions with you. Of course, this isn’t a surprise to anyone! However, at the end of the two days I was a bit frustrated. You see, I had more parent interactions regarding student progress in those two days than I have had all year long; that was frustrating. I was a bit bewildered because it seemed that parents only bothered to come talk to me because they were already here; it felt like they only cared enough to talk about their kids when it was convenient for them. Anyway, it got me thinking about why our parent community, as a whole, isn’t more engaged in their children’s learning. It sent me searching and I turned up a good article outlining three things that lead to parent involvement. I believe that our overall culture is very inviting for parents and I know that you as teachers are most definitely inviting parents to participate in their children’s learning…that leaves the students. Are our students leaving their parents out of the loop? Is there something that we can to do help them bring their parents into the conversations about school? Or perhaps, I’m over looking something else…I’d love to hear your thoughts, after all, these are just my two cents 🙂

This article summary is from the Marshall Memo, an amazing professional resource!!

Originally published in SCSI MS Headlines on October 25, 2013.

Praising Effort and Positive Parent Contacts

Bret OlsonLeave a comment

Already this year we’ve talked about how to contact parents if a student has missed work in class (e-mail the student, CC the parents and Bret) but what about positive contacts?!?  Last year a few teachers made concerted efforts to make positive contacts home each week…with a fantastic response rate!  They followed the same formula, e-mailing the student and CCing to the parents and me.  The response and “thank you” rate for these e-mails was nearly 90% compared to a response rate for missing work of about 40%…amazing, parents really do get those e-mails you send 🙂  When it comes to praise and motivation those of you who read Mindset this summer know that Carol Dweck’s research shows that praising effort as opposed to intelligence is the key to helping students “maintain their confidence in learning.”  This week I have two challenges for you:  First, read the attached summary of one of Carol Dweck’s past articles, it’s great stuff; especially the last paragraph!  Second, if you haven’t already, read Mindset (my copy is available to borrow) and join Dan and I during our first SIPs for a book discussion.  Let me know what you think…I’d love to hear your two cents!

Originally published in SCIS MS Headlines on August 30, 2013

This article summary came from the Marshall Memo, an amazing professional resource!