It is the time of year where kids are asking Santa for legos and dolls, bikes and boardgames–but also new cell phones, and gaming systems too.  In a world where technology has woven itself into most aspects of our lives, there shouldn’t be any surprises when your 6 year old asks for an iPhone X, or your 4 year old wants a Playstation.  Take care when choosing technology for your kids–be they 7 or 17, as the gift of more technology is really a gift of stolen time.

When it comes to teens, technology contributing to “stolen time” has gone too far.

45% of teens, especially aged 13-18, spend more time online (social media, video-streaming, etc.) almost constantly. 44% of teams talk about being online several times a day–for a total of 89% of teens being online on a regular basis.  When teens are online, they are doing everything from Snapchatting with friends to posting/reading on Reddit, watching videos on YouTube and online gaming.  When they are in the midst of these activities, they aren’t:

• Engaging with friends or family (meals, conversations, activities)
• Being active (sports, walks, outdoor pursuits)
• Practicing self-care (eating, sleeping, hygiene, cleaning)
• Learning (listening in class, doing homework, reading, participating)

Teens are losing out on life.  They send pictures of smiles instead of actually smiling.  They are playing games virtually instead of together.  Have they come up with some amazing stuff? Absolutely!  But at what cost?

In the past, teens spend approximately 2-2.5 hours per day watching TV.  With the advent of portable technology, that number has increased to about 6 hours (as of 2016).  According to a recent study by the Pew Research Centre, teens have admitted to worry about their usage levels.  In secondary schools, the concept of “cell phone addiction” is an everyday reality.  In my own building, observing the stress levels and anxiety from a cell phone confiscation is nothing less than alarming (almost as much as a student who has had their vaping device taken).

So, when hitting the mall–think twice about what your teen wants, and ponder instead what they really need.  A $800 cell phone could translate into a course at university, a trip at Spring break.  A new game for the XBOX could be swimming lessons…Not all technology is bad, but shouldn’t those opportunities that arise beyond the screen are the ones we want to get for our kids?

So, think twice before getting the latest and greatest tech, and about having those importance conversations and limits in place surrounding technology.  Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/
https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/screen-time-nih-study-60-minutes?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

 

 

We’ve all experienced those kids that are likeable, that strive to be successful even from a young age.  Those kids who have their eyes on the prize, who easily (or seemingly so) find success at anything and everything.  It just comes “naturally.”  These kids have goals and plans, and the fortitude to do what it takes to achieve them.  But more often than not, we see kids who want to be successful but struggle.  Maybe they have learning barriers, maybe they are easily distracted (squirrel!).  These kids either overcome those obstacles to achieve or, they just stop trying.  They disengage.

I was one of those kids who wasn’t an instant all-star.  I struggled to be liked and I was always a little different than my peers.  I mean, I wanted to be a park ranger when I grew up, which is definitely not typical for adolescent girls.  One thing I can say for sure, is that achievement sometimes is difficult for those who don’t fit the mold.  Even though I had a well-rounded set of talents, being that they weren’t typical, I still struggled to be seen as someone with potential.  That’s why I feel that I was seriously lucky to find my passion early in secondary school, in the way of technology and digital arts.  Finding a connection and fit was how I learned to be who I was, to further develop my strengthens rather than focussing on what I thought I needed to be.  Having a teacher look at me like there was a future, who embraced my differences and pushed me to try harder made such a difference in how I interacted with peers, how I approached problems.  It was like being given a map and told I could go anywhere.

It’s not the same for kids anymore.  They have so many more outlets for their peers to give feedback, all thanks to technology.  Finding satisfaction in just being themselves is becoming more unattainable as their world of peers broadens.  Technology has also opened up what seems like unlimited competition. There used to be just one or two kids you had to compare a success to but now its infinite.  We compare ourselves on the world stage, against celebrities, sport stars, professionals.  What good is your best strength when there’s a thousand other people hash-tagging the same thing, every second of the day?  It’s no wonder kids struggle with resilience and don’t like taking risks that might lead to failure.  Everything you do, good or bad, has the potential to be broadcast to the world and archived indefinitely.

I asked one of my top students about having the world as a critic, and she said “you can just be the best person you know how to be, and it shouldn’t matter what anyone else thinks.  You can’t give up because what does that say about you?”  She’s an exception in a lot of ways, as it’s so easy for many students to give up.  They are lacking resilience and perseverance–some of the most important tools we need in life.  They get us back up on the horse, help us find another fish in the sea.  Resilience and perseverance work together to get us out of tight spaces.  We as educators should be helping prepare our students for life’s ups and downs.  We need to provide opportunities and organize experiences that allow our students to develop perseverance and grow resilience.  But kids are smart.  They’ve learned all about the path of least resistance—it’s easier, its faster.  It usually doesn’t result in failure.  Unfortunately, it also doesn’t lead to adventure, or greatness, or world-changing ideas.  If quitting, or not even trying means zero negative outcomes, that is what is now seen as the better choice vs. trying and the possibility of failure.  Kids are missing out.

We have to push back against that mindset.  Kids are scared to take chances on themselves.  They compare themselves to every hashtag or snapchat story they see.  We have to change that by giving them opportunities to be brave.   I used to do this project in computers where I removed myself as a resource—I remember one of my quietest, back-of-the-room seat-warmers stand up and walk across the room to a peer he had never spoken to before to ask for help.  I can tell you, for him, that took serious courage.  What that kid wasn’t my top student?  No.  But he was talented (when he tried), and he had a great sense of humour.  It took four years to really get to know him and know the best way to push him outside his comfort zone.  I had to learn the best place to “start a fire” with him.

We really do need students to be brave, so they take risks.  We are lost as a society if risk taking becomes a faux-pas.  Technology is interfering with people trying new things—we can always find someone who did it better online.  I can’t even bake a cupcake without comparing it to the thousands of others posted on Pinterest or Instagram.  If I struggle with that comparison as an adult—undoubtedly most kids are struggling too.  I learned about risk-taking essentially in the dark ages.  Unless someone loaded their camera with a fresh roll of film—most of my risks went undocumented.  I remember doing silly things, like cartwheels during gym class and wacky halloween costumes.  No way are some kids doing that now, as they don’t want to go viral.

Technology doesn’t have to be all bad though!  We get to be connected to anyone and everyone we want to showcase our stuff to, be it cooking or biking or whatever.  We have the opportunity to be You Tube stars, to write and blog and share our wonderful creations to the world!  But, we still need courage, resilience, perseverance to be ourselves, to rise above the negative comments, the broadcasted failures.  The vlogging, blogging, hashtags, boomeranging will to continue to be an essential influence on our kids.  We need to equip them with the compass they’ll need to navigate the virtual world, so they can use it to their advantage.

We need to encourage adventure, risk-taking and the pursuit of excellence so resilience and perseverance make a comeback.   This is what is going to equip the next generation to take on the world, to get back up when they fall, and try, try again BUT most importantly, be successful.

Emotions run high, stress levels are skyrocketing–the sights, smells and feels of June are almost indescribable for those who aren’t a part of the education system.  It’s impossible to qualify or summarize how thousands of students and hundreds of teachers and staff are feeling on any given day.  From excitement or frustration to joy and despair (and everything in between) both students and staff are literally riding a rollercoaster for weeks on end leading up to that final bell.

There is so much that contributes to making June the worst month of the year for many.  Some of our students are ramping up for their final goodbyes, and not just at the Grade 12 level.  Students are leaving buildings and moving upwards all over districts, from elementary school to middle or secondary, or middle to secondary.  Our Grade 5s/7s/8s are moving onward and it’s scary.  Our 12s are leaving, and its exciting for some but overwhelming for others.  On the other side of things, some students are learning (or realizing) that they aren’t moving up due to a lack of learning outcomes demonstrated and that’s hard too.  Our staff is being inundated with pleases, and last chances and piles of extra work so they can try, one last time to help push someone through–even though they’ve been trying all year to help that happen.  We are expected to plan and execute celebrations, award assemblies, graduations, BBQs, final field trips.

It. is. beyond. exhausting. 

So, take a breath.  Take twenty of them.  It is so hard not to break down, to give up.  But you know you can do it.  You do it every year.  You smile, you give condolences.  You cheer, your say “don’t give up.”  If you are new to teaching, like so many are this year–know that you are so important during this transition for kids, be it grade to grade or building to building.  I know that puts tremendous pressure on you–but balance is going to be key.  Don’t take do summer school, unless necessary.  Don’t feel pressure to attend every concert, every game, every fun fair for their entirety.  CHOOSE YOURSELF as often as you can, whenever you can.  Close your door at lunch, and take a breath.

This too shall pass, and the freshness of September with eager kids, and smiling staff will once again arrive.  And, whatever you do–don’t skip your morning coffee for nobody, no how.

 

If you had (or have) a child in school, what is the most important thing you would want them to learn?  Or, if you are an educator–what do you most wish for your students to learn during their 12-13 years as students?

Is it to read? To write?  To problem solve?  To program a robot, draw a map? Correctly identify a prime number?

For myself, the most important thing that I wish for my children and for my students, is to learn resilience.  This is what is going to keep them going when things don’t go as planned.  Is it what will let them overcome obstacles, difficult math questions, annoying people, and most importantly failure.  I want my kids, my students to be able to get back up when they are knocked down.  To keep going, no matter how hard things are.  Other elements that go hand-in-hand with resilience are courage, empathy, determination, perseverance.  All important skills to have, all important characteristics I wish for my children, my students to develop.

So the question is, how do we teach students resilience?  How do you help a child understand how failure and hardship can be a good thing?  In one of my programming classes, I used a project that pushed the boundaries of my student’s capabilities.  The project was to follow a online tutorial to create a game in an outdated program, called Adobe Flash.  The best part of the tutorial was that was incomplete and contained elements that didn’t necessarily work as stated.  That meant that students had to look outside the tutorial for new sources of help: their peers, user boards, help blogs, etc.  I, as the teacher, removed myself as a resource.  This was beyond frustrating for some of my students.  They struggled, they failed.  But then, they persevered.  They pushed back.  Some of my students learned to actively seek out help, either from online sources or from peers they’d never spoken to before.  In their reflections on the game (which many actually didn’t complete in its entirety), they talked about how they learned to find other ways to solve problems and how to deal with their frustration.  For some of my students, this project was one of the first times they had to confront this type of experience, and I am glad that I had the opportunity to provide it.

We need to provide more opportunities to help our students learn to fail, to learn to be resilience, and to learn to overcome obstacles.  By now, you have figured out that we can’t teach resilience, we can only facilitate opportunities for it to develop.  We can only sit on the sidelines cheering, encouraging and pushing our students to figure it out for themselves.  My challenge to you is to foster ways for students to develop resilience, to become confident in what they are capable of.  This means taking the risk of failure, it means being an example.  Sometimes it means anger, frustration and tears; however, sometimes it means conquering a mountain, and overall, it is the best possible “teachable moment” you can provide to a student to set them up for success.

Technology, lesson plans and PBL.  All useless without one key ingredient: cooperation from our classrooms.  Students today have the chance to learn about the world around better than ever, thanks to the revised curriculum, technology and student focussed pedagogies such as PBL; however, many new teachers (and even more seasoned ones) are struggling with classroom management.  You can have the best lesson and educational accoutrements in the world but without classroom management, unfortunately the learning outcomes (and goals) will not happen as expected.

In my experience, classroom management becomes more of an issue at the 9th and 10th grade; students in these grades often have access to distractible technology, are more socially stable (in so much that they at least know their peers), they’ve learned “the system” in terms of deadlines and the infamous “I” package.  So what can you do?  What is the magical formula to getting your class to settle down and settle into learning?

THERE ISN’T ONE!

Every class is different, every nuance of classroom dynamics on any given day will be different; HOWEVER, there are a few things we can do as educators to mitigate distractions, behaviour issues and create a space where learning is priority for everyone.

1.  Set high expectations.  Right away.  If you start the year or class off with the expectation you aren’t going to get amazing results from your class, they won’t give you any.  We as teachers should be making this a priority every.single.day to get our students pushing themselves to achieve more each and every day.  High expectations means that students need to actually try each day, participate each day.  High expectations helps build resiliency, because it means that students need to be prepared to fail to meet expectations some days.  It means that students will learn to try again when that happens.  It means that we respect their intelligence, their capabilities.  It shows them that you value who they are.  Setting high expectations also is an opportunity to work with students on goal setting (#goals), and what it means to reach goals and reassess.  The great thing about setting high expectations is that you can do it in every single class, in every single classroom in every single school.

What NOT to do: Make sure that the expectations (though high) are still achievable.  I can run, but I can’t run 10 miles the first week of training.  Also, remember its about the students not about you–if the high expectations are to build you up as an educator at the expense of your classes, that isn’t going to help your classroom.

2. Routines, routines, routines.  Setting up your classroom routines and expectations are integral to a successful year.  That includes rules around behaviours (and consequences), parent communication, due dates, technology use.  The tone of your classroom is essential for learning.  Students should have a clear understanding of what they can and can not do.  You are the leader of your classroom, and that should be 100% clear to students.  There needs to be a clear division between teacher and student in the classroom for it to function.  That means you aren’t their peer or friend.  I have had many colleagues that struggle with this balance, especially younger colleagues who are close in age to their senior students.  Being respected, having students listen and learn from you, and be mentored by you is more important that being “cool” (or “fleek”, apparently).  That means being consistent, owning your mistakes, keeping the mystery (they don’t need details about your personal life!) and overall, making sure that that if the classroom is the community of learning, you are the mayor.

What NOT to do: Even if you are the mayor, you really do need to pick your battles.  Sometimes turning a blind eye and limiting the “reward” of a reaction is the best way to go.  When you do go “toe to toe,” make sure that whatever threats you dole out, you actually follow through on.  That means know where the professional line is, and knowing the expectations of your school on certain types of behaviours.

3. Enjoy your students for what they are: students!   Everything is better with humour.  That means that sometimes its okay to let students be silly (don’t be surprised when they do age-appropriate things, like giggle at certain topics or are over-dramatic or [insert typical teen behaviour here].  When it comes to age-appropriate behaviour, sometimes it is best to let it play out and move on.  Use fun rewards, like stickers or stamps in a class that might not expect them.  Have competitions, or use games for learning whenever possible.  Even big kids enjoy having fun, even if they sometimes don’t act like they do.  On that same note, try and see the good in every kid, even if some are more prickly and difficult to get to know.  After all, you are the adult and you get to let them be the kids.  We want to teach good citizenship to our students, but “being a kid” literally has an expiration date so use that to help steer their enthusiasm into building a positive learning community.

What NOT to do: Counteractive to enjoying students as students who want to be a kids too–don’t treat them like little kids!  They still want to be seen as autonomous adults but with the benefits of childhood.  Don’t punishing them for age-appropriate behaviour either.  If you grade 8s can’t stop talking after lunch, then they are in need of a way to get their energy out.  Instead of threats of extra work, make them do something silly to burn that excess crazy that is turning your classroom into a chaos-zone.

Hopefully some of what I’ve talked about in this post will be helpful to you in your classroom, even if you have taught a number of years already!  Teaching is a joy but also very stressful.  Classroom management can make or break your year, so take the time to fix those issues you might be seeing right away before you start to look at content.  A lot of these tips aren’t in any shape or form NEW to education, but sometimes reiterating (instead of reinventing) the wheel helps it spin a little better, a little faster, a little more effectively…