"A School with a Heart" Destroyed by a Tornado

On February 9, 2008, I posted an article on my Website about an exceptional school in a  rural, high-poverty area of North Carolina where staff members strive to make a difference in the lives of their students. That school was destroyed by a tornado last Saturday.

No one was hurt. But in an already impoverished area where so many children already struggle, this new obstacle is particularly hard for students and the teachers who care for them.  To learn more about this school and how they are coping, visit their Website: http://gcms.gcsedu.org.

Here is an excerpt from that 2008 article about the school with a heart and how the staff there makes a difference in the lives of at-risk children.

"Poverty has no pity. It strikes hardest at its most vulnerable victims—our children. Few other professionals are more keenly aware of this sad fact than teachers. Even those educators who do not teach in high-poverty areas will work with children whose home lives are marked by scarcity instead of comfort. In fact, according to the Children’s Defense Fund, one in six children in our country lives in poverty.

The implication for educators is profound. We are often the first defense in the battle to protect our students from the cruelties of privation. We are ones who watch for the child without a winter coat on a frigid day and who check to sure our students have lunch money or field trip fees. We listen to stories of life without books or museums or summer vacations and come to understand why school success is just a dream for so many. We are all too aware of the contrast between what life in the richest country in the world should be and what it actually is for many children.

In an occupation that is considered one of the most stressful of all, poverty takes its toll on educators, also. Trying to reach students who come to school unprepared to cooperate, listen, read or even plan for the future is stressful. Teachers in all too many schools, in both urban and rural settings, burn out quickly because of the helplessness they feel when faced with the almost insurmountable odds that many of their students face.

In one rural middle school in the heart of southeastern North Carolina, though, educators have made a decision to fight back—to work together to ensure that the lives of the children in their classrooms are better at the end of the day than at the beginning. The personnel of Greene County Middle School in Snow Hill, North Carolina, come to work with the conviction that what they do matters. During the course of the school year, the children of this school are not the only ones who benefit from the compassionate kindness inherent in the staff. The spirit of caring extends past individual students to touch everyone in the building. The result? A school with a heart.

When visitors enter GCMS for the first time, they notice the large banner over the front door announcing the school’s motto: “Creating a School of Significance.” The staff at GCMS works in collaboration with nearby East Carolina University in Project Significance to make sure that local schools are significant factors in creating successful lives for all children.

In addition to the school’s motto banner, at strategic areas visitors notice large signs with the same message: “It’s Not If You’ll Go to College, It’s When You’ll Go to College” to remind students of the larger purpose of their education. Because children pass these signs repeatedly throughout the day, the message is driven home.

Then there are the homemade signs just like in any other school across the nation. Only at this school, the signs remind students of good-will activities such as to bring in “Gifts for Guatemala” at Christmas or coins for a Special Olympics fundraiser in February. There are other child-friendly signs, too, as well as bulletin boards with messages supporting students as they move towards a better future. Students see photographs of their peers winning awards, reminders of after-school programs, notices of sports events, and other encouraging reminders of what school offers.

One of the best ways to help children of poverty is to extend the school environment into the community. At Greene County Middle School, the connection between the local communities and the school is strong. For example, Relay for Life events are now part of the American existence. This is true at GCMS also. Hoops for Hope is a much anticipated event for eighth graders as they come together to help fight the battle against cancer. Other school Relay for Life events include the seventh grade Ram Fest and Put a Cap on Cancer. In a small, impoverished rural community, the outpouring of funds from limited budgets is noteworthy. Students at this school do more than just sit in a desk; they develop a compassionate attitude towards those less fortunate.

At GCMS, the students are typical of many schools in high-poverty areas: they are an appealing mixture of cultures, experiences, backgrounds, and they sometimes come to school with innumerable problems. The Child and Family Support Team actively forms a strong bond between the school and home. There are two school nurses and a social worker who seem to know every family in the area. They visit homes, make sure students take prescribed medications, help in a crisis, provide transportation when necessary, and sometimes just offer comfort when life is too hard.

Another one of the sound educational practices that researchers and theorists offer to help children of poverty is to include as much computer-assisted learning as possible. At GCMS, the one-to-one laptop initiative allows every child a computer for his or her own use. Recently the school has even garnered the prestigious Apple Distinguished School award for the extensive technology use throughout the school. In class and in their free time, students log on to a much wider world than the rural life around them.

There are also many programs designed to help students improve their competency in learning basic skills. Individualized instruction in classrooms, cooperation among team teachers, grade level support, and after school programs are just a few of the ways that educators at this school work hard to make sure that all students catch up to their peers in more affluent areas.

One of the most important programs to help students acquire the tools they need to become self-sufficient learners is the schools’ balanced literacy program. Although teachers at many other schools give lip-service to the need to improve their students’ reading skills, at GCMS, every teacher is a teacher of reading. From the universal independent reading time every morning to the frequent professional development activities conducted by the school’s literacy team, the emphasis on the importance of good reading skills is inescapable for students and teachers alike.

The shared vision of the instructional practices at Greene County Middle School eliminates much of the confusion and professional competition that teachers at other schools can experience. As a result, at GCMS, students are not the only ones who benefit from the spirit of cooperation and mutual collaboration in the building. Staff members also extend their caring support to their colleagues.

Successes as well as the routine tasks of running a school are shared. Walk through the halls of GCMS and you will be greeted with friendly smiles. “Can I help you with that?” is the informal dictum at this school. The compassionate professionalism of the staff combined with the far-reaching vision of its motto creates a faculty buy-in that ensures that this school is indeed a school with a very large heart.

What lessons can this outstanding school offer the rest of us who struggle to teach the children of poverty?

• First, work to make the connection between what happens in your classroom and the home lives of your students as strong as possible. Move the information from textbooks to useful skills that students need now and in the future.

• Make the bond between school and home a strong one. Reach out to the families of your students. Don’t wait until a problem occurs to contact them.

• Build your students’ pride and confidence in their school work. Celebrate successes and keep aiming higher.

• Don’t allow students to just get by. Maintain high expectations for all students.

• Teach basic skills. Make sure students know what to do and how to do it well.

• Teach reading. Students should read in every class every day.

• Work to make sure that students have the financial support they need when you arrange field trips and other extracurricular activities so that no one is left out.

• Focus on school work as the way to a brighter future. While many students see celebrities with great talent as role models, they tend to overlook the role models standing in front of the class. School work, not dumb luck, is the way out of poverty.

To learn more about how you can become a successful teacher in a high-poverty area, try these resources:

• Dr. Ruby Payne’s Web site: http://www.ahaprocess.com/. Here you can learn specific strategies, more about Dr. Payne and her work, and how to purchase resource materials including A Framework for Understanding Poverty.

• Another useful site is http://www.tolerance.org/. This site, sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, contains many useful resources, links, strategies, and activities for teachers."

Finding Meaning in What We Do

One of the hallmarks of a dedicated teacher is the almost unshakable belief that teachers can change the world. We want to believe that what we do is meaningful. That what do we does make a difference.

Some days, though, it’s easy to be so caught up in the papers to be graded, the assessments to be created, and the emails to be answered that we can lose sight of the meaningfulness of our work. And lately, the hateful tone of so many pundits who are not classroom teachers, but who are quick to tell us what we are doing wrong, wrong, wrong is discouraging and degrading. The result? Burnout.

Burnout is different from the insistent plea, “But I don’t want to go to school today!” that is the morning mantra for teachers everywhere. Burnout is a pervasive sense that there is not much point to what we do. Certainly, the negative aspects of our work outweigh the positives for teachers who are going through burnout.

One of the surest ways to combat the sense of despair that accompanies burnout is to reconsider what having a meaningful career looks like when you teach. What does it mean when we say we make a difference?

Teachers who stop kids from picking on each other, being rude, and making fun of classmates protect students who are powerless to defend themselves. We stop bullies from winning. We empower kids when we tell them to talk to an adult if they have a problem; and we empower them when we praise them for the right things. We empower them over and over when we use our adult power to stop bullies.

We make a difference when we show kids how to be lifelong learners. We make it okay to be curious. We take them to the library to check out books and show them how to read and write and think and work together. We make it cool to be a nerd in a tough world.

For all teachers, and especially those of us who teach the children of poverty, we find meaning in the way that we try to guide our students to a better life. Few veteran teachers have not known the despair that comes when we realize that even our most (seemingly) ordinary students can struggle with terrible home situations—an ill family member, an alcoholic parent, or a guardian who has been out of work for too long, just to name a few. For these kids, teachers are a touchstone of normalcy in a rotten world. We show our students how having an education can make a life far more comfortable and easy than a life of ignorance.

We offer comfort and guidance to those students whose lives are chaotic and dysfunctional for whatever reason. We can soothe the edges for those kids and guide them to cope, to make good choices, to succeed somewhere. We give them the encouragement that the rest of the world does not.

We show our students how to read, to write, to think, to have a life of the mind. Without us, many students would not possess any of these crucial skills. When we show students how to read and write, we give them safe passage in the big world.

Finally, perhaps the most important gift that we give students is the one that is most frequently reciprocated; we teach students to believe in themselves. Whenever you doubt that teaching is a meaningful profession, consider that you spend your days encouraging young people to take charge of their lives and to make gigantic leaps of faith—all dependent on the belief that we have instilled in them that the future is theirs for the taking.

HOW TO PRESERVE YOUR STUDENTS’ DIGNITY

Students are particularly sensitive people. They spend their lives in a push-me-pull-me world longing to be independent and part of the crowd at the same time. Whatever sets them apart from their peers in a negative way can be exquisitely painful.


With this extraordinary sensitivity in mind, it is easy to see how quickly an unintentionally demeaning word or deed can wound our students’ fragile pride. The dilemma for educators is that we have to correct our students’ behavior while protecting their self-image at the same time. While this is not always an easy task, it is one that is vital to the cooperative relationship that should exist between teacher and student. In the two lists below you will find advice on what you should be careful to do and what you should be careful not to do help preserve your students’ dignity.

To preserve a student’s dignity, be careful to

• Take the student’s concerns seriously

• Use a kind voice when talking with the student

• Be as patient and understanding as possible

• Listen carefully to your student

• Try to be as fair as possible when delivering a reprimand

• Ask sufficient questions to be sure that you have an understanding of the incident

• Work to resolve problems and not just punish the student

• Assure the student that you believe that the misbehavior will not happen again

• Make every effort to see the entire child and not be affected by brief moment of bad judgment

To preserve a student’s dignity, be careful not to

• Call a student a name, even in jest

• Compare one student to another

• Reprimand a student in front of the class if at all avoidable

• Allow a confrontation to build in front of others

• Ignore a student who needs your attention

• Raise your voice

• Be sarcastic or insulting in an attempt to have the student learn from a mistake

How to Build Persistence and Confidence

One of the most frustrating situations for any teacher occurs when seemingly capable students won’t finish simple assignments or, even worse, won’t even attempt assignments that appear to be even slightly challenging. Students who stop working at the first moment of perceived difficulty are even more perplexing because their lack of persistence is often confused with laziness. While it may be tempting to just advise students to keep trying, this advice seldom resolves the problem.

There are many reasons for the unwaveringly feeble effort that many students present at the first sign of a challenge. For many students, the fear of their work not being “good enough” is paralyzing. Rather than earn a failing grade from a teacher, they give it to themselves by just not doing the work.

Other students are so accustomed to overly helpful adults who respond to their learned helplessness with so many hints and clues that they do not really have to think for themselves. Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior is all too recognizable. These are the students who ask others for the page number rather than check a table of contents, ask dozens of anxious questions rather than read the text for information, of who put their heads down on their desks rather than work independently for any length of time.

Whatever the reason, it is possible to mitigate the patterns of learned helplessness. Below is a list of strategies that you can use to help your students develop into persistent and confident learners.

1. Start a unit of study by activating prior knowledge. Students who can connect new learning with previous knowledge will be far more likely to persist in facing learning challenges than those students for whom each concept in the material is unfamiliar.

2. Begin a unit of study or even smaller assignments within that unit with work that easier than it will be near the end of the unit or assignment. Once students see that they can do the work, they will be less intimidated.

3. Break longer assignments into smaller, more manageable ones so that students won’t be overwhelmed at the thought of a long task.

4. When students work in pairs or triads on even part of an assignment, they tend to do well. Working with a study buddy allows instant support when students are not sure of an answer or a procedure.

5. Nothing succeeds like success. Design activities where your students can shine, and they will want to continue the positive feelings generated by that success. Use differentiation techniques to reach as many learners as you can.

6. Help students see the connection between effort and success. Often less persistent students believe that good students somehow are just smarter or find the work easier than they do. Learning that everyone needs to work hard at times can be an epiphany for some students.

7. Teach students how to accurately estimate the time that it may take them to complete a task. Students who think that it will take them hours and hours to do their homework will be far more prone to quit than those students who realize that a shorter time commitment is required.

8. Offer plenty of rubrics, models, samples, and demonstrations so that students know when they are on the right track.

9. Have students set reasonable goals and work to achieve them. When students work to achieve a personal goal, they have a vested interest in working.

10. When you see students struggling with an assignment, use one of the most powerful questions in your teacher’s toolbox: ask, “How can I help you?”

11. All learning should have a clear and pragmatic purpose. Students who know why they have to complete an assignment will be more willing to do so if they know how it will benefit them now and in the future.

12. Have students write their questions during independent work in a certain area of the board or on the Smartboard. Answer these questions at predictable intervals.

13. Formative assessments serve a dual purpose. They not only let you know what your students do and do not know, but they can be useful tools in making sure that your students know exactly how to proceed to be successful. Frequent small formative assessments can be very useful tools in helping students stay on track.

14. Teach your students that their work does not always have to be perfect to be acceptable. Sometimes “good enough” is really good enough.

15. Harness the power of peer pressure. Having students work together in a class challenge to reach a specific goal can encourage those students who are willing to shortchange themselves, but who don’t want to let their classmates down.

16. Many teachers find that stopping periodically and having peers make brief checks of each others’ work can help students stay on the right track.

17. School success is not a big, flashy event. Rather, academic success lies in a pattern of small accomplishments. Work with your students to help them internalize this idea though brief class discussions, reflections, and other shared conversations.

18. Some students benefit from seeing a visual representation of the sequence of assignments that they are required to do. A bar graph or chart with spaces to be filled in as students complete the various steps of a unit of study will make it easier for students to persist until they complete the big task.

19. Frequent praise and even more frequent encouragement will keep students on task far longer than brusque corrections will.

20. Careful and close monitoring of students as they work will allow you to catch problems when they are manageable. Small problems are not roadblocks to confidence building—big problems are, though.

21. Encourage students who are working independently to signal that they are having a problem and then to keep working until help arrives. Some teachers offer a desk sign that is red on one side to signal for help and green on another to signal that they are on the right track.

22. Some teachers do not answer oral questions when students are working independently except at set intervals. Used correctly, this technique encourages students to keep working because they know that their questions will be answered at a predictable time.

23. Offer students time to reflect at the end of a lesson. Have them write responses first and then encourage them to share what went right and what caused stress during an assignment. Sharing the results of their metacognition can be a powerful way for students to learn how other students overcome their learning problems.

24. Often older students who have mastered the material current students may find difficult can be helpful resources. They can offer quick, informal advice and encouragement from a student’s point of view.

25. Providing opportunities for students to look back on how far they have come in their learning--to review their past success—allows students to see the big picture of what they have already accomplished and encourages them to continue.

26. Be sure to offer a sufficient amount of appropriate practice before moving on to the next topic of study.

27. Offer a variety of different activities to review material. At the end of each class, when you provide a quick review of the day’s lesson, use a variety of different activities that appeal to the various learning styles among your students.

28. Work with your students to focus on their strengths. Once they know what they are doing right, what individual study techniques work well for them, then students will be able to use those techniques and strengths to work quickly and efficiently.

The Ten Principles of Motivation

Motivating students is a complicated business no matter what age they may be. When students want to complete their work and want to succeed, things will go well in your classroom--they will learn and you will have a rewarding day at school. Here are ten very brief ideas that I find useful in my teaching practice.

1. All learning must have a purpose. Teachers and students should work together to establish long-term goals so that the work is relevant to students’ lives and driven by a purpose. I have rarely met a student who wanted to work just for the sake of working.
2. Students need the skills and knowledge necessary to complete their work and achieve their goals. Help students achieve short-term goals to develop the competencies they need to be successful. Keeping binders in order, learning to listen carefully, paying attention...these are just some of the skills that students need to make learning accessible.
3. Specific directions empower students. When students know exactly what they must do to complete assignments, they will approach their work with confidence and interest. Giving good directions is an art form. Keep them simple, brief, and logical.
4. Students want to have fun while they work. Teachers who offer enjoyable learning activities find that students are less likely to be off task. (Teachers also want to have fun when they work!)
5. Offer activities that involve higher-order thinking skills. Students find open-ended questions and critical thinking more engaging than activities involving just recall of facts. Rote drills do have a place in any learning environment, but few kids are really inspired by them. Work that requires higher-level thinking skills will move your students in the right direction.
6. Curiosity is an important component of motivation. When students want to learn more about a topic, they will tackle challenging assignments in order to satisfy their curiosity. Even something as simple as asking a provocative question to get students thinking in a new way can spark curiosity.
7. A blend of praise and encouragement is effective in building self-reliance. Teachers who offer sincere praise and encouragement establish a positive, nurturing classroom atmosphere. When students know that they are on the right track, they will want to continue.
8. A combination of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards increases student focus and time on task behavior. When used separately, both types of rewards motivate students. However, when teachers combine them, the effect is much greater. 
9. Involve students in collaborative activities. When students work together, motivation and achievement both soar.
10. Students tend to work harder when they believe that their teacher likes them. This is probably the most important principle of motivation. Why should students work for a grouchy teacher? If your students know that they matter to you, then they will be much more inclined to stay on task than if they believe that you are not invested in their success.

The Self-fulfilling Prophecy and Your Students: "I Knew You Could Do It!"

Although most teachers are aware of their responsibility to serve as role models, counselors, and advocates, we tend to underestimate the effect that we can have on our students. The reasons for this lie in the daily struggles that happen in classrooms everywhere. We work in a formidable flux of constant decisions, difficult demands, and hard-to-manage problems. With all of these facing us as soon as the bell rings, it's not always easy to remember that your attitude about your students can really change everything.

You have enormous power over the lives of your students. In fact, you can make the children in your classroom into successful students or you can make those same children into failures. Your beliefs about your students create this power in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The self-fulfilling prophecy begins with the expectations you have about your students. These expectations are your unconscious as well as your conscious attitudes about your students’ ability to succeed. You constantly communicate those expectations to your students in many subtle ways such as though your body language, the assignments you make, the language you use, and how much time you spend with individual students.

Because humans tend to behave as they are treated, your students will react to the way that you communicate those expectations to them. If you think highly of your students, they will tend to behave better for you than for the teachers who obviously do not enjoy being with them. If you act with a calm assurance that conveys your belief that the students in your class are capable of good behavior and academic accomplishments then your students are highly likely to behave well and strive for success.

If you doubt this power, consider the alternative. Why would students struggle to learn, to behave, to come to school without a caring adult who appears glad to see them succeed? For some students, a teacher is their only lifeline.

How can you use your expectations to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that can create a classroom climate for success? Every day, you can pass along transmit your belief in the abilities of your students in a variety of ways.

• Start with assignments that your students can achieve with ease. Success builds upon itself. When students see that they can accomplish what you ask of them, they will want to continue that success.
• Celebrate often with your students. After all, their successes are your successes.You do not have to dedicate lots of time to formal celebrations. A simple posting or display of good news, a class signal that allows classmates to acknowledge each other in positive way, or a quiet word with individual students will all establish a positive tone.
• Be as consistent and as fair as you possibly can. Students of all ages are quick to react negatively when they detect even a small hint of suspected unfairness. They will shut down quickly when this happens.
• Post motivational signs, mottoes, and other messages to encourage students to give their best effort.
• Reward effort as well as achievement. It is important to make sure your students see the link between success and effort.
• Create an risk-free environment in which students can risk trying new things without fear of failure or ridicule.
• Tell your students about your confidence in their ability to succeed. Tell them this over and over.
•  Teach your students how to set measurable goals and how to achieve them. Model this for students.  Set goals as a class and have students set small daily or weekly goals until it is a habit and part of the culture of your classroom.
• At the end of class ask students to share what they have learned. Often, they are not aware of how much they have really actually achieved until they have the opportunity to reflect.
• We all know that open-ended questions and assignments can serve as sparks to deepen critical thinking skills. They can also serve to motivate students to work hard because of their intrinsic interest and risk-free nature. Open-ended questions and assignments are a respectful way to demonstrate your faith in your students' ability to tackle tough work.
• Teach your students how to handle the failures that everyone experiences from time to time. Help them understand that they can learn from their mistakes as well as from their successes.
• Formative assessments can be helpful tools for those teachers who want to empower their students to believe in themselves. Use a variety of assessments to help students evaluate their progress and determine what they need to accomplish to finish assignments.

  

How Well Do You Motivate Your Students?

Here is a quick quiz to test your knowledge of motivational strategies. Since we all need to be sure to include motivational activities into every lesson, it is imperative that we do this as effectively as possible.

Test your knowledge! The answers to this True or False quiz are given at the bottom. And, as always, feel free to leave a comment or suggestion.


1. It’s never too late to attempt to motivate even the most reluctant learners.

2. Students should have plenty of options, even on tests.

3. Grades serve as an important motivational tool for most students.

4. Using a classroom economy of tokens has proved to be a successful motivational tool for many educators.

5. Assignments that involve competition are more effective motivators for male students than assignments that require cooperation or collaboration.

6. It is better to say, “How can I help you?” instead of “You should…” when attempting to motivate students.

7. Using class time to read or do homework is an effective way to motivate students.

8. When students ask for answers to problems or questions during independent practice work, it is okay to give them the correct response.

9. Dealing with student anxiety about how to correctly complete their assignments is one of the most important considerations when attempting to successfully motivate students.

10. Negative comments can often influence motivation in a positive way.

11. Showing models of work done well by their peers can be a powerful motivator for many students.

12. Instructional expectations should become more difficult as the year progresses.

13. Rewarding their effort builds student self-esteem.

14. Calling or emailing a student’s home with positive comments is a good way to get students to do their work.

15. Students tend to perform better with a predictable routine.

16. Many students like to learn just for the pleasure of learning.

17. If their teacher is bored with a subject, then students are likely to be bored also.

18. Extrinsic rewards work well for almost every student.

19. Using food treats as rewards is now regarded with disfavor in many school districts.

20. Younger children are easier to motivate to succeed in school than older ones.

21. A positive relationship with their peers can be a powerful motivational force for many students regardless of their age.

22. It is possible to create a negative environment by praising students too highly.

23. A risk-free classroom is almost impossible to achieve in high school and the middle grades.

24. Girls are easier to motivate than boys.

25. The best way to motivate and challenge students is through a careful combination of a variety of motivational tools.


These statements are all TRUE.

1 It really is never too late to try to make a difference in the life of a student entrusted to your care. If you don’t make the effort, who will?

4 Using tokens in the classroom has proved very successful for some teachers. The best practice would be to use a token economy as a stepping stone into more intrinsic motivation techniques.

6 The difference in tone is the key. One is friendly and helpful. The other is judgmental.

7 While some students enjoy time in class reading or catching up on homework, that time could be better used in more focused instructional activities.

9 Often students will do their work and then not turn it in. Still others will agonize over each problem in an assignment. Make sure students know how to do their work and about how long each activity should take to help reduce anxiety.

11 Models, demonstrations, and examples are all effective ways to make students confident about how to do their work well.

12 Since small successes lead to bigger successes, it only makes sense to make work easier for students to do well at the start of a school term. You can then raise the level of expectation as the year progresses and your students develop and learn new skills.

14 Once students and their families see that it is possible for them to succeed, then they will tend to want to continue to experience that success. It is always a good idea to have the parents and guardians of your students working along with you.

15 Students who know what to do and how to do it well are much more likely to succeed than those who attempt to learn in a chaotic classroom.

17 A caring and enthusiastic teacher is the key to a successful classroom. If you don’t like a topic, you can be sure that your students won’t like it either.

19 With the high levels of childhood obesity, it only makes sense to use other rewards than food to motivate your students.

21 Students who feel that they are a valued part of a group will want to live up to the group’s expectations for success. Try to connect your students to the positive aspects of your class’s culture as often as you can.

22 When students are lavishly praised for things that they should have done well as a matter of routine, their achievement level drops significantly. The impact of sincere praise is immeasurable.

25 There is no magic bullet. A technique that works well for one student may not be effective for others. Good teachers constantly use a wide range of motivational strategies to reach out to every student.