Krista Kovalchick wrote on FB:
I’ve found that the pressure to have cute comments cuts the pleasure in the story. Shy students who are brave enough to volunteer a suggestion but then don’t have their suggestion chosen, are, in my experience, quite reluctant to ever volunteer again. The stories then revolve around the 5-7 most talkative kids in class, leaving others out. When the right suggestion pops out and the whole class is smiling and nodding…that’s magic.
The reason I put what Krista wrote in green is because it is of epic importance to me on my own path in this work. It is like I have always been wanting to read that. I always knew it to be true but it was hiding inside my heart and my brain couldn’t get to it so that I was very sad and frustrated always trying to figure out how to do TPRS right and I never could. The stories were never good enough. The skills were always too complicated. The conferences and going to the sessions with the experts never felt right, like they could do it but I couldn’t. Now I read this and it just makes me feel as if I have come to the end of a long road in the forest and now I see the sun in the form of what she wrote there in green. I really owe Krista a lot for that little paragraph right there. Thank you, Krista!
I responded:
Krista when you say that “the pressure to have cute comments cuts the pleasure in the story” and “the stories then revolve around the 5-7 most talkative kids in class” you are shredding one of the most sacred cows of the TPRS movement.
This rule:
Suggest cute answers
does to the kids exactly what you say above, and yet for the twelve years since I first thought of the the Classroom Rules poster, I have considered it a requirement for success and it has survived that many years without being changed.
What you say represents a possible shift toward Story Listening (Beniko Mason). Wow. So much change! Thank you! When I read your paragraph I knew you were right. Wow again. That’s the end of that one!
So now here is what I am offering as the 2017 version of my Classroom Rules:
Classroom Rules
- Listen with the intent to understand.
- One person speaks and the others listen.
- Support the flow of language.
- If the teacher is not clear, tell him/her.
- Sit up…Squared shoulders….Clear eyes.
- Do your 50%.
- Actors – synchronize your actions with my words.
- Nothing on desks unless told otherwise.