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Lead Pipes 3
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10 thoughts on “Lead Pipes 3”
I like the machine analogy. No angry threats, no huge display of emotion. Student transgressions simply serve to flip the switch, and the predictable and transparent (and avoidable) consequences follow. Cause and effect, every time. The more formalized, mechanized it can be, the easier it will be for us to implement without all the emotion interfering with this process, or the accusations that we are playing favorites, etc. And ultimately, the unemotional nature of the process will help cultivate positive emotional energy in the classroom. You are right, Ben, when you say that we let down the kids who want to learn when we don’t respond appropriately, and it is unfair to expect the kids to do our job for us. They are looking to us to use properly the authority we have, because they don’t have the power to take down a bully. This message really hit me, when I gave a student survey at my previous school, and at least 6 or 7 of them said things like, “please give more detentions, please stop so-and-so from talking and texting. They are so distracting, sometimes I simply can’t focus on the class.” So hard to hear, but it’s a mandate from the kids who want to learn.
And John just to add that the message is hard to hear not because of any flaws in us, in my opinion. It is natural to want to see group order come from within the group and not from any one person. That is called harmony. But there is no harmony in our schools anymore.
Many people in positions of power in our schools seem to want to take down strength in adults. They don’t seem to trust it. A certain kind of person wants power. They are infected with something very dark. My old principal was like this. He did his job in a way that made me feel small.
I say half way seriously that we might need a document – EERP 2 – to go to when we are crossed by administrators. It would be part of our mental health awareness campaign that seems to have cropped up on this blog for the first time this year.
This darkness is all around us, and all we can do is keep sifting through the shit to find what is true, what contains light, to find the roots of the darkness, and pull them out, and throw the shit away, and learn to smile, relax and be happy in our lives.
That is what I like about my insistence on this discussion, even if only five of us contibute to it. The fact is that many of us are just waking up to things that, in more healthy people in a healthier society, would be instantly recognized for what they are – outrageous and not permissable, like the kid David called out when he acted like he saw a bug. We will use our machine to separate out those behaviors in those kids, and return the kid to their proper role in the classroom. It’s all LOTR, en fin de compte.
Honestly, I don’t recall any discussion like this one here on this blog over the past seven years, on the list, anywhere. It feels good. I know that I am protecting myself, especially for next year, in this discussion, and I feel deep gratitude for Ben Lev and the others who recognize how important EERP is for those of us who see it as such. Starting to ramble a bit here but what the hell I’m on spring break.
Who is leading the way back? Most teachers are women, right? I am really excited about the prospects of a group of adults working together to combat bullying in the WL departments of schools, now that we have a method that works and a format to employ – the machine.
We couldn’t combat bullying before because our classes were so boring, but, now that kids really want to know what is going on in the L2, we have a platform to take out these bullies. They will be known to each teacher and at our team meetings we will be able to talk about each kid in a positive way – because each kid is being taught skills they need for life when they are removed from our classrooms – and not in those old venom filled bitch sessions about how bad certain people are, back before we had this way of teaching, which, each day, brings more light in so many ways.
It makes me look forward to seeing Laurie and others this summer. Before finding this way of teaching, I used to welcome summers as a way to avoid those colleagues that I hated so much. Now it is all different. I mention Laurie because, if anyone has modeled, defended, illustrated and given life to the content of this EERP discussion in her building over years, it is she. Those of you who haven’t met her, get to a conference this summer and do so.
I want to thank everyone who is putting this together. This is very powerful. I wish I could think of something to contribute. I am not comfortable just sitting on the sidelines, but I can’t really think of anything to add. I don’t have any prior “things that work for me.” Probably the main reason for this, embarrassing as it is, but I’ll just say it anyway…I am a total avoider. I suck at discipline. There I said it. BUT the good thing is that I actually don’t suck. I just needed to find my spine via a real teaching process. The fake teaching I was doing for the past eleventeen years cast this icky goo over everything and made me feel queasy about upholding rules that were bogus because what I was doing was equally bogus. I’ve never been good at hypocrisy. That probably sounds like a cop out, BUT at the time I also was coaching middle school track & field and I had strict rules that I actually upheld. So I knew that I had it in me to hold kids to standards and rules.
Sorry to go off on a tangent. As I read all of these entries carefully and think about my current situation, it would be easy to say “Oh I don’t think I have the same issues with bullying.” But that would be incorrect, because I work with adolescents. The issues I face are more of the undercurrents, eye rolling, who’s in, who’s out–stuff that goes down in the hallways that you can’t necessarily “nail” kids on. In many ways this is more hurtful, precisely because you cannot see the actual offense happening and call it out. But I do like Laurie’s strategy of just stopping everything. In any case, I want to have this machine in place. There are certainly times when the flow of CI is disrupted, and the kids who disrupt need a quick automatic consequence.
Again, I apologize for my lack of contribution. Please know that I am reading this all very thoughtfully and taking it all to heart. Thank you all again for this difficult work.
I love that you validate the teaching process as integral in this work, as per:
…I just needed to find my spine via a real teaching process….
And I didn’t mean to imply that we are not getting enough input from group members. It is a special work and we are all part of it. We’re getting all we need as we lift this big bad boy off the ground. jen you are so important to this group’s work together. Everybody is. I feel great hope for the future, for us and the kids. I think this document is about done, actually. Anybody have any ideas on that?
I get it now – we are talking about strategies that stop bad behavior dead in its tracks, rather than all the coddling and stuff that I’ve been advocating. I also suck at addressing things right when they happen, because – essentially – I always think that all the kids are really, really good and sweet and nice deep down and that when they act out they are just being pubescent teenagers. But when I’m honest, I see how even the smallest infractions get the whole class off track. I have let it get to my head that everyone always tells me that I have all the “good” kids, but even the good kids like to test you and try to push the envelope. So, I await the great big lead hammer with great anticipation.
exactly. a great big lead hammer. it crushes lead pipes in one fell swoop. that is what we need. no more covert insults. no more disrespect. not on my watch. I don’t care how weird they think it is. it’s gonna happen. every time. just because our society has wobbled so far out of whack that children and many of their parents think that can say whatever they say want in a classrom or to or about a teacher doesn’t mean that I have to buy into any of that crap. not today, Zurg!
WARNING: I have not read all of the posts that have been written on this topic… I will, but not until this weekend….
So, at the risk of redundancy I have been thinking that probably the most powerful gift that TCI has provided me is great relationships with the majority of my students. The personalization, meeting each student at the door, attending their activities, writing notes home, and all of the strategies of “Teaching with Love and Logic” have made conflicts with students very rare. The most important tool is Susie’s teaching that “NOTHING MOTIVATES LIKE SUCCESS.” This is huge for me because it certainly was NOT true of my teaching before Ben, Susie, Laurie, etc, etc radically changed my teaching world.
I mention this in response to Brigitte saying that “we are talking about strategies that stop bad behavior dead in its tracks, rather than all the coddling and stuff that I’ve been advocating.” I wonder if somebody could give me an idea of how often s/he foresees having to use the “plan” outlined in EERP?
Is it not true that for the majority of students a lot can be done in the first 2-3 weeks of class to avoid needing to “stop bad behavior in its tracks.” I KNOW that there are exceptions, students that are just too damaged, but for the most part, if I can establish a relationship with my students, I can get them to the point where they feel bad if they disappoint me.
I would like to hear about more “front load” strategies that I could use at the very beginning of each new class that would set a tone, establish relationships and demonstrate from the very beginning how we will treat each other in class. How can I show more emphatically that I care deeply about them and that I truly believe that if they are in my class they were “meant’ to be there – it is not an accident? For me this would be much more appealing than learning strategies of how to deal with disrespect and inappropriate behavior when it arises.
I also wonder if there is any consideration of giving a warning (one!) before going thru the steps of the plan? If the plan is clearly visible in the classroom and gone over first day of class, and then one warning is given…. would not that curb bad behavior?
I would welcome responses to my thoughts……
Thank you for this very helpful and vital discussion.
Q.…I wonder if somebody could give me an idea of how often s/he foresees having to use the “plan” outlined in EERP…?
A. Not very often. A fair amount to begin the year, a lot of early surgical interventions by the machine and soon the behaviors that came in with the kid in the fall that worked in middle school or elsewhere have all failed, the kid has been stopped every time, and the room norms out really nicely for the rest of the year. Also, Skip, I am addressing here those few kids who lack empathy and thus cause us headaches all year. The rude knuckleheads who cause us to wake up at night with their nonsense. The kids described here:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/10/24/pigs-cant-fly-1/
All we have to do is reflect on what got many of us to this point in March – where some of us are STILL having behavior problems from certain kids – to appreciate the thrust of this document. I had heard somewhere – need to research it – that 16% of Americans lack empathy. I think the number may be higher in teens. Those kids are the real targets for this EERP document.
Q. …Is it not true that for the majority of students a lot can be done in the first 2-3 weeks of class to avoid needing to “stop bad behavior in its tracks.”….
A. yes, but, as per the above, the real targets of the EERP plan are the ones lacking either the empathy or the understanding to make the class work for them and so have to act out in a way that requires the big lead hammer that this document is starting to resemble.
Q. …how can I show more emphatically that I care deeply about them…
A. I think that the method, used properly, does that for you, with no effort required on your part. Another way to show lots of care is to stop them when they try to take over. They know they are kids. A lot of bullies WANT to be stopped. But we have so few actual adults in our society that they are wrecking havoc on too many lives. So, use this document wisely when it is needed. learn when those times are – feel it in your gut not your mind. If it feels wrong it is wrong and needs action. Historically most teachers allow their minds to overide their gut, with drastic results of loss of classroom control. your gut will tell you if a kid has done something honestly anti-social. so stop the kid and educate her, and serve society thereby.
Q. …I also wonder if there is any consideration of giving a warning (one!) before going thru the steps of the plan?….
I’m not going with warnings myself. Kids get warned all the time in their classes. In fact I’m going to add that point into the document. No warnings. They’re stupid. I’m willing to be voted down on this but into the current draft version it goes until y’all make a case for one warning.
Responding to the “How often will I need to use this” question:
I use it (my version of Blaine’s Págame system) very infrequently bc my kids know I mean it — maybe 1-2 x / day
My colleague next door, who’s a wimpy disciplinarian, must feel like he’s at the batting cages with 80 + MPH hardballs coming at him all the time, he can barely keep up!
That’s why I say no warnings. I can’t even hit a 65 miles/hour curve ball. I know that because I tried it once against a college pitcher from Bowling Green University (at a summer camp in New Hampshire years ago).
Trust me, you can’t even SEE fastballs. The metaphor is very apt, Ben, because unless we can learn to recognize and identify and react when a fastball is thrown at us in class, we may get hit in the head, which the kids will see, and conclude that we can be thrown at, therefore, all year. We need to be able to see those fastballs coming and deal with them.
So, we act like a machine when we feel in our gut that any form of basic human respect has been verbally compromised by a student who has obviously gotten away with same in the past in other classrooms. Ours are not “other classrooms” – they are classrooms where languages are actually learned and very rapidly, so we need to set our minds to the need not only to protect the emotional safety of the group but also to protect the beauty of what we have uncovered as teachers. We protect our rooms from contamination because there is too much to lose.
That last idea echoes what jen said yesterday:
…the fake teaching I was doing for the past eleventeen years cast this icky goo over everything and made me feel queasy about upholding rules that were bogus because what I was doing was equally bogus. I’ve never been good at hypocrisy. That probably sounds like a cop out, BUT at the time I also was coaching middle school track & field and I had strict rules that I actually upheld. So I knew that I had it in me to hold kids to standards and rules….
When we feel the need to protect the children in the room while at the same time protecting the method we use, which, because we don’t use English, cannot in any way stand those comments that destroy TPRS classrooms, we act, and we act swiftly and strongly. We shake the cobweb response (we are stuck in fear in our mind) out of our heads, and we access our courage (root word is coeur/heart), by saying to ourselves, “O.K. it’s time to put the EERP machine into action. Now I will stop teaching and go through the steps.” THEN WE DO IT.
At this point it is likely that the kid who has made the social error will immediately get a bitchy edge and try to get the class on his side, and this is exactly the point when some teachers back down, because they don’t want/are afraid of confrontation, but THEY MUST DO IT anyway. They must step up AND DO IT. If they don’t, they send a clear message to the kid that they are being invited to do this all year. It’s that first backing down from action against the rude child that ruins the room for the rest of the year.
So we hit the start button on the machine and we mechanically go to the end of the process, which I am sensing today is about done so we can go to other blog topics and back to normal (I need to get the Nordseepirats next installation up here).
So we move our focus from emotional/mental arguing and bullshit that has its origins in self doubt and fear, as we courageously activate a kind of quiet steady heart strength devoid of fear and any kind of emotional charge and we make the EERP machine work. All instruction stops, the attention of the class is drawn to the comment so that all know what has happend, then the in class parent phone call will be made informing, very likely via voice mail, that the kid has made a serious error in judgement in class, a promise is made to follow up after school with another phone call, the kid will be moved to a pre-arranged classroom with another teacher – with older kids if the kid is a ninth grader and with younger kids if the kid is a senior (Jody) – with a story to translate and a dictionary that are sitting there ready for this crucial moment in our new academic year, and then we discuss what just happened with the class, perhaps in terms of the EERP document and/or the other metacognition posters (2012) and/or the RULES poster (2010). No discussion of the person here – we address only the behavior.
The whole thing takes 8 to 10 min. and back we go to our instruction, having acted properly and not as a coward. The next time it happens it’s only 7 minutes. Over time, we have won the battle and the war.