Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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CI and the Research (cont.)
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Research Question
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We Have the Research
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10 thoughts on “Question”
What is an example of what you mean?
I think I know what you mean, but an example or two would be helpful.
It’s not your problem Craig. You are trying to fly a rocket without fuel. Kids haven’t been trained to converse with others in schools. No Socratic instruction, no nothing that fuels them w the ability they need to converse, to communicate. You can say it’s your problem, that you are being too accommodating to them. I say it’s not you at all. It sounds like a cliche to say that it’s the system, but it is. I don’t know how we all do this work. I don’t. So I think it’s important not to get down on yourself about being overly accommodating with them. Most kids, never raised around conversation at a dinner table, couldn’t communicate their way out of a paper bag. Don’t put that on yourself. It’s the profession. We allow language teachers to teach without communicating in the language in class for decades and decades, and then when we try to do that, to do what the standard requires, and we can’t, we must look at what we’ve done for so many years as a profession and then we can move forward to the best of our abilities, without blaming ourselves. Reaching kids addicted to screens is kind of crazy, if you think about it. I’m surprised we can make it through our classes at all.
This year I have been blessed with the must cooperative kids I have ever taught, and it’s wonderful but also heartbreaking, because I see that it’s really not on me at all. The pedagogy on this site is brilliant, it works like a dream when students can engage with it. But some can’t. There are classroom management tricks that align with this style of CI and sometimes you get lucky winning over a class, but sometimes you don’t and then what? You chug along knowing that if they would just give in to the fun and the flow they would acquire language but they won’t so they don’t. Or maybe they do but just less. And maybe you just adjust your definition of success, breathe through it and know that you are doing the best you can with what you’re given.
Carly said:
…and maybe you just adjust your definition of success, breathe through it and know that you are doing the best you can with what you’re given….
This is truly wise. I always felt that I wasn’t measuring up. I was always doubting my effectiveness. So I kept writing more books, 12 in all, in an effort to penetrate deeply enough into the research to really make it work for me. I thought I’d figure it out one day and now I have – figured it out for me – with NTCI and the Invisibles. 14 years after starting to write all those books, I see that I should have, as Carly suggests above, “adjusted my definition of success” a lot earlier. When will the Self Blame and the I’m Not Good Enough trains leave our lives?
So what Carly said above about the Invisibles and the content of this site resonates in me, makes my heart sing because I worked SO HARD on that new book and the content of this site for over fifteen years now, and Carly knows that because she did some really fine reading/editing on it recently for which I am very thankful. She said this:
…the pedagogy on this site is brilliant, it works like a dream when students can engage with it. But some can’t….
Key phrase there is “but some can’t”.
I wish I had been told this 40 years ago, that not all kids can rise to the level of what I’m doing in class. It’s not their fault. It’s not my fault. It’s just the way it is right now. How can children not raised around the dinner table learn anything about conversation when they are never given the chance to learn how to converse at home or in school?
I will stop laying so much self-blame on myself if I don’t teach a great class when an administrator walks in. I now fear no one and nothing. I have won the game of teaching. Forty years ago, I feared everyone and everything. I knew I didn’t know how to teach a language and I felt that hurt in my body every day AND IT HURT.
Now that I know how to teach a language, my body and mind and heart sing with joy because of what I’ve learned, all of it given with both hands by a most loving and gracious God. What have I learned in forty years of teaching? I have learned how to forgive myself for not being perfect. I’ll take that life lesson, humbly and with gratitude.
We CAN learn to love this work of teaching. We can. Look at Carly’s example. She is fast approaching master level work if she isn’t there already. We are lucky to have her in our group here. This is not a big group, by design, but it is a quality group. I so appreciate all of you, all of us walking the rough and rocky path of being a teacher in this country at this time, with all its misguided leaders, in which I include our sadly confused national parent organization, ACTFL.
I truly enjoy reading this blog thank you for your responses. Merry Christmas everyone!
Craig, your question and some other personal emails I’ve been having with other people have uncovered a theme not commonly discussed here: the idea that we can be tricked by the foolish idea that we can actually do all that they require us to do. It’s like making a professional basketball player also be a professional tennis player. We are teachers. You are there to teach. Being too accommodating to the little self-absorbed hormone cases is not something that I think you should worry about. Plans A-F in the management section are what I had in mind. It shows you how to discipline without being too accommodating.
You are teaching. You are speaking the language in class. That is enough. I’m sending you the new book for you to read the section on classroom management, where we learn that real and effective classroom management is devoid of the use of force. There is stuff in there that will help you realize that teaching the language is enough and that being nice to your students, accommodating them, etc. is not that important. With CI, with you using the language in class, that is enough. If they in fact choose to not pay attention, who cares? Flunk their asses. The history of CI has been marred by the pipe dream that teachers should also be entertainers. It has ruined careers.
I just went to an area-wide behavior training through the local Special Ed district. It uses an acronym for Proactive & Positive Approach to Classroom Management called STOIC – (don’t laugh!) It’s part 2 of CHAMPS. Here’s the lowdown on the acronym – STRUCTURE and organize; TEACH S’s how to behave responsibly; OBSERVE/supervise S’s behavior; INTERACT positively w/Ss; CORRECT irresponsible behavior fluently – without interrupting the flow of instruction.
If you haven’t noticed, though, this lovely toolbox doesn’t adequately account for the outlier student/s who are set on undermining and sabotaging. The fine details of this framework puts the onus squarely on the T’s shoulders to create and maintain positive relationships and environment, claiming that if we frame our corrective feedback gently, briefly, positively enough, catching the toxic subversives “behaving responsibly,” and noticing it – why then we will have the Holy Grail in hand. Of course the menu of consequences is totally untenable for the WL specialist – from Discussion/verbal reminder, to Restitution, to Time-Owed to Office Referral. Just when are those accelerating corrective consequences (based on developmental expectations) supposed to be leveled and kick in? Between classes (some of us teach 10/day across 8 levels)?
That positive student outcomes are proportional to positive interactions with teachers is foundational. But we are seeing and experiencing escalating oppositional/defiant & other concerning and disruptive behavior with no support from the wider pupil services team – Social Worker, Psychologist, Special Ed, Parents, Admins… so we need to adapt. That means trying our best with the limitations in mind, lowering our expectations when necessary, taking care of ourselves, trying to derive meaning in our jobs, and laughing whenever we can.
…that means trying our best with the limitations in mind, lowering our expectations when necessary, taking care of ourselves, trying to derive meaning in our jobs, and laughing whenever we can….
If schools are going in the opposite direction of what you said above, Alisa, teaching will die. I mean real teaching, the kind we all want to do. I guess when a society splits, it splits on all levels. Education should be about building kids up, not splitting them up into the haves and have nots. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the very administrators and teachers charged with helping teachers and students are not meeting their responsibilities.
I will post an article called “What Happened” here tonite that addresses what you said in your excellent comment.