Yesterday afternoon I was feeling overwhelmed. During that period my first and second grades math classes were in progress. There were a lot of activities going on in our classroom including assessments. One of my first grade students spoke the following words out loud -" Ms.---- you are a great teacher". Instantly I felt like a heavy weight has been lifted up my shoulder. I also felt very encouraged and energized. Wow, it's amazing how much power positive words can do to a person!
Food for Thought: What are we communicating to our students through our spoken words? Are we saying words to them that can build them up, or words that can tear them down?
The Power of Saying Nothing
Words are indeed very powerful, especially when coming from a teacher, or other trusted adult, to a child. It is very much our responsibility to build our students up, even as we mantain the highest of expectations for them.
I am currently fascinated with the power of not responding at all when students answer an open-ended question. Many educators believe that students, especially students who are reluctant to share their thinking, participate more when the teacher doesn't respond in any way to the student's answer of than eliciting more student responses.
I actually tried this no response discussion strategy with my class today to discuss what happened in a play we had seen that day on a field trip. I was amazed how many more students wanted to share once I established the pattern of not responding to their responses. I started to paraphrase the first response, which is a habit of mine, but then stopped. In addition to increased participation, students were more engaged and the pace was more energized. Also, my ELLs were able to participate at their level, even just repeating what someone else said.
Interesting questions.
~CCG