"These Kids"

I have worked at 8 different schools as a teacher and school administrator.  Every school seems to have them - "these kids."  The label typically comes up when educators are talking about student behavior.


The truth is that all schools are dealing with the societal change in student behavior.  As I think back to the early years of my career as an educator, I don't recall students who exhibited behaviors like running out of the school building and extreme outbursts that might require a child to be restrained.  The answer to why these problems occur is more complex.  

Students who have encountered adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are becoming more widespread.  According to acestoohigh.com, there are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the ACE Study. Five are personal — physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who’s an alcoholic, a mother who’s a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and the disappearance of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment. Each type of trauma counts as one. So a person who’s been physically abused, with one alcoholic parent, and a mother who was beaten up has an ACE score of three.  According to the CDC, a high ACE score can be linked to risky health behaviors, chronic health conditions, low life potential, and early death.


It makes sense that a child who has experienced these types of difficulties would find it challenging to assimilate to the expectations and routines that are common place in schools.  Most individuals can look at the big picture of a child's story and acknowledge the difficulties that the student has faced.  It becomes a more challenging task to move forward from awareness to making informative, purposeful decisions about how to support a child in the classroom who has experienced ACEs.

As an undergraduate education major, I don't remember taking any classes that prepared me for supporting the needs of students with a high number of ACEs.  I think that over the years, I have observed educators who have the gift of working with students and have adopted these methods in my daily interactions with students.  The biggest factor that I have seen to make an impact on students, though, comes from the heart.  

Students have a built in lie detector.  They are able to sense when someone genuinely cares about them.  Does it mean that every day is perfect in the classrooms for these educators?  It doesn't, but it does show in their ability to skillfully help a child navigate feelings of disappointment, sadness, and anger, as well as equipping them with strategies to support academic and social challenges.  When a student who has experienced ACEs has a moment of connection with someone on staff at school, it makes all of my hard days at school worth it.  An optimal learning environment would be a school that doesn't talk about "these kids," but focuses on the heart and meeting the needs of ALL kids!

If you are interested in learning about some of the school-wide strategies and tools that my school has implemented to help students overcome ACEs, I would love to work with you to support your school and can be contacted at amychristinemason@gmail.com.

Resume and Interview Tips from the Principal's Office

As the summer begins, I have been inundated with hundreds of resumes for teaching vacancies. It is wonderful to have such a great interest in our teaching jobs. Some positions have had over 250 applicants! How do I begin the process of narrowing my candidate pool to start the interview process? I’d like to begin by sharing some of the tips that job seekers should avoid when applying for teaching positions.

1. Resist the urge to add photos to your resume or letters of interest.  I have received resumes that include photos of woman seated at a desk with an apple on top, as well as some people that appear to have taken a selfie in their bathroom with a risqué facial expression that might be uploaded on a dating website. Let your credentials do the talking.  Employers will ultimately see your face when called upon for an interview. These particular photography buffs got passed over for interviews by this employer.
2. Include critical details about you.  Start with the most recent and important information. Where did you receive your degree? Who was your most recent employer and what did you teach there? These are the details that jump off the page. Most employers don’t want to know where you went to high school. Once you have finished college, people don’t really care about the old information.
3. Speaking of old information, I recently asked a candidate to tell me about any experiences that would help to prepare them for the position. Most people would talk about where they have been working and the types of responsibilities and programs that they were involved with. One of my recent interviewees told me the hospital where they were born. Really?!  Use the interview time to tell your professional story and sell the employer on you. 
4. Help the employer to know exactly what will be happening in your classroom each day.  If you say that you will do small group instruction, talk about what you will be doing with students during this time. Also, make sure that they are developmentally appropriate tasks. For example, first graders cannot sit still for a 30 minute, lecture style, whole group lesson. Engagement would be lost after 10 minutes. This was offered by a veteran teaching applicant in a recent interview.
5. Show some enthusiasm.  Teaching requires constant energy. If you can’t muster it during an interview, then you will definitely struggle in a classroom for 7 1/2 hours a day.
6. Know what you are talking about.  Experienced educators will know if there is substance behind what you are saying. Buzz words such as technology integration, classroom management, hands on instruction, and differentiation need to have some follow up examples to show that these strategies will actually be implemented and used appropriately.
7. Don’t be too pushy.  A candidate recently fussed at my secretary because I was unable to physically accept a hand delivered resume. This individual clearly doesn’t realize that I am unable to do that for over 250 people. It is also tells me that this would be a high maintenance teacher. Administrators often don’t have enough hours in their day to provide people with immediate attention.

The education profession needs the best and brightest teachers. I strive to find these individuals at my school because our students deserve nothing less. I hope that these pointers will help the strongest candidates to land a position in a school where they can make a lasting impact on students.......what should be a teacher and administrators’ ultimate goal.

A Balanced Instructional Diet

Teachers have so many expectations placed in front of them that their vision can become blurred.   Many schools and districts have encouraged the use of technology in classrooms above all other instructional strategies.  One local district went 1:1 in 2012 and mandated the use of IXL and Scootpad as a tool to monitor student and teacher use of technology.

If you've ever witnessed a student working on IXL, it is painful.  Students have to answer multiple questions based around a specific standard.  If the student receives an incorrect answer, their percentage of accuracy is bumped back down.  Many teachers require students to receive a 100% before a standard can be mastered.  I observed my primary aged daughter as she completed an IXL drill and practice session for homework.  This assignment took almost an hour for my child to overcome her tears and achieve a 100% on the assignment.  This session was not unlike the type of tasks that were completed in the classroom.

As an educator, many of us have missed the mark through the way that technology is utilized.  My daughter would have been better off to receive a worksheet with the same drill and practice questions.  If the assignment were on paper, we could have completed it together, discovered where the breakdown was occurring, and corrected these errors before the computer and timer made her feel defeated.  An hour of math work is not developmentally appropriate for a first grade student.  It is also not any more engaging than old school paper and pencil approaches.

The question is where have we missed the instructional mark.  Teachers should have the freedom to use a variety of instructional approaches to increase student engagement and help students struggle toward mastering a standard.  In mathematics, for instance, students should be given manipulatives or even a hundreds chart to help them use a concrete model for solving problems, such as addition and subtraction.  These tweaks would improve number sense, which is the ultimate goal for mathematics instruction in the primary grades.

I look at instructional approaches like that of a balanced diet.  Just as you would not want your students to eat sugary foods all day long, we should not be placing children in front of a computer for long periods of time and calling that instruction.  Classrooms need to have a balanced plate of hands on learning, games, student dialogue with peers, small group instruction lead by a teacher, and authentic uses of technology.

Teachers need to be given autonomy to analyze the needs of the students in their classrooms and determine the instructional approach that would best meet their student's needs.  High quality teachers are skilled practitioners.  Let's give them the space and support that they need to do what is best for students and offer a balanced instructional diet.

Trauma in Schools

One of the many things that teacher preparation programs do not prepare preservice teachers for is the significant impact that childhood trauma has on students and how it impacts their ability to learn.  In my small Title I school of about 400 students, we have determined that over 60% of our students have experienced some type of trauma in their short lives.  These traumatic events consist of divorce, the death of a parent caused by suicide and/or drug overdose, homelessness, neglect, verbal and physical abuse, being the product of incest, and a major overarching concern - poverty.  I was confronted with several of these situations upon my return to work last week for the new year.

When faced with this variety of challenges, students are not ready to learn when they arrive at school.  As Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states, a student's basic needs must be met before they are in a position to learn.  One of the major challenges for teachers and schools is how to address these basic needs within the time constraints of a 7 1/2 hour day.  The challenge seems to confront us daily.

My school has tackled these challenges in a variety of ways over the last three years.  Our school has become a community center that is available to support families.  In August 2017, a school based health clinic (HEALS) was opened on the campus so that children on medicare or without insurance could be provided with quality health care during school hours.  Students have access to medical, dental, and vision services.  They also receive a free pair of shoes at each annual well visit.  Over the last three years we have also offered counseling services through the NOVA center.  Teachers and parents can refer students for needs such as focusing concerns and changing families.  Students and families are able to benefit from meeting with a school based therapist during school hours.

Our school also found that the 7 1/2 hours allotted for instruction were just not going to put a dent in the academic gaps that some students need to close.  We have addressed this through being awarded a 21st Century Learning Center grant that has provided extended day and extended school year (summer) programming in cooperation with the CARE Center and the YMCA.  Students are able to get additional academic support, but more importantly, they are able to be involved in extra curricular activities such as cooking, theater, basketball, and rocket building.  For many of our students, these enrichment experiences would not be accessible due to the lack of financial resources and available transportation.  In the summer, the students also had the opportunity to go on field trips to the Space and Rocket center, Spring Valley Beach, and receive swimming lessons at a university pool.  Breakfast, lunch, and transportation were provided on each program day.

Students who have experienced trauma also have difficulty responding to adults that yell at them or discipline them by using a punitive approach.  Three years ago, our school began implementing pieces of PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports).  Through the implementation of PBIS, we were able to reduce the number of office referrals by 25%.  Students have lots of opportunities to earn positive rewards through Tiger Paws that are given out daily and announced each morning, Class Dojo points in the upper grades, and a clip chart system in the younger grades.  At the end of each week, students also have a reward time called Tiger Pride.  Students get to select an activity that they would like to participate in with their peers.  PBIS develops buy-in for students to want to make good choices each day.  The rewards are tailored to the students, which promotes emotional support that so many students require.

So many of the experiences that we have implemented would not be possible without reaching out and developing community partnerships.  Some of the partnerships that we have developed are Vulcan (a local rock quarry that has provided regular donations and helped us to build an outdoor classroom in 2016), the CARE Center (a local Christian non-profit that supports economically disadvantaged families through educational programming), the YMCA, local engineering companies that have allowed us to expand our STEM offerings, church groups that have provided donations to purchase instructional materials, an Elks Lodge that provided a week long overnight SPACE camp experience for our entire fifth grade class, 100 Women that Care that provided funding for our first summer school program, and local politicians that have provided funds for enrichment programs and tutoring during the school day.

Our instructional staff will continue to search for more opportunities to support our students who are living in trauma, as well as ways to support their academic needs.  The most important piece of all is that every adult who interacts daily with students promotes a positive learning experience and provides a welcoming environment for all children.  

Educator Impact

As the new year approaches, we all have a natural inclination to evaluate our current circumstances and determine ways that we would like to improve in the coming year.  I personally spend way too much time perusing social media with the sole purpose of learning about what my friends and family are doing without using it as a tool for personal and professional growth.  I'm hoping that the use of this blog will be a platform for me to share some of my own professional thoughts and a way to intentionally interact with other educators across the country.

I'll start by sharing a little about me.  I wanted to be a teacher since third grade, when I was a student in Ms. Reppa's class at Eads Elementary School in Munster, Indiana.  Ms. Reppa was a first year teacher that had a contagious enthusiasm in the classroom.  Back then reading was predominantly taught through the use of basal readers and phonics workbooks.  Ms. Reppa, however, was different.  She made learning fun for her students by allowing us to integrate the multiple intelligences as a way to demonstrate our learning.  For example after reading the book, Charlotte's Web, she showed us how to create paper mache characters.  I also recall the enactment of a reader's theater that included sound effects, spoken parts, and costumes as the culminating activity.

It amazes me that over 30 years later schools still have teachers who consistently use worksheets and workbook pages as an instructional follow up to a text that their students have read.  As educators, we have to do better than that!  In the age of technology, it could not be easier to come up with creative ways to get students excited about what they are learning.  Websites like Teachers Pay Teachers have made it easier than ever to locate materials that align with grade level standards and content.  We need to seek opportunities to learn from other educators around us so that all students can benefit from creative learning experiences such as the ones that inspired me in third grade.

The other quality that Ms. Reppa possessed and is a necessary component in every classroom is the ability to develop strong relationships with students.  Students are inspired when they feel like their teacher truly cares about them.  Ms. Reppa lived a few blocks over from my childhood home.  I recall her taking the time to stop by one day when my neighbors, brother, and I developed our own fundraiser for charity.  This small gesture showed that she was interested in me as an individual.  Student interest could be shown by taking the time to talk with students and learn about their interests, make personalized parent phone calls to comment on a job well done in class, or even attending a sporting event or other special activity after school hours.

Ms. Reppa really is a special person.  When I began my first year as a third grade teacher in 2000, I had reached out to her to let her know what I was doing and where I was working.  She followed up by sending me a photograph that she had taken of me and my very best friend on the school playground during recess as young third grade students.  This was yet another way that she showed the relationships that she had fostered with each of her students.

As educators all of us have the opportunity to make a daily impact in the lives of students.  I'm sure that Ms. Reppa didn't realize that she had a future school administrator sitting in one of the desks within her classroom.  Let's make sure that our time spent at school leaves a lasting impression on all of our students.