Recognizing Achievement

In 3 Reasons to Recognize Effort and Growth Over Achievement and Outcomes from @DavidGeurin Blog, David Geurin asks,

"How is your school recognizing and celebrating students? Are you encouraging effort and growth over achievement and outcomes?"

My special education students are used to not being recognized for awards. They have grown up with many failures and disappointments so going to an awards ceremony is almost a humiliation for them. Many see it as just more evidence to make them feel “dumb” or “useless.” It breaks my heart when I see their discouragement shown in their faces and body language.

So, one Saturday in the last month of school, I usually have my own special ceremony at my house. I have done this for years and most of the students look forward to it. All of my students are invited along with their parents as well as former students and their parents.  Siblings are not invited because I want the parents to give their undivided attention to my student. Each year, I teach the students some new yard game to play in my big backyard. The most loved game was croquet. We fix a simple lunch for everyone which are hotdogs, chips, and cookies. After lunch, we have an awards ceremony where every student receives a certificate of accomplishment and a gift from me. When each student comes up to receive them, they are allowed to speak and share a favorite memory of their year. I make sure that each student shines and knows that they truly earned this certificate. I don’t go into specifics but may mention things like Most Improved in Reading or Math or another subject area. One may have to do with Social Skills such as the Most Sensitive and Caring Classmate or Most Helpful to Others. I see other students nodding while giving applause because they know the award is deserved.

Many of my students like talking to my former students. This helps them see that Special Education has not ended their future. Most of my former students are working full time jobs and are successful in life. Likewise, many of the parents like talking about the future also.

Every year I marvel at how successful this event is. I’m glad that many students and parents find support from others in our small community. I love to see the joy in the faces of my students and their parents. By doing this, I feel like I’m investing in the future of my students.

What do you do to recognize your student’s achievements? Please share.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay

Be Bold

In How Dare You Try to Be Great? From  @DavidGeurin Blog, David Geurin shares,

“People may not always appreciate your gift, but don't let that stop you from using it. Don't let someone else keep you from pursuing excellence.”

Many times, growing up I was told not to brag, not to be so openly confident. People don’t like those that are braggarts. This seemed to be drilled into my head so it is hard for me to distinguish bragging and feeling proud of myself.

I feel like I was a good teacher. No, let me rephrase that. I feel like I was a great teacher! And one of the reasons I was great was because of the communication and rapport I had with my student’s parents. I worked hard at it and took a lot of my own personal time to establish this relationship. It never failed me in the 30 years I worked in the public schools. So, it really stunned me when I was in meetings during those years when other teachers would glare at me during parent conferences or pull me aside later to let me know that I “made them look bad.” In fact, one teacher actually had the nerve to ask me to stop calling the parents so often because it made them look slack. I was constantly told that because I had a special education class with smaller numbers, I could do this and the regular teachers couldn’t. I’m sorry but that is their choice and not mine. I felt there were a lot of differences between us and who had the right to decide who worked “harder”? I understand that my actions might not work for them but don’t try to stop me from doing what works for me.

I didn’t let these opinions keep me from doing what I believed in my heart was the right thing to do. And I’m glad I didn’t because I believe that relationship with parents helped me continue to enjoy teaching.

When I was recognized as our state Special Education Teacher of the Year, my school did not make a big thing about it. In fact, one teacher laughed and said that I just liked the attention. Yes, I was proud of my accomplishments and why shouldn’t I deserve some attention. I felt that others tried to make me feel ashamed that my accomplishments were brought into the spotlight.

This is one reason I like to feature teachers in my blog. If a colleague notices them doing something innovative or feels like they are an outstanding teacher, I think it is important for them to be recognized. I don’t want others to feel like I did when I was recognized.

So even though others may not see or appreciate your gifts, don’t’ let anyone stop you from using it. Don’t let others keep you from doing what you know in your heart is the right thing, the best thing.

What do you do that makes you stand out or seem special? Don’t be modest or shy. Please share.

Progress Not Perfection

I am in the process of trying to lose weight and eat healthy. But I’m at a plateau right now in my weight and I’m a little discouraged. Today I listened to The Jillian Michaels podcast and heard the episode on Setbacks where she talks about how I need to focus on progress and not perfection. This really hit home for me because I had 19 days in a row of 10000+ steps per day. But this Friday I couldn’t do it. Then on Saturday I had 21000+ steps but couldn’t do it on Sunday. This discouraged me and I felt like a failure. After listening to this episode, it hit me. I did 19 days straight of 10000+ steps! That is amazing! This time last year I couldn’t imagine even getting 5000 steps per day! I’m discouraged that I got down 20 pounds and gained back 5 but in the big picture, I’m still 15 pounds lighter than I was last January! Thinking about my progress has truly motivated me again and I was able to run for an hour today on my treadmill.

I imagine this is how my students feel. Many times I review some information and they have forgotten it. I know I taught it and that they even knew it the day before or even the week before but today they just don’t have a clue. I’m frustrated and I know they feel the same way. To combat this frustration, I need to remind them (and myself) of the progress that they have made. I can’t let them focus on the couple of steps backward when I can help them see how much forward progress they have made.

If I can’t show them any progress, I need to reevaluate the goals I have helped them set. Maybe the goals aren’t realistic. Have I incorporated enough small goals that are achievable or have I set them up for failure?

It might be good to keep records of the progress so that they can be charted. Nothing motivates me more when I can produce data to show my own progress. Instead of seeing the individual ups and downs, I can look at the chart and see the trend that is showing an upward movement in my weight loss. I can see an positive trend towards my overall eating habits where I’m eating less calories because I’m also eating healthier. I can see a positive movement in my overall activity level because I can see that I’m burning more calories.

I need to think about what data I want to help my students keep track of. It might be behavior data or skills data. Behavior data such as how long the student can be quiet without interrupting others, touching others, talking out can be recorded on a tally sheet and then put into an excel spreadsheet. Reading skills such as the decoding words correctly per a certain amount of words, spelling words spelled correctly, comprehension questions answered correctly. Depending on the age of the student, they might be able to record the data in a spreadsheet themselves. It is easy to turn this data into a chart on a weekly, monthly, and semester basis. These charts are great to bring to parent conferences!

I also believe that sharing this progress with parents helps them also focus on progress rather than perfection. I have had parents zone in on one negative thing that is mentioned in a conference rather than comment at all on the progress that the student has made. Now I appreciate the parents supporting me with the problem but after this is dealt with, I need to bring the conversation back to the positive motion the student has made. By only dealing with the negative, I am expecting perfection from the student which would mean I’m setting the student up for failure. By showing progress, the parents can also see that the student is putting forth effort for improvement.

So, by looking at my own life and focusing on progress and not perfection, I can model this mindset for others.

Do you focus on progress and not perfection? Share your progress!

Image: 'Business success of a businessman'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57567419@N00/7466072046
Found on flickrcc.net