Superpowers

“The NVIV (Next Vista Inspiring Video) series of posts are written by Rushton Hurley and designed to provide students and teachers with fascinating discussion prompts.”

In A Blind Cyclist’s Superpowers, Rushton features Brian Bushway, a blind cyclist with a superpower.

He gives the following prompts to accompany this video:

“What “superpower” that you can learn to do would you like to have? Speak another language? Make cool videos? Bring sick animals back to health?

If you haven’t already started to learn to do it, are you willing to start now?”

This would be a great video to show students because many students focus on their limitations rather than their strengths. This video shows them that they should look at things they can do rather than what they can’t do. By doing this, they may be able to find a way to overcome obstacles in their way that keep them from reaching their goals.

I’m not very good at making things or that’s what my family always told me when I was growing up. The other members of my family were able to knit, sew, draw, and even construct things out of wood. Something I am good at is math. I love anything with numbers and patterns. I finally figured out that I can make things if I approach them in a mathematical way. I can now knit socks, mittens, hats, scarves, and even sweaters because I see how math is involved in their creation. I even design my own patterns because I use charts and can see the math used to make the pattern. I am able to quilt using English paper piecing because I’m sewing shapes which makes so much sense to me. Math is my superpower!

Helping students find their superpower is very important for their future success in life.

Please check out the video and think of other prompts you might come up with. Please share.

Helplessness

Many of my students with disabilities feel helpless especially when they are overwhelmed. For so many years they have faced many failures and very few successes. They have been judged by others including family and friends as being lazy or stupid. Every time they try and make an effort, they feel like they are kicked down. They start believing that maybe they are lazy and stupid so why bother even trying. Life looks hopeless to them.

I believe this is a feeling is learned helplessness and I spend a lot of time fighting it. I want to try to break this cycle and turn their lives around.

My words won’t do it because they have had so many years of practice hearing the negative words. Why should they believe me who they have only known for a short time while all the others in their world tell them differently? I could talk until I’m blue in the face but they won’t believe me. I have to find a way to show them.

I start by doing a lot of pretesting so I can find out their instructional levels. This is important because I want to begin with something they know how to do that is right at the edge of what they don’t know how to do. I want to do a lot of activities during the first couple of weeks that I know they can be successful doing. I praise and encourage them a lot during this time including phone calls home letting their family know how well they are doing. My students aren’t fooled though and are a little suspicious but I keep plodding on.

After I feel they are comfortable with my process, I slip in a few harder tasks that I know they can do successfully with my help. Again, a lot of praise and encouragement goes a long way. Some of my students are surprised they are successful but they are afraid to hope. During this time, I have to be very patient and encouraging with my students because they are waiting for the shoe to fall and failure to occur again. Eventually, I will have them do the work while slowly taking away my help. It is like teaching a child to ride a bicycle and you hold the bike for a while until you have to let go so they can do it on their own. This may take another month or two but it is important to be patient.

I spend a lot of time the whole year talking to the students about taking a risk and trying harder things because I’m here to help them. I won’t let them fail. If I see them falling, I will be there to catch them. If they fall down, I will be there to help them get up. They are not alone.

I explain that everyone faces failures but what they do after them is what counts. President Lincoln ran for different political offices several times before he eventually became President. He didn’t give up and his failures made him more determined to succeed. Even Bill Gates had several failures before he found Microsoft. The ones that you never hear about are the ones that gave up after failing.

Before long, my students will start adding successes to their list of things they do and will have more courage to learn new things. My next step is to teach them what to do when I am not there and they leave my classroom. How do they go about finding help for what they want to learn? This is an important step to teaching independence.

Eventually, their helplessness begins to fade away, and hope for success takes its place.

How do you battle helplessness? Please share.

Photo by Roi Dimor on Unsplash

Taking Short Cuts

In This one simple trick makes everything faster and easier from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin states,

“If you can’t afford the time and effort to do it right, you probably can’t afford to do it over after you realize that the shortcut was merely a trap.”

I  agreed a few months ago to help set up an online course for a university course that I had taught in person. I had mentioned this to a couple of other educators who have taught online courses and they warned me away from it. But I was flattered to be needed and after talking it over with a colleague, I agreed to give it a try. We thought we could just include the material which comes with the textbook and that it wouldn’t be too much work. I should have listened to the friends who warned me about this.

It would be easy to do a few shortcuts and not care but that is not the kind of teacher that I am or want others to see me as being. I put the bare basics in but wasn’t happy with how it looked. Yes, it would be a shortcut, but the course would end up being pretty bad and not up to the standards of the university.

So, I decided to tweak it just a little. These little tweaks involved a lot more time than I had originally planned.

These little tweaks led to bigger tweaks and now I’m totally involved in a huge project that I had not originally envisioned.

I believed that the short cuts would have made this an easy project. If I had listened to Seth Godin and my friends, I would have realized that there are no easy shortcuts to any job that is well done. I remember my parents always telling me that if I was going to do a job, then do it right, and do it the best that I could. Taking short cuts with this course would not be doing the best that I could.

When things don’t turn out right or the way I really wanted them to turn out, I reflect on whether I had done my best. Did I take short cuts that I should not have taken? Should I have put more effort into it? I know, deep in my heart and mind, if I had done my best. If I have, then I need to not beat myself over the head with it and try to resolve the problem and fix it. I have not given it my best, I need to own up to it, and fix the problem without grumbling.

This is an important concept that my students need to learn. They need to know that a job worth doing is a job worth doing right. Taking short cuts are not always the answer and usually doesn’t lead to success in or out of the classroom.

How do you feel about short cuts? Please share.

Photo by Artur Aldyrkhanov on Unsplash

S is for Successful

During this holiday season, I thought it would be fun to use the word Christmas and apply it to education.

Today’s letter is S and S stands for Successful

As a teacher, we want our students to be successful in our classrooms and in their futures. So do their parents. We need to work together to help this student be successful. We are a team. We can’t do it alone.

In order to work successfully as a team, we have to learn to communicate with each other.

I need to be able to share with the parents what the student is doing in my classroom. I need to let them know what he is able to do and what he is struggling to do. I need to share my observations with the parents but I need to let them know that I care about this student and want to do what is necessary to help him. I also need to share the student’s victories with the parents so they can see progress in his learning.

The parents need to share with the teacher some strategies that work in the home. The parents were this student’s first teachers. They may know specific things that work well with their child and what doesn’t work well. There is no reason for the teacher to reinvent the wheel if the parents have such valuable input. Parents also need to share how the student is doing with his homework when he is home. Does he understand what he needs to do? Is he doing it carefully? What study habits does he have at home?

The student needs to be honest with the parents and the teacher about what he needs. If he is struggling, he needs to let them know.  He might need for them to help him think of ways to overcome the obstacles in his way. If he thinks he knows of some way that might help him do better, he needs to give his input to his parents and teacher. They, in turn, need to really listen to his input. He needs to know it is okay to be a self-advocate. He might have some suggestions that his parents and teachers haven’t even thought about.

How do you help your students be more successful in the classroom? Please share.

Photo by Evelyn on Unsplash

Making a Difference

Every July I have a program called Summer Learning Place. The teachers are my students and they are being evaluated for a class that I teach. We only have the children for 15 days over 4 weeks and they are taught reading, math, and social skills.

When the teachers come in, I have them write a blog post about how they are feeling and what goals they want to set for the next four weeks. Many of them say they don’t see how they can make a difference in only four weeks. Their goals are not very challenging because their expectations are low for themselves and the children.

Sometimes the children quickly achieve the goals set by the teacher and new goals have to be set. I think the teachers also achieve the goals they set for themselves quicker than they expected.

At the end of the program, the teachers write about how they have changed over the past four weeks and many of them state they are amazed. They are amazed at how much they have grown professionally, and they are amazed at how much the children have grown in that short of time also.

I try to get them to understand that they made a huge impact on each child’s life and made a difference in their learning. I want them to see that if they can make such a big impact on a child they had never seen before in just 15 days,  imagine what impact they have on their students when they have them for 180 days!

When they are feeling discouraged, I want them to realize that sometimes we don’t see growth because we are too close to the situation. I know when I gain or lose weight, I don’t notice it as much as my parents who only see me a couple of times a year. Sometimes we may not know the impact we make until years later. Sadly, we may never know the impact we make.

But I can promise you, that we do make a difference.

This is life. By doing one thing, it is like a pebble hitting the surface of the water; it makes ripples whether we want to or not.

I know that teachers make a  difference in a student’s life. We help them work towards being successful in the future.  

Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash