Post date: Sep 21, 2017 12:50:25 AM
Pernille Ripp is an elementary teacher, author, blogger, self promoter. Not always my thing, but my feedly feed is full of just these kinds of people. Like Jim Burke. I am wondering why all of these teacher/authors are white? I don't know why I am wondering that. I just am.
Her blog post here is on authentic reading goals (in other words, ones that the students made themselves instead of the teacher) as well as having conversations rather than recording notes.
So why am I keeping this? 2 things that she talks about that I know from experience becomes fact:
1. Goals, reading, writing, life, etc. are more meaningful for the goal setter when they write it themselves. This is SOOO obvious, but as an instructional coach, I know for a fact that teachers/adults have a very hard time writing their own SMART goals and would much rather that I or another administrator give them a goal. Seriously?! Therefore, when they do goal setting in their classroom, these same adults think that it is much easier to give their students a goal, or a choice of several goals.
From experience, I know that buy in is sketchy at best except for the very few students that are true hoop jumpers. Those are fewer and far-er between. Sigh. For my English class, I used to have them create their own literacy goal for their progress portfolio that they shared in their student led conference because as an advisor who sat through these conferences, I was bored out of my mind by the goals given by my colleagues. Not nice to say, but no one is listening. Instead I would tell them this is what English is about: reading, writing, communicating - create a goal around one of those things based on what I value in this class (at the point that they are making goals for the year, they already know what I value. They have lived Ikedaʻs House of English).
2. Quiet your mind and really listen for the 3 minutes of individual conference time given to each student. Thatʻs hard for me, but it is what teaching is really about, the need to listen and then the challenge of using everything I know to actually come up with something sensible and actionable to say. If at any moment I am afraid that I may have nothing to say, then that is living on the edge and that's when the fun begins.