Protecting Students

This afternoon we had a staff meeting about CYFs and how it relates to us at school, mostly about procedures we should follow and what to do if one of our students reports abuse to us.

First of all, it is a huge deal for a child to speak up about abuse they might be enduring. For many children in these situations, they grow up with the abuse so see it as normal, hence they don't understand what they experience on an everyday basis is not acceptable, and that they even should tell somebody. They don't tell, because they don't know any better.

If they do disclose abuse to us, as teachers, our role is then to gather information. Asking open-ended questions is good, and asking statement questions such as who was there, when did this happen are also good. What is not helpful to anybody involved, is when you use questions like did you see uncle hit mum? That kind of questioning puts ideas into the childs' head and then their answers cannot be trusted completely. We need to ask blank question so what they say is truly their own words. 

Next, we talked about what the procedures are IF a child does disclose abuse. I made a flow chart to help organise my thinking.

The lady taking the meeting also talked us through the changes that are happening to the Ministry, mainly the rebranding to the Ministry for vulnerable children (In April 2017) and changes to the Vulnerable Children Act. 

The meeting was very helpful and informative. One thing that I personally reflected on was how much effort and planning goes into a childs case before CYFs or the Police even get involved. With my experience with my parents being foster parents, it always seems to be such a quick process, with children being uplifted from their homes and delivered into foster care within 12 hours. But really, there are weeks or even months of work that goes on behind the scene - gathering data, confirming stories, working with various agencies, meeting with parents and extended whanau, etc etc etc. 

One thing my principal Rhonda Kelly was pushing on us, was the importance of discussion. If a child says something to their teacher, record it absolutely, but talk to the siblings teachers, to this childs teacher from last year, to the SWIS worker, the nurse, etc. All these people can add to, or negate something a child has said. What could seem like nothing actually could turn out to be huge, or something that could seem huge could actually turn out to be a misunderstanding. 

Discussion is so important! We need to band together around these children we love so much and work together to protect them. 

Making a tivaevae

This week is Cook Island Language week! 

To celebrate this, my class learnt about Cook Island Maori words for our family members, and then made our family trees with labels. 

We are also making our very own tivaevae! 

"Tivaevae or tivaivai (Cook Islands Māori: tīvaevae) in the Cook Islands, tifaifai in French Polynesia, is a form of artistic quilting traditionally done by Polynesian women. The word literally means "patches", in reference to the pieces of material sewn together."

First, we looked at a movie made by Te Papa about the origins of tivaevae. Next, we looked at different designs for tivaevae, check out some examples here and here.

I gave the students some examples I had printed out, and gave them instructions to design their own 'patch' for our Room 6 tivaevae. It tells the story of our class - each of us has a unique contribution to make. Even if we used the same pattern or idea, we may colour it differently or use it in a different way to portray ourselves.

Here is my class designing our tivaevae this afternoon -

Will post an update on how it looks when we collate them altogether to make our class quilt!

Culturally responsive pedagogies (pt 3)

Another aspect of our targeted cultural teaching was in writing. Everyday, the students would 'record a bit of their life'. In this book, they could free write, sometimes about a given topic or often they were just asked to write about themselves in whatever way they chose. Sometimes students wrote poems, sometimes they just narratives but mostly recounts (e.g. on the weekend I...).

Although this might seem pointless to some of them, it was our way of trying to empower the students to see that whatever they experience in their own lives matters and has valued - and that they can be an author too!

Kordell - my birthday

It was Kordell's birthday.

How old are you going to be? 9! and I can't wait.

My nan made a cake for me and everyone and cookies for all of us. I like the cake the most.

I played tag and hide and go seek and I had fun.

I have heaps of dogs and their names are Luce and Louis and Russell and Carol and Lola and Poppet. We had a pinata. I whacked a pinata and out came chocolate.

Hope T - at my aunts house

Hope T - At my aunts house

At my auntys house i went to the movies we watched was stuart little 2 with the mum Dub the little boy and the mouse when my aunty watched it she  side that movie was funny because  when the mouse turns into a cat and the cat turns into a mouse and the food that they ate was yum because! Then we went to eat and we ate mcDonalds then we went to the zoo. It was cool we saw a boy with a super hero costume.  We took for long  and my papa was waiting for me to go home.

I got tired and it was fun.

Hiria - at morning tea

Hiria - At morning tea

At morning tea me and my best friend hope.t we were playing tag it was great we were having fun playing tag it was amazing then she tag me then  i had   to run after her around the big play ground i go very tired then we had a long break to rest after we got back to our favourite game it was got super good. Then the bell rang after me and hope.t rushed to class fast!

When we asked the students to write about something specific, for example, an item that is important in their culture, they produced insightful work that showed they were making connections between their own lives and what we were reading/writing/discussing.

This was another way we tried to incorporate the students cultures and personal experiences into our learning everyday. We tried to make sure students understood that their culture mattered, was important, and was relevant to their everyday learning. Connections!

Update on Bob!

This week I really tried to change my mindset around Bob.

Due to the success on Monday, I felt so encouraged and motivated that he could change and make huge progress.

As Bob is always saying "I don't know" to everything you ask him, I thought I needed to change my attitude from inwardly rolling my eyes and writing him off as he wasn't listening etc, to maybe he actually doesn't know... Maybe he didn't understand the language I used to explain, maybe he isn't familiar enough with the task he is supposed to do, or the tool he is supposed to use, to understand the verbal instruction given, maybe, he actually doesn't know. 

I decided to change my mindset around this particular student, and the ones who are always with him and whom show similar behaviour patterns. I was going to be more supportive, more involved, show them physically/digitally instead of just explaining with words, guide them onto the right task/tool and explain how to use it, show where to click etc, and work more closely alongside them for longer periods of time than I have previously. I also talked more with them - explained in more detail what/how to do, walked through the steps with them, talked more about the thinking we are doing and why we need to do it, how we can support each other, etc. I made deals with the students, for example if you finish two pages of writing (which I wasn't expecting) you can draw a picture of your story. 

And guess what,

it worked. 

Yes, he was not perfect. I'll be the first person to admit that. He still punched someone (only one person though, which is a decrease on his average), and he and his buddy broke a pair of school headphones in our class. He still got distracted sometimes, he still played around during mat times.
But lets keep positive - it was soooo much better than his norm.

I got him to read aloud with some degree of fluency, to write independently and of his own ideas, to collaborate and share his ideas with friends, to take turns to talk, to listen and answer questions, but most importantly for me - he finished a piece of work. More than one actually.. I don't think that happened the whole of term 1 - him actually finishing something on his own, to a standard acceptable for his age. (i.e. one sentence doesn't count as a story).

He wrote two stories - one about his birthday (a follow up from the story we read together) and one about a girl escaping a giant (a writing task using a picture prompt). He was so engaged in these tasks, knew what to do, wanted to finish the work, wanted to add his own picture to support what he had written, came up with words like 'whacked' instead of 'hit' to make his story better, helped me fix the mistakes in his story (e.g. capital letters after full stops). It was so encouraging. He definitely felt that I was making more of an effort for him, and I could feel he was more open to me and more open his learning as well. Our relationship changed for the better.

I also noticed a change in his attitude towards learning as the week progressed as well. On Tuesday, he played up during reading because he wanted to do his writing already.. By Wednesday and Thursday, he was bursting to read the story, then write about it, then draw his picture about what he wrote. He wanted to learn. He wanted to work, and he knew he could! 

He began to increase his self-efficacy, which is really what I wanted. 

This kid can work. He can read. He can write. He can listen. He can make good choices.

Now I just need to make sure he knows that, everyday. 

Not everyday is a good one

Today was a hard day.

We were supposed to have our whole school day at the swimming pools, but it got rained out so we didn’t go. The kids didn’t know till they turned up with their togs on at 9am. It was raining and windy all day long, and so cold we had to close all the windows and the door. Because we were supposed to be at the pools all day, we had no planning for today.

The kids stayed inside during morning tea...

In the middle block, Archana wasn’t there. (For context, the first block I had been teaching by myself in the classroom when we have been team teaching for three weeks).

I’d love to say it all went perfectly. I mean, it could have been worse. But that block tested me.

I introduced Jolly Phonics (had never done that before) and the students started grumbling because they thought it was ‘baby-ish’, which was fair enough. They do know how to say ‘s’ properly, its the Jolly Phonics that will happen later on that will be the learning focus for them...

Then we tried to finish off our Tiddler Houses (artwork). That took ten minutes when it was supposed to take the whole hour…

I then made a deal with them that if they wrote something for me for 15 minutes, they could then play a game for the last 15 minutes before lunch. Great! I ask them all the time ‘what did you learn today?’, so I wanted them to write about it so we could use it for the class blog.

I had two students in particular, one who kinda always gives trouble (student A), and one who is typically an angel and quite the teachers pet (student B).

Student A, I put my attention on first as he does have special learning needs as well, and we talked about what was happening with him, at home, etc., and I asked him to take out his hearing aids. Wow! Literally the next minute he was off writing, giving me great ideas and sentences. Success!

Student B didn’t want to do the work, laid on the floor, complained, started singing aloud and disrupting others. When I spoke to her, she said nothing was wrong etc, trying to get me to leave her alone. I suggested ‘how was it sitting next to Student A earlier’?. She smiled. Not an innocent one, but a almost creepy smile. Aha! I said to her, are you acting like this because of Student A? She admitted yes, she was trying to be silly like him. Alright, thats fine, lets move on …

I gave her something else to do, a *special* task only she could do, and she went and focused and did it. Awesome. I’ve got this. Two troublesome kids and both on board. Ten minutes later, I called the class in and we played our game as promised.

The lunch bell rang. The kids stayed inside…. again…..

The students ate their lunch and talked, thats fine. I got the idea to watch a movie together, a way to keep them occupied and quiet throughout lunchtime in a positive fun way. But then I couldn’t connect my laptop to the projector, ugh, embarrassing for me, disappointing for the kids. We started playing so maka lo together as a class - the students were listening, responsive etc. Student B was not. She sat in the middle of our circle staring at me. She put on a ‘classroom monitor’ tag, I asked her to take it off, she didn’t. Twice. I started to get impatient. Throughout the whole lunchtime, she talked back to me, ignored me, didn’t do what I asked her to etc. She really tested my patience. The class got a bit too rowdy and my patience was wearing a little too thin, so I asked them to either read, write or draw. They did, they went away quietly and did it. Except Student B. Student C made a paper plane, and I asked him (aloud, so the whole class could hear) to not throw it and put it in his bag, and he did so happily. Student B got up, made a paper plane and threw it across the classroom. I lost it a little. I went over to her, snatched the plane out of her hand, scrunched it up and put it in the bin. I addressed the class (not her in particular) and reminded them what I had just said, and said if anyone else throws planes they will loose them as well.

Student B just wouldn’t stop.

When the bell for lunch to finish came around, she wanted to do a special job that Archana had mentioned a couple days ago, and I asked her ‘do you think you deserve to go and do that after the way you have behaved?’. She straight up said no. She knew.

For the last block, she listened, did what she was told etc. Back to her old self. But I think she just wanted to go do the special thing…

So what?

It’s just a bad day.

Yeah, but it’s not…

As a BT in a co-teaching role, I haven’t experienced this level of purposeful defiance before. It was hard, yes, it really tested my patience, yes.

But it was good for me.

I need to remember that I need to keep building up my teacher role with the students, and not get comfortable with the illusion that the students to see me as their teacher. I am not a student-teacher, but they might see me that way still. Having Archana not be in the class wasn’t scary, I was comfortable to be there and had confidence in myself as a teacher, but the students, well no, one student, obviously was not.

I told Archana about this experience and we agreed it would be best if I kept on top of Student B, to reinforce my role as teacher. If Archana stepped in and said something to her, it would reinforce the students belief that she is above me, protecting me etc. I need to deal with this on my own, but it is helpful to know I have Archana there when I need her.

Taking care of yourself

As today one of the only days I have where there is no meeting, training, orientation, classroom set up etc, I thought I would take advantage of that, and the good weather, and get outdoors.
One piece of advice given to the MDTA students in our orientation last week was to keep fit, and keep up your hobbies. This sounds obvious, a sort of 'be who you are' vague encouragement. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how important it actually is. We are going to be so tired all the time, always having either classwork or university work to do, that we might just forget to prioritize ourselves.

Soo... I recreated a portion of our hike around the community last week and walked from my house, up, around, down Mt Wellington, and home again. Tell you what, I was sweeeatty.

Some more footage of my little walk as well as a sneak preview of my PRT card I finally received yesterday. Things are getting serious!

I had a great morning taking some time out for myself, lets hope I keep it up as things get busier!