Don't Know How? Your Students Might!

March 20, 2023

By Jenna Fournel, Director of Teaching and Learning

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

You can now listen to Hooray for Monday on Spotify! Check out our podcast here.

You know that feeling when a family member can’t open the jar so they ask you for help and you pop off the lid? Or you’re walking through your town and a tourist asks for directions and you can point them right where to go? Or a friend is super down and you can feel your words lift them up?

Who doesn’t love that feeling? It feels amazing to be helpful, to be needed, to see ourselves rise to the occasion, to belong in a useful way to our home, our community, and our relationships.

What does it look like to create space for that feeling in our schools? It’s a worthy question to explore because when we do create that space, school connectedness grows.

Last week I jammed the copier at school. I first resorted to my usual tactics of trying to force open doors. But I don’t really know this fancy copier and the offending jam was in a place my tactics could not reach. Down the hall sat a group of students with whom I’ve had my struggles. In a moment of desperation, I asked them if they knew how to fix this machine. To my surprise, they immediately jumped up to help. “We don’t know how to fix it,” one said, “but we’ll try.” And I thought, “shoot, what if they take to it the way I just did, but with youthful force?” Instead, calmly, almost reverently, one student tapped the “help button” on the screen. Then they all worked together to follow the series of intricate steps that showed up on the screen. After a few minutes, they gently opened the copier door and extracted the paper. “There you go,” one of them said nonchalantly as the group walked back to their gathering spot. I noticed they seemed to be walking a little taller as I stood there, mouth agape, grateful, and in awe.

This isn’t to suggest we should make our students responsible for school repairs, but look what they can do! What else might be possible when we involve them in “making things work” in our school communities? Here are a few ideas:

When you have a chronic classroom issue (pencils disappearing, assignments all coming in late, dirt being tracked in from recess, students interrupting each other when speaking) try asking the students to help you find a solution. This builds buy-in and deepens a sense of belonging to the classroom community.
Classroom jobs are one way we typically foster student leadership and shared responsibility for the community. Take a look at the jobs you offer and consider some that would specifically build school connectedness. How about a team of weekly problem solvers whose job it is to help the class wrestle with issues that arise in the community? What about a keen observer whose job it is to find and share examples of care and support exhibited by classmates? Try appointing a daily scribe whose job it is to summarize and write up the most important activities the class engaged in each day.
Schools often have student councils to plan spirit days and dances, but what about student advisors for the administration? In this approach, you’d choose a different student from each class each month, or quarter, who meets as a group with other selected students to talk with administrators about what is and isn’t working in the school. These students could bring concerns from their class to the group, and through their feedback, they could help the administrators think about solutions to the problems.

Adults are almost always outnumbered in schools. So it’s easy, particularly at the end of a long day, to feel that the students and their problematic behaviors are what get in the way of school connectedness. But what if they actually know things we don’t about how to solve the problems? See what happens this week if you ask your students for help.

What We’re Curious About

Each week a member of the Inspired Teaching community shares something that’s currently piquing their curiosity. Maybe it will spark yours too!

Side Hustles

Leal Abbatiello, 9th-grade student and son to Jenna (Director of Teaching and Learning)

I’m curious about side hustles. I recently found out about curb painting which is where you paint the house numbers onto the curb in front of a house. People do this to help first responders identify or verify where your house is if it’s hard for them to see the house number elsewhere. Similarly, it can help a friend who is coming over figure out where you live if they can’t see the numbers by your door.

I thought about this yesterday because I was walking through a neighborhood doing fundraising for my sports team and saw that some houses had their curbs painted and others didn’t. I thought that I might be able to turn this into a profitable side hustle that would also help the people in the neighborhood and put money in my pocket. In order to do this I would need spray paint, stencils, and a knack for door-to-door sales. If I did a few houses and did it well, I could take pictures and build a portfolio to share with future clients.

These days I’m always wondering about how to make money as a teen without a car. How can I apply the skills and resources that I have to help others and create an income stream?

Teacher Resources

Rethinking Classroom Jobs

In today’s post we offer a few fresh classroom job ideas, this podcast from Cult of Pedagogy includes many more and some neat ways to introduce these roles to your students.

Make Praise Meaningful

As you find more ways to have students help you out, notice the language you offer in response. Rather than “good job,” noting what the student did to accomplish the outcome orients students toward both their learning process and intrinsic interest in learning.

Scribe’s Record

We shared this last week, but it’s worth sharing again in this new context. Invite your students to be the scribes as they share what they’ve learned in class. It’s a great way to enlist their help and center their voice in the process!

Listen to This Issue of Hooray For Monday

InspiredTeaching · March 20, 2023: Don't Know How? Your Students Might!

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.