Lost Clicker

Yesterday I lost my clicker, which is something I use every day. It's sleek and black and comes with a built in laser pointer. Basically, it's the coolest piece of teacher tech I own (and I do own it; I forgot to turn in the receipt).

Today, when I couldn't find it, I turned to my students.

"I need help," I told them. "I have lost my black clicker."

They were uninterested and for good reason. What child cares about a toy they don't get to play with?

But I did need help finding it and several eyes at differing heights and with differing thought process were the perfect solution. "First one to find it gets a candy," I said.

The room exploded with motion. They searched places I hadn't even thought of. They told me they lived for candy, that their energy depended on candy.

After about 30 seconds, one boy called out that he had found it. He held it triumphantly, as only the winner of candy can do, and brought it to me.

"Where did you find it?" I asked.

"In the trash."

This, people, is why I need my students. I would never have thought to look there. It would have been thrown away. I would have been left clicker-less and confused when it never, ever showed up again.

Kids have the best creative thoughts.

A Good Start

I wrote a gratitude list for my students. It was on a day when I'd felt irritated at my students. A day when incessant talking lead to raised voices and louder taking. It was a frustrating day, to say the least.

Sometimes when I have a hard day, I go sit up at the temple. In my religion the temple is a house of God where members make sacred covenants, ponder and pray, and work to come closer to God. Due to pandemic restrictions, the nearby temple is only open to specific, scheduled, small groups, but during operating hours, the grounds are open to anyone.

As I sat on the grounds, hidden in a bit of an alcove, with my journal on my lap, I had the thought that I should start a gratitude list. I began with recent occurrences wholey unrelated to school and I kept at that vein for a few minutes, pushing off the thought to list my students.

Finally, with the page half filled, I wrote that I was grateful for my students.

"Really." said a dry voice in my head. "You can do better than that."

So I started again. This time, I listed each student's name and one unique thing about that student for which I am grateful. When I was done, I had 27 students and 27 reasons to be grateful. I had a lighter heart and a new way to show them I cared.

I decided to put these reasons in my classroom where my students could see them on an extra whiteboard I have (we're doing in person learning). But it turns out my paper fell out of my journal and I couldn't find it. So, while they worked on their math test, I tried to recreate the list from memory. It's not perfect, but it's a good start. And tomorrow, I bet I can add even more.

The Difficult Assignment

 A few weeks ago, I gave my students an assignment. It was a difficult assignment (which they knew) and it was a timed assignment. I started with a few minutes, set my timer, and let them go.

In a surprising twist, they all dove right into the problem. They read it out loud. They talked with their partners. They paused to think and write their thoughts. They tried to solve it on paper. They referred back to the instructions and notes.

In the middle of their discussions, just a they were fully engrossed, understanding they could understand, and knowing they weren't there yet, but knowing they could do it, the timer went off.

Generally, when my students struggle with a problem, they are relieved to hear my timer go off. They lift their faces with sighs of relief and give me all their attention to know how to solve it. They take diligent notes and are happy to move on. Sometimes they have already stopped or have spent the entire time complaining about the amount of work or degree of difficulty of the problem.

This time, when the timer went off, there were screams. Outrage. Blatant and deliberate ignoring of the timer. The shouted words, "Could you leave us alone for two minutes?! I've almost got it!"

And really, when your students are that invested, what can you do but let them work until the problem is solved?