Hi bloggy friends! I know I promised photos from Barcelona, but I am so exhausted today and have tons to do in order to prepare for the movers, so those will have to wait. This morning I packed the clothes I want to take with me on the plane and now my next goal is to get to work on Mr. Sneaker's closet. Since he travels a lot for work, he has some kind of snazzy airline status that allows him a few more bags, which is nice. I think he said between the two of us, we can bring 5 bags and the weight allowance is higher (75 pounds compared to 50). Since I left pretty much my whole teaching wardrobe in Portland, I think one bag for me will do it. I just have my summer stuff. I shouldn't say
just as if that is not a lot because I discovered once again that I have
way too much stuff. I made another bag of stuff to give away because I just can't deal with everything I have in the closet.
So...this is going to be a quick post with a few of my recent travel reads. I mentioned that I was reading an interesting book about reading instruction while putting in time on the elliptical and Kelly was interested to know what it is. I will preface by saying that when I say these books are "interesting" I am reading them for my paper, so interesting probably gets co-mingled with informative and useful.I do find them very interesting, but they might not hold your attention like The Daily Five or The First Six Weeks of School.
For starters....I bit the bullet and got this book for the plane rides. I found it for 12.99 on ibooks which was cheaper than Kindle for once. I read it in about 3 days (cheated a little and started it before we left) and I really liked it. I have to say though that despite many reviewers who said it was so sad and they cried throughout a lot of it, I didn't shed a single tear. Heart of stone.... It was different than the other books in the series, but I thought that it has a nice little ending and it was worth reading. I wasn't gonna be able to wait until it arrived at the library. Not to mention, there are typically 20-30 holds on any books I want to try and get through the digital lending library for my Kindle, so I thought it was better to read it now instead of 2014.
I also spent quite a bit of time reading this little gem on my phone. Yes, my teeny tiny iPhone was where I read most of this book. For some reason I preferred to take Kohn's commentary on tiny pages because a lot of what he said kind of ruffled my feathers. I truly think it is a great read for teachers, despite the fact that I disagree with a lot of what he said, because although his words irked me, at the same time, I found the book to be inspiring and it motivated me to rethink some aspects of my classroom. And that, my friends, was a long sentence!
Bottom line: Alfie Kohn is against behavioristic practices that reward and punish children in order to motivate them. He cites many studies that indicate when people (of all ages) are rewarded for doing something it results in decreased internal motivation to perform that task. So, he thinks that we should ditch grades, incentives, prizes etc. and focus more on Content, Collaboration, and Choices. I don't disagree that these elements are important in any classroom, but I had a very naughty little thought while I was reading this. He spoke to the fact that incentives and rewards result in short term compliance rather than life long character development of important social skills and understandings. I guess I view this differently in terms of teaching and parenting, but in terms of what happens in my classroom each year....I am sorry to say, but it IS short term. My students are with me for 10 months. So, during that 10 months, I am ok with rewards for certain behaviors (hello positive behavior support), I am in favor of praise, I am okay with giving consequences for poor behavior, and I do think that telling a child they can choose to behave and stay on the carpet and behave or they can choose to go back to their seat until they are ready to join is legit. Kohn would disagree. I am not saying that I don't give a rip what students do when they go on to the next classroom in the next grade level--not at all. BUT, summer happens, during which time routines and rules are different outside of school and then children enter a new classroom where rules might be different, discipline style might be different etc. So, I think teachers using behavior incentives, rewards, token economy systems etc. are all viable methods of keeping control in the classroom. Yes, I also want to help my students develop strong social skills and good moral character, but when I have 2 hours and 20 minutes to teach everything on my agenda, making sure that the kids behave is a big priority. When good behavior is a given (for most kids) we can do a lot more with the content and lessons. Kids just can't have choice in everything, especially in a classroom with 20+ other children. Choices have their place, yet there are also times when children need to do things that they just aren't internally motivated to do, but that doesn't mean those things aren't good for them.
Thoughts?
Finally, I dove back into this book while working at the hotel in Barcelona. The author gives a brief history of reading instruction, which might not fascinate everyone, but is really pertinent to my paper and interesting to me. He also talks about why we teach reading, what we teach when we teach reading, and how we go about teaching reading. He talks about the difference between instruction and education and speaks of these as polar opposites. In a nutshell, when we instruct, we put knowledge into our students, but when we education, we draw learning out from within.
I really liked this diagram the author included when he talked about different approaches to teaching reading. If you divide this chart on a diagonal from the top right to the bottom left, you can separate out a very skills centered approach to reading instruction from a more holistic approach (author's term). To me, I kind of think of it as Treasures on one side, The Daily Five on the other. And, as the author points out, a balanced approach is best.
Here's to being more balanced this year!
