I was struck by the importance of creating a positive environment for my students. One presenter showed a picture of a woman who had a fearful expression on her face. Most of the teachers in the room said she looked afraid; however, the presenter said 8/10 middle school students thought the teacher was angry. We need to be careful how we express ourselves in front of our students, knowing that they misread some of our thoughts.
I think my favorite session was called "Lead Like A Pirate" which was titled after the book. The presenter's school theme is "Making school a place where kids are banging down the door to get in, not out". I thought this sounded a lot like our school philosophy. She shared LOTS of great ideas that her school uses including Teen Tweet, hiding secret eggs, Birthday carts, and more. It got me thinking about different ideas we could do in our school and I can use in my Advisory to make school an enjoyable place for the students and for the teachers. There was an emphasis on taking care of the teachers so they will take care of the kids. It made me try to think of ways we can take care of each other. I went online and bought the book "Teach Like A Pirate". I also went to another presentation on scheduling intervention in a tight schedule. It gave me some great ideas for trying to help us bring math intervention into the school day. I don't ...
Tim, we must've seen the same presentation. I thought it was amazing, too. We know that perception is crucial, however, to see such a misinterpretation of emotional expression was eye-opening. I wonder though, is it that adolescents don't have a developed emotional IQ to discern anger from angst or is it that they lack a working vocabulary that they can draw upon to verbalize what they're feeling?
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