Your thoughts: how does parenthood affect the practice of educators?

Every now and then, a student's parent will ask me if I have kids of my own. They always look a little disappointed when I reply "not yet", as if I don't understand their struggles as well as they'd hoped. I'm looking forward to starting a family soon with my husband, and I wonder a lot about how the experience of parenthood affects those who work in education.

Musings of this sort are what makes my personal learning network (PLN) so invaluable. What an amazing experience to be able to toss this question out via social media and get replies from educators all over the world. I started these conversations a month ago and allowed the initial responses to shape the way I pursued the topic later. I went to my Facebook fans and The Cornerstone yGroup first:


I received dozens of thought-provoking responses, most of which hit on at least one of four categories. Here are the main ways becoming a parent has affected the way these teachers view their students:

1) They have increased empathy toward parents AND students. Katrina Andres Murphy wrote: "I think I have more patience for individual personalities. My expectations are now more in line with their development. I also understand that this little person is the whole world to these parents. They are sending the best they have to school. They are not leaving the good ones at home. :-)"

2) They are less frustrated about students not completing homework. Many teachers who used to get angry when homework was repeatedly missing have a new understanding and don't let it bother them once they become parents themselves. Angela Rodriguez Gibson shared: "...I can see how homework might not get done. I understand not being able to miss work for conferences. I understand that everyone thinks their child is a genius and an angel. I also understand the frustrations of the school system."

3) They hold a new and deeper respect for individuality. J from the Cornerstone yGroup says: "Since becoming a parent, I've also learned that kids are who they are--even with the best parents in the world. Just because a child has issues (whatever they may be), does not necessarily mean it is due to poor parenting. At nearly 2 years, my child is super high energy, busy, into everything. I can't even imagine what he will be like in kindergarten!"

4) They develop a truer sense of the importance and ultimate mission of teachers. Marcella Martinez: "...Being a teacher and having your own kids in school you realize what kind of teacher u want for your kids. Now I try to be that teacher to my students."

So does being a parent make you a better teacher?

Cindy Rice Magruder says yes. "I think being a teacher has made me a better mother and vice versa. I am a better disciplinarian, more patient, and more understanding of those issues that kids may have at home. I am thankful everyday that I have that insight!! The children I work with often don't have a strong support system at home, so I feel like that motivates me to be a better mom and teacher to those kids!"

And Laura Jewell Qualley agrees: "...I have learned to relax about certain things, like homework that doesn't get done, and I am also much less critical of both parents and children in general. Parenting is hard, and working full time on top of it is often a crazy life. I think being a parent has made me a better teacher, and being a teacher has made me a better parent."

But not everyone feels that simultaneously playing the role of parent and teacher is beneficial. Heather Mason responded on Twitter with a link to a brutally honest post on her blog, Teacher in Transition. It's an interesting read about how parenthood may make you a better teacher, but the effect might not be reciprocal: "I want to be good at both. I know that it must be possible, but I just can’t seem to find the balance; the fulcrum keeps moving. Some days I am the better parent and falling behind as a teacher; others I am a better teacher but missing my kids in the process. I am always at the top of the see-saw waiting for the big drop."

What are the implications for teachers without kids of their own?

Developing a greater empathy for parents and a deeper understanding of children's individuality is an important goal for any teacher, and those of us without kids should start disciplining ourselves in this area now. A good place to start is by reading the smashing blow of humility that is cleared delivered by John Spencer on his blog as he concludes that with 3 kids of his own, he can no longer complain about parents: "Is it possible that the confusion and terror I feel about things like sickness [of a child] are what many parents feel about things like homework and grades and independent projects? Is it unreasonable for a parent to assume that the teacher should be more knowledgeable than the parents on issues of classroom management, assessment, instruction and motivation? Yet, I've seen many teachers who not only request, but demand that parents serve them and fix any potential problems. I'd be offended if the doctor called me in and said, 'Your child is sick. I want you to come up with some solutions at home and bring me back when he's well.'" [Be sure to read the post comments, especially the one by Teacherfish who shares a mortifying lesson about the demands of parenthood.]

What are the implications for policy makers and those in other out-of-classroom positions?

Melanie Williams Weber, a teacher and parent, shares "I've begun to notice more of the limitations of the school system. I see how much my kids (6 and 4) learn through natural interactions and how simplistic school learning standards are."

In some respects, aren't kids capable of learning so much more than what we're expecting them to learn? And in other respects, aren't we demanding too much of them? Parenthood clearly affects the way teachers teach. But does it affect the way educational change is created? I tossed this question out on Twitter:


It's that second question that I'm wondering most about now, and hoping to get more responses on. How did parenthood affect those who created the No Child Left Behind Act? Do any policy makers have young children or grandchildren who must be subjected to the culture of testing and obsessive accountability they've created, or are they bowing out with private schooling? Becoming a parent seems to produce deeper empathy and purpose in the lives of teachers. Is there any such effect or correlation with education policy makers?

What are YOUR thoughts on parenthood and education?

Book Review: Dinah Zike's Notebook Foldables

When I happened upon a display by some lady named Dinah Zike at a conference, my first thought was Holy cow, this is what I've been doing in my classroom for YEARS! Finally, someone's established the value of these activities and was smart enough to make some money off it!

As it turns out, I AM SERIOUSLY LATE, because Dinah is the guru of foldables: I tossed her name out on The Cornerstone yGroup and got rave responses; I discovered multiple discussions at the AtoZ Teacher Stuff forums including some info on free foldables; and I opened the supplemental resources for our district's new reading series and there she was again, partnering with McGraw-Hill! Clearly this woman is unstoppable.

A page from the foldables book included with our district's reading series.

In case you've been hiding under the same rock that's had me sheltered, foldables are multi-dimensional graphic organizers that can be used for skill reinforcement, practice, and/or information gathering. They're unique because they provide a kinesthetic tool for learning (which is extremely important for younger students and rather hard to incorporate when teaching abstract skills such as reading comprehension). The concept reminds me a bit of the Alternatives to Worksheets book and it's sequel, which have molded my teaching style more than any other resource book (remarkable, since I rarely meet anyone who's even heard of the series). Dinah Zike has a similar idea that is--dare I say?--even MORE effective in helping students organize and analyze information.

From "Notebook Foldables": the five tab vertical.

Dinah's reps have graciously allowed me a review copy of any book in her collection, which was tantamount to giving an empty plastic bag to a kid in a candy store and hollering "Fill 'er up!". After much deliberation, I settled on Notebook Foldables For Spirals, Binders, and Composition Books. It's designed for grades 4-college, but since I've already tried many of the ideas in the primary grade books, I thought this 'big kid' version could offer some unique ideas I could adapt for my third graders...and I was far from disappointed.

From "Notebook Foldables": layered notebook.

I really can't say enough good things about how engaging the foldables are for kids, and how effective they are in helping kids organize, comprehend, and retain information. I like to display one student's foldable on a bulletin board in the classroom, so when I ask questions months after a unit, the kids can reference it. I taught a habitats unit once in October and asked the kids about ocean ecosystems in February. No one remembered until I said, "Think about the foldable we did with blue paper: you drew fresh water ecosystems on one side and salt water on the other..." and immediately five hands went up. I pointed to the sample on the back wall, and eight more hands went up. That's how powerful these things are.

Freshwater/saltwater ecosystems foldable in blue (upper right-hand corner).

The Notebook Foldables book, like many others from Dinah, even came with a companion CD featuring printables. The Dinah-Might Adventures site has some free ideas which are also worth checking out.

Have you used foldables (from Dinah, or your own creation)? Any good ideas to share for graphic organizers, manipulatives, or worksheet alternatives?

Amusement, irony, and sarcasm in classrooms across the blogosphere...

Teaching kindergarten is planning for Halloween 'academic games' and changing 29 children into costumes for a 20 minute party, solely for the amusement of her principal.

Hobo Teacher laments a colleague's use of "The Math Pimp" persona. I suggest announcing it over the P.A. system.

Mrs. Bluebird uncovers yet another reason to preview materials before passing them out to children...and it involves the male reproductive system.

Mrs. Chili writes a letter to her students' parents about laziness and apathy, and receives a single response.

John Spencer creates a video debunking the danger of "Denim Day". I would argue that certain teachers wearing certain jean styles could be, in fact, dangerous and may cause temporary blindness, but point taken.

The Bus Driver tries out some logical consequences for Puke Girl and Poop Boy.

Mystery Teacher poses for a school picture...and "the office" requests a re-take.

One of Tattle Teacher's students learns to shape up, or go back to Mexico and take care of the goats.

Sarah contemplates writing "See diploma. See resume." in lieu of filling out tedious lesson plan forms.

Mister Teacher spends a thrilling afternoon uncovering the reasons why his ESL kids don't understand elaborate word problems. Of course, if they couldn't define 'sum' two weeks prior, the outlook wasn't too bright.

Exposing NCLB and test-based accountability

The following is an excerpt from a comment (yes, just a comment) left by "Jane Doe" in response to an excellent post at Bridging Differences (follow the link to read the original post and the comment in its entirety). This is something every American citizen needs to understand about what's really happening with "accountability" in education. Big props to This Brazen Teacher and The Frustrated Teacher who are sharing this, as well. If you're already reading those blogs, skip this post; if you're not, follow immediately. Then spread the word about these lies:

A few of the many lies of NCLB, in no particular order:

We lie when we speak of proficiency as if it were an objective standard when really it is just a number guessed at by a dozen teachers at a meeting one weekend. And half of the teachers thought the number was far too low and half thought it was far too high.

We lie when we say that a high score on a minimum-skills NCLB test means a student is "Advanced" when really it only indicates that the child has mastered mediocrity. A perfectionist, perhaps. But well-educated? Not even close.

We lie when we say we need more data and expensive software to understand that a child who has not passed the third grade test will not pass the fourth grade test and a child who has not passed either will never catch up and will not graduate. We don't need more data to know what we already know. Giving the child the fifth grade test the next year doesn't count as an intervention.

We lie when we say that a "year's growth" is equal to moving from 50th percentile to 50th percentile when we know that the number of scaled score points between the two tests will change from year to year to year.

We lie when we restructure our for-profit education company as a not-for-profit company knowing that Arne Duncan will hand out innovation grants to districts who partner with not-for-profit companies.

We lie when we say that too many children are unprepared for college-level work and then tell schools to spend more time focusing on NCLB tests when we know that prepping for NCLB tests in no way prepares students for college-level work.

We lie when we pretend that the No Child Left Behind accountability system measures all children. As the Associated Press revealed long ago, NCLB has so many exclusions that millions of children are never counted.

We lie when we report NCLB test scores separated by race knowing it would be illegal to assign students to schools or programs using race.

We lie when we say a school is doing well when it failed to reach simple proficiency and failed to make AYP and only became a success when it had a third chance with a growth model which showed that it might be doing well at some point in the future. We lie when we say that an entire school district is a failure because some of its many schools are struggling. We are lying when we say that NCLB can accurately identify schools as a successful or failing.

We lie when we take a picture of a mentally challenged child pointing to the nickel and not the dime on a Friday afternoon because we need evidence of "applied number sense" for her NCLB portfolio, even though we know that by Monday morning she will have forgotten which is which.

We lie when we tell parents of mentally challenged children that we want them to get the best education so we will give them a small financial voucher to leave the public schools without telling them that removing their child from our rolls will help us to make AYP.

We lie when we keep very-high-functioning children in special education programs because they are the ones we intend to use when we decide whose test will be included in the 2% we are allowed to count under NCLB for our special education reporting.

We lie when we keep students who have learned to speak English in language learner programs because if they didn't take the language learner version of our NCLB test our scores might drop.

We lie when we say we have a system that can use test scores to identify highly-skilled teachers, but the same teachers don't show up as highly-skilled from one year to the next even when they are teaching the same level of students in the same school.

We lie when we say that we are measuring whether a student is on grade level (using proficiency), determine that some students are not on grade level, but then advance those students to the next grade when we have just said that they were not ready for the next grade -- grade after grade until the 8th grade student is still stuck at a 5th grade level. Even the proponents of NCLB testing aren't confident enough in the tests to use the data to make a decision that might have some real impact.

We lie when we say that we have a system of rating teachers that is more rigorous than the old principal evaluations, but somehow a far majority of teachers are always better than average and almost every teacher willing to participate gets a bonus check of some size.

We lie when we claim that tests are designed by large groups of educators when only one or two people will make the decision about which test items will be on an actual test.

We lie when we speak of impossible theoreticals as if they were facts. If the worst students had the best teachers for three years in a row, then those would not be the best teachers any longer. And two of three teachers would have left the school after the first year of the program.

We lie when we don't report that the statisticians asked about the validity of growth models were just given a multi-year million dollar grant to study their use, so they probably won't have a definitive answer until that money runs out.

We lie when we say that there are no bad teachers and no bad students and no bad parents. Some bad parents have bad students who even graduate and somehow become bad teachers and go on to sire bad students of their own. We should stop hiring bad teachers, right after we stop hiring racist cops and firefighters who turn out to be arsonists and computer programmers who just sit there in their cubicle surfing for porn. We should find out who claims to have the perfect system for hiring teachers and fire that liar.

We lie when we say that what was learned from NCLB was never known before NCLB, but that is understandable. Every generation believes that it invented sex. No wonder these young ed reformers and the recently converted think they are the first to use "data" or the first to document differences between groups. Please, read a book published before you were born. Talk to someone who doesn't own an iPhone. If you're not careful, you might just learn something.

We lie when we say that what gets measured gets done and then say that what doesn't get measured (history, science, the arts) is still getting done. Some people aren't very good at lying.

We lie when we say that we need to pursue what is in the best interests of the children and not the adults because the real goal of education has always been to create a healthy, productive, creative, civilized society and that has always been in the best interests of adults. Adults, the far majority of society, benefit more from having well-educated children than the children do. We lie when we criticize some adults for being motivated by self-interest while suggesting that we, ourselves, are above that. The best lies are the ones we tell ourselves, aren't they?

We lie when we say that test-based accountability using these deeply flawed measures is the best system we have because it implies that the system is good enough and we know that getting and using so much misleading or wrong information cannot improve education. Having more misleading data and powerful computers to allow us to get to the inaccurate information faster will not help. It can't, it hasn't, and it won't.

And that's the truth.

Read the rest here.

Call me Judge Judy Jr.

Please? 'Cuz I really am obsessed with her show. My husband and I watch it faithfully (4 pm in both New York and Fort Lauderdale!), and we're convinced she is the solution to all the world's problems related to personal responsibility and integrity.

The show is of particular interest to me because being a judge is one of the many unofficial roles that teachers must play, especially when navigating the choppy waters of kids' interpersonal conflicts. Next time your students do some truth-twisting or rely on the tired "I ain't DO nothin!" as their standard line of defense, try out one of these Judge Judy-isms:

See? She even knows how to give 'the teacher look'!

"If you're telling the truth, you don't have to look over there while you think up what to say next. Look at ME when you're talking."

"Now you're making things up as you go along. Don't make it up as we go."

"That story doesn't make sense. And if it doesn't make sense, it's not true."

"So if I call ____ and ask whether s/he gave you permission to do that, s/he's going to agree with your story?" [Makes the call immediately.]

"Someone's not telling the truth here. It's either him or you. Which one of you is lying?"

"I am a human lie detector. I don't need a machine."

"You know how I can tell if a young person is lying? If her lips are moving."

Obviously, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek here. However, there are at LEAST four incidents every single day in which I have to determine which kid is being honest and who needs the Judge Judy truth-telling smackdown. I've actually used each of these lines with considerable success (except the last one, which I've never uttered in the interest of professionalism, and also because the kids wouldn't get it). Now imagine my success rate if I sat on an elevated platform and invested in a black robe and gavel...hmmm....

Breaking up is hard to do: the story of my love affair with Twitter

I can officially say that the thrill is gone. It's been a whirlwind romance this year:

Winter: Twitter became my latest social media crush when I joined somewhat hesistantly in January 2009. I promptly earned a social media blogging job because of my post about the experience (which certainly heightened my enthusiasm for the trendy platform) and made some amazing connections at the ASCD conference solely because of Twitter. Those first few months were a time of borderline obsession as I spent a disproportionate amount of time with the object of my affection.

Spring: I blogged regretfully about how few of my readers were on Twitter, but this very limitation caused me to discover hundreds of new and interesting people. By now, Twitter was my primary tool for sharing and uncovering important educational news: the infatuation was in full swing, and Twitter was always on my mind.

Summer: As the honeymoon drew to a close, the very qualities that once attracted me to Twitter now annoyed me to no end. Though my enthusiasm began to wain as I became disillusioned with Twitter's flaws, many of you all became tweeters during that time, so I stuck it out. Even my mom joined Twitter this summer. Twitter became that annoying guy who followed me around, and even through I wasn't really into him, he was too nice for me to ask him to knock it off.

Fall: Ugh. I'm now in that painful phase at the end of the relationship where I have to fake interest in anything Twitter has to say, and tuning out its incessant chatter is getting easier because my mind is so preoccupied with ways I can end the relationship without it being too traumatic. In a word, awkward.

I'm certainly not the only one falling out of love with Twitter. And I probably won't be the only one to hear the classic rebuttal from those still deeply infatuated: "The value of Twitter is in who you follow; if you don't like the system, it's because you don't follow the right people!" But for me, that's ridiculous. I follow only the people whose tweets are interesting, timely, funny, inspirational, or educational. Usually all of the above.

In fact, it's the awesomeness of my follow list that causes me to dislike Twitter. It's simply too difficult to have meaningful conversations and interactions with the people I respect.

When users toss out valuable questions like "How do you integrate technology into your homework assignments?", followers must respond in 140 characters or less. Tryng 2 figr out how 2 do this=ridic. time consum. &irritatng. Then searching for others' replies is nearly impossible in the cascading stream of random tweets. Heaven forbid you come into the conversation late and read a whole bunch of @ replies without even knowing the initial conversation starter. The whole @ system is infuriating, especially since you can only reply at a person and not their exact status. Sometimes people @ me about a tweet I sent twelve hours earlier and I have no idea what they're referencing or how it relates to my most recent tweet, until I finally figure out they're responding to an older message. If I can't remember what my own tweet was about, there's no way I'm going to remember someone else's when another follower @'s them about it the next day.

Twitter, for me, has become an endless stream of random bits of conversation that I simply don't have the energy to follow. And don't even get me started on the hassles of using the #. Seriously, is there not a better way?

There is certainly value for Twitter in the classroom--I don't disparage that (at least not in this post). And sure, Twitter is a great way to share links to interesting studies, stories, and research. I used to keep Tweetdeck open on the right side of my screen so new tweets would scroll by as I worked on other projects. I could discover dozens of interesting resources in mere minutes. But that just distracted me from the other work I was doing and prolonged my time online. So I started checking Twitter whenever my beloved Google Reader was empty and I felt like reading random information that other people found useful. That would be NEVER.

There is another object of my affection now. You guessed it. Facebook.

I've been two-timing Twitter since the beginning, as I joined Twitter the same month I created my Facebook fan page. Yet I have nearly three times as many Facebook fans as I do Twitter followers, which means I'm able to interact with considerably more educators on Facebook. There, I can pose a question, post a status update, or share a photo/video/link that's embedded right on the page. Fans can reply using multiple sentences with proper spelling in a coherent thread which is simple to read and respond to. Best of all, Facebook is an application that I can check in with a couple times a day for a few minutes at a time, have some meaningful interactions, and get on with my life. I'm able to read and enjoy every single message posted by my fans, people I'm fans of, and my friends.

As long as there are people who want to read my tweets (and evidently there are 400 of them), I'll login to Twitter once or twice a week to share some interesting links or insights. And I love being able to send messages to influential quasi-celebrities in education and Christian circles to let them know how much I enjoyed their latest book/speaking engagement/podcast. But since I rarely read what anyone else tweets anymore, it's become largely a one-way conversation, and that renders the whole thing silly and self-indulgent.

If and when Twitter finds a practical way to allow its users to converse, I'll jump back on the bandwagon. Until then, I'll spend the majority of my time courting my love that has (so far) stood the test of time. Facebook, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

What are your feelings about Twitter right now? Have you found a way to keep it relevant and useful? Or is there another form of social media that's stolen your heart?

I'm not actually late with posting these wedding photos...

…assuming you agree to pretend with me that sharing them on our three-month anniversary was the plan all along. Since most of you dear readers are educators, I am confident that you, too, have mastered the art of Creating Alternative Reasoning for the Purpose of Disguising Personal Screw-Ups, and you are immediately empathetic toward my little ruse. Surely you have used this strategy with your class on more than one occasion, a la “I’ve decided to push back the math test to Monday because I want to give you one more day to study” [and also because I forgot to have the copies run during my break due to excessive gossiping around the soda machine]. So without further ado, I present my extremely well-planned September posting of the long-awaited wedding pics. Happy third (month) anniversary to us!





But wait! There’s more! Several dozen more, actually, on my Facebook fan page, which you can view here.

September Classroom of the Month

Who doesn't love seeing how other teachers arrange and organize their classrooms? I'm starting a new series here on the blog which features a a photographic tour of a different classroom each month. I'm kicking off the series with some photos I took in my co-worker's room: Mrs. Robinson's second grade in Fort Lauderdale. I've always loved her organizational prowess and bright, stimulating learning environment. (The fire marshal, however, views things differently.)

The view from Mrs. Robinson's classroom door.

Love this desk arrangement: it's great for cooperative learning and shared materials, but still gives the kids plenty of space to work independently.

Classroom library.

Science area. Also, conveniently, the sink and bathroom area.

Here's where she teaches reading small groups.

More center areas.

Fabulous class-created bulletin board.

Mrs. Robinson does most of her instruction from this chair, with the students sitting at her feet. This kind of proximity control really helps kids stay focused.

And there's our first tour! If you'd like to have your classroom featured here (and trust me, there are thousands of teachers who would LOVE to see what you do!), email me the pics or a link to your photo stream. You can also view more classroom tours on my website.

Tattling, Telling, Bossing, and Helping

I think one of the most annoying things elementary-aged students do is complain about each other. Especially in the primary grades, students may tattle-tell dozens of times each day...and many of those instances occur during instruction, interrupting the flow of the lesson and interfering with learning.

This is a developmental issue, and there's no quick-fix answer. You've probably heard the old adage for helping kids discern whether or not going to a teacher with a problem is necessary: Tattling is when you're trying to get someone in trouble. Telling is when you're trying to help someone. This is a worthwhile explanation that can be modeled and practiced with kids. But I've found that little ones aren't very good at examining their own motives, especially when in the emotional throes of an unjust situation. And more importantly, I dislike having the teacher serve the central role in a problem's resolution.

What if a different type of classroom community was created, one in which students were shown how to help each other instead of how to tell a teacher to help? The following thoughts on the subject are excerpted from my book, The Cornerstone: Classroom Management That Makes Teaching More Effective, Efficient, and Enjoyable:

When children know how to effectively problem solve on their own, they won’t become frustrated and resort to telling the teacher. Sometimes it seems as though children could handle a situation independently, but tell on each other for the enjoyment of getting a peer in trouble. However, students often tattle because they are unsure about which situations concern them and which don’t. One minute teachers say, “Don’t just sit there, help her pick those crayons up!” and the next we say, “Do your work and let her take care of herself!” We say, “You knew he was writing those rude things on the cover of that book and you didn’t do anything?!” and then an hour later snap, “Worry about yourself—that doesn’t concern you!”

We must have clear expectations about how we want children to respond to rule and procedural infractions. I teach my kids to tell the person who’s breaking the rule BEFORE they tell me. For example, if a student says, “Jason’s on a game website instead of using the reading software,” I reply, “Did you tell him that’s against the rules?” If the child says no, I say, “Okay, go tell him. I’ll watch.” This almost always resolves the situation because the offending child is aware that I’m looking and responds appropriately. If the tattler says yes, she did tell the offender, then I say, “Okay, you’ve handled it the right way! Thank you!” and that’s the end of it. Sometimes the tattler will insist that the offender didn’t listen to her, so I say, “Go tell him again, and this time I’ll watch.” If that doesn’t resolve the situation, I call the offender over myself and talk with him.

Teaching kids how to respond to one another's corrections is also important. Children have a tendency to say things like, “Leave me alone” or “Mind your own business” if the teacher has sent mixed messages about listening to peers. I decided several years ago that I would send a consistent message to my students that they are in fact responsible for one another, because that’s the type of classroom community I want to create. “Worry about yourself” is a phrase that I try very hard not to use, and I expect the kids not to say those types of things, either. Instead, we talk about the difference between being bossy and being helpful:

“Being bossy is telling someone what YOU want them to do. Being helpful is telling them what the TEACHER needs them to do. Being bossy is saying, ‘You have to play the math game my way.’ Being helpful is saying, ‘We have to take turns rolling the dice the way Ms. Powell showed us.’

“When someone is trying to be helpful and remind you about a class rule, you need to say, ‘Okay’ or ‘Thanks.’ You should not get mad or argue with someone who tells you not to push in line, or that you shouldn’t be playing with a toy in your desk. Your friend is being helpful, because everyone in our room is responsible for following the rules. Remember: when you make good decisions and follow the rules, people won’t HAVE to tell you what to do, so if you want to be left alone, then do the right thing! If someone is trying to be bossy and tell you what THEY want you to do, then you need to say, ‘That’s not helpful’. The person should stop bothering you right away, and if they don’t, you can let me know.

“If you have a problem with someone not listening to you, you can tell me. I will watch you go back and talk to that person. If that doesn’t work, I will facilitate your problem solving. But you need to talk to each other before you talk to me.”

If you teach students how to help one another without being bossy, and how to respond appropriately when another child reminds them of a rule or tries to do social problem solving, you will encounter far less incidents of tattle-telling and see major breakthroughs in the level of self-sufficiency demonstrated in your classroom.

I just had this conversation with my new class a few days ago and had them do some role-playing (which they enjoyed almost too much: I think we're going to have to incorporate some Reader's Theater and other acting into the curriculum this year!). It really works in my classroom. How about you--what's your response to tattling? How do you help your students solve their problems independently?