Friday 23 October 2015
Thursday 22 October 2015
Building Self Esteem In Children With Autism And Asperger Syndrome
Children with autism have a much harder time with their self-esteem. They often perceive the constant correction of their behaviors and their social interactions as criticism. The frequent visits to doctors, or speech therapists, or OTs, the testing and the stream of interventions that we try with them can easily leave them feeling like they're under the microscope, a specimen that warrants investigation, a person who needs fixing.
Expressive and comprehensive communication also have a direct impact on a child's self-esteem. These are areas that do not come easily to children or adults with autism/AS. Understanding subtle jokes and participating in human interplay, actions natural to their neuro-typical peers, further increase their feelings of 'not fitting in' and erode their self-esteem.
Combine all this with the expectations of siblings and the all-too-frequent bullying interactions from many peers and it's easy to understand how devastated a child with an autism spectrum disorder can feel.
What can we do? It's critical for us, as family members, educators, and professionals to learn strategies and techniques! In our not-too-distant past, institutional placement was the standard intervention for people with autism/AS. While that is not the case today, we still encounter lack of understanding and appreciation for the unique qualities of the person with ASD. Everyone, especially these visual learners, need a constant reminder of how special they truly are. We must find ways to give them their own Teddy Bear (or dinosaur!) so they will feel "L.C.B." on their own.
It Starts with US
But how do we really build their self-esteem? It starts with us examining our own ideas of how we view children with autism/AS. We must believe in their value ourselves before we can ever change their minds. These kids know when we're faking our compliments or arbitrarily handing out encouragement because the therapy book says we should give 5 positive comments to each correction. It involves empathy, walking in their shoes, rather than sympathy; no one wants to be felt sorry for. Each child is a gift, with his or her own special qualities. We just need to look for these special gifts, tune into the child with our hearts, and bring their essence out.
It Goes on to Others
Knowledge is power and no where is it more powerful than in helping people better understand what it's like to have autism/AS. Explain autism to everyone involved with the child. This will increase their empathy and provide opportunities for genuine praise and encouragement. Explain autism to the child, too, when he is able to understand his disability. Who are we really kidding, other than ourselves, when we pretend a child does not have the autism label or we try to camouflage it? Who are we hurting? It's the child with autism who is hurt in the long run.
Go to conferences, read books, research and share information that takes into consideration the many sensory, social, behavioral and communication challenges faced by the child at his/her functioning level. Armed with this understanding of how the disability affects the child, you and others can better find ways to help him or her fit in.
Remember to teach extended family, educators, other parents and professionals all you can to help integration and provide a deeper understanding when trying to teach particular skills. Be intuitive when advocating for children and persistent in your approach, though not abrasive. Having a positive mental attitude, especially when advocating, helps others want to cooperate with us. After all, who wants to deal with anyone cranky?
Bridge the interactions between peers and the child with autism. Visually and verbally interpret what you think they both are thinking and/or feeling based on your own experiences when you were their age, and your understanding of autism.
By teaching others about autism, more people will become aware of this invisible disability. When people understand empathetically, they will more naturally accept the child with autism, as he is. This is often effective in reducing or eliminating bullying from peers, too.
Learn to correct behaviors by sandwiching the correction in the middle of positive feedback. For example, "Sammy, you are doing a great job cleaning your room. If you pick up the clothes over there it would look even neater. Boy, you sure are a good listener."
Be Positive!
Children with autism often times have an incredible sense of humor. I have to stop myself from laughing so my own son doesn't feel like I'm laughing "at" him, causing him to feel inadequate. Sometimes I'll even say "I'm not laughing at you, Jonny, I'm laughing with you."
Stress the positives! Look for the good in every child, even if you don't see it at first. Pretending to be Pollyanna can only help, but make sure you're genuine in what you say. Stress the good effort your child is making, if he hasn't yet achieved a goal. Show your confidence in his abilities by telling him that you believe he can succeed. Saying things like this that may not be 100% true initially will contribute to your child's trust and belief in himself, raising his self-esteem and encouraging self-motivation to continue trying.
Model a mental attitude of "things are great". Express yourself in the positive, rather than the negative. Kids with autism/AS are masters at copying what others say, so make sure they're hearing things that are good for them to copy! When we say, "you are great!" to a child often enough, he, too, will believe it and feel valued for who he truly is.
Encourage children to share their thoughts and feelings; this is so important and often sheds new light on existing situations. My son, Jonathan was temporarily removed from the bus after cutting the seat. At first we thought he was acting out, so we had him write an apology to his bus driver. When we read his letter, we discovered that he was being bullied by another student on the bus and that it had been going on for quite some time. We intervened appropriately. The other child was reprimanded and Jonny was taught appropriate methods of expressing his anger in the future.
Balance the Physical with the Mental and Spiritual
Like most people, kids with autism feel better about themselves when they're balanced physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Since they are often very picky eaters and gravitate towards junk food, it's important to try supplementing their diet. Also, provide regular physical activity, when possible, to relieve stress and clear their mind. Set the stage for success by acknowledging their achievements - however small - and reminding them of their past accomplishments. Keep their life manageable and doable, refraining from overwhelming them with so many activities that they become too challenged physically and mentally to succeed at anything. Provide choices to them frequently so they understand they have a say in their own lives and even let them be in charge sometimes. These are all great ways to build self-esteem!
Don't overlook giving them opportunities to connect with their spiritual side through religious avenues or by communing with nature. This can help them feel purposeful, that their lives have meaning and connected with their source.
A strategy that helped raise Jonathan's self-esteem, especially in overcoming his victim thoughts and feelings, was spiritual affirmations. Using affirmations took some time, but we found that it brought calm and peace to Jonathan and our family.
Dr. Jerry Jampolsky, author of Love is Letting Go Of Fear and founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing, offers many principles I find helpful in teaching us to love ourselves, thereby enhancing self-esteem, both in ourselves and then with others. Some of his principles include:
" The essence of our being is love
" Health is inner peace
" Live in the now
" Become love finders rather than fault finders
" Learn to love others and ourselves by forgiving rather than judging
" We can choose to be peaceful inside regardless of what's going on outside
" We're all students and teachers to each other.
Part of Jerry's message is that by focusing on life as a whole, rather than in fragments, we can see what is truly important. His concepts, when embraced, positively affect how a child with autism thinks and feels about him or herself. Anger, resentment, judgment and similar feelings are all forms of fear. Since love and fear cannot co-exist, letting go of fear allows love to be the dominant feeling.
Look for the Miracles Daily, there are miracles and good things happening all around us. Learn intimately the challenges that children with autism/AS face in their everyday lives. Be on their team by tuning into who they truly are - unique expressions of divine light. Empower them to be themselves, perfectly okay with who and how they are. Do this by loving them for who they are now, today, not who you think they should become, after ABA, or speech therapy or learning 'appropriate' social skills. Consider that children and adults with autism/AS are wonderful beings here to teach us empathy, compassion, understanding and most importantly, how to love. Most importantly, do whatever it takes to include them in life rather than merely integrate their presence.
In genuine star sapphires there are tiny imperfections and inclusions that reflect light perfectly to form a star in the stone. Each child with autism is like this precious gem, unique in every way. Without the tiny inclusions, there would be no star. It is our job as parents, educators and professionals to "bring out the stars" in all of our special children by shining the light on their natural beauty. In so doing, we see their different abilities rather than their disabilities. And, then they will see them, too.
Expressive and comprehensive communication also have a direct impact on a child's self-esteem. These are areas that do not come easily to children or adults with autism/AS. Understanding subtle jokes and participating in human interplay, actions natural to their neuro-typical peers, further increase their feelings of 'not fitting in' and erode their self-esteem.
Combine all this with the expectations of siblings and the all-too-frequent bullying interactions from many peers and it's easy to understand how devastated a child with an autism spectrum disorder can feel.
What can we do? It's critical for us, as family members, educators, and professionals to learn strategies and techniques! In our not-too-distant past, institutional placement was the standard intervention for people with autism/AS. While that is not the case today, we still encounter lack of understanding and appreciation for the unique qualities of the person with ASD. Everyone, especially these visual learners, need a constant reminder of how special they truly are. We must find ways to give them their own Teddy Bear (or dinosaur!) so they will feel "L.C.B." on their own.
It Starts with US
But how do we really build their self-esteem? It starts with us examining our own ideas of how we view children with autism/AS. We must believe in their value ourselves before we can ever change their minds. These kids know when we're faking our compliments or arbitrarily handing out encouragement because the therapy book says we should give 5 positive comments to each correction. It involves empathy, walking in their shoes, rather than sympathy; no one wants to be felt sorry for. Each child is a gift, with his or her own special qualities. We just need to look for these special gifts, tune into the child with our hearts, and bring their essence out.
It Goes on to Others
Knowledge is power and no where is it more powerful than in helping people better understand what it's like to have autism/AS. Explain autism to everyone involved with the child. This will increase their empathy and provide opportunities for genuine praise and encouragement. Explain autism to the child, too, when he is able to understand his disability. Who are we really kidding, other than ourselves, when we pretend a child does not have the autism label or we try to camouflage it? Who are we hurting? It's the child with autism who is hurt in the long run.
Go to conferences, read books, research and share information that takes into consideration the many sensory, social, behavioral and communication challenges faced by the child at his/her functioning level. Armed with this understanding of how the disability affects the child, you and others can better find ways to help him or her fit in.
Remember to teach extended family, educators, other parents and professionals all you can to help integration and provide a deeper understanding when trying to teach particular skills. Be intuitive when advocating for children and persistent in your approach, though not abrasive. Having a positive mental attitude, especially when advocating, helps others want to cooperate with us. After all, who wants to deal with anyone cranky?
Bridge the interactions between peers and the child with autism. Visually and verbally interpret what you think they both are thinking and/or feeling based on your own experiences when you were their age, and your understanding of autism.
By teaching others about autism, more people will become aware of this invisible disability. When people understand empathetically, they will more naturally accept the child with autism, as he is. This is often effective in reducing or eliminating bullying from peers, too.
Learn to correct behaviors by sandwiching the correction in the middle of positive feedback. For example, "Sammy, you are doing a great job cleaning your room. If you pick up the clothes over there it would look even neater. Boy, you sure are a good listener."
Be Positive!
Children with autism often times have an incredible sense of humor. I have to stop myself from laughing so my own son doesn't feel like I'm laughing "at" him, causing him to feel inadequate. Sometimes I'll even say "I'm not laughing at you, Jonny, I'm laughing with you."
Stress the positives! Look for the good in every child, even if you don't see it at first. Pretending to be Pollyanna can only help, but make sure you're genuine in what you say. Stress the good effort your child is making, if he hasn't yet achieved a goal. Show your confidence in his abilities by telling him that you believe he can succeed. Saying things like this that may not be 100% true initially will contribute to your child's trust and belief in himself, raising his self-esteem and encouraging self-motivation to continue trying.
Model a mental attitude of "things are great". Express yourself in the positive, rather than the negative. Kids with autism/AS are masters at copying what others say, so make sure they're hearing things that are good for them to copy! When we say, "you are great!" to a child often enough, he, too, will believe it and feel valued for who he truly is.
Encourage children to share their thoughts and feelings; this is so important and often sheds new light on existing situations. My son, Jonathan was temporarily removed from the bus after cutting the seat. At first we thought he was acting out, so we had him write an apology to his bus driver. When we read his letter, we discovered that he was being bullied by another student on the bus and that it had been going on for quite some time. We intervened appropriately. The other child was reprimanded and Jonny was taught appropriate methods of expressing his anger in the future.
Balance the Physical with the Mental and Spiritual
Like most people, kids with autism feel better about themselves when they're balanced physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Since they are often very picky eaters and gravitate towards junk food, it's important to try supplementing their diet. Also, provide regular physical activity, when possible, to relieve stress and clear their mind. Set the stage for success by acknowledging their achievements - however small - and reminding them of their past accomplishments. Keep their life manageable and doable, refraining from overwhelming them with so many activities that they become too challenged physically and mentally to succeed at anything. Provide choices to them frequently so they understand they have a say in their own lives and even let them be in charge sometimes. These are all great ways to build self-esteem!
Don't overlook giving them opportunities to connect with their spiritual side through religious avenues or by communing with nature. This can help them feel purposeful, that their lives have meaning and connected with their source.
A strategy that helped raise Jonathan's self-esteem, especially in overcoming his victim thoughts and feelings, was spiritual affirmations. Using affirmations took some time, but we found that it brought calm and peace to Jonathan and our family.
Dr. Jerry Jampolsky, author of Love is Letting Go Of Fear and founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing, offers many principles I find helpful in teaching us to love ourselves, thereby enhancing self-esteem, both in ourselves and then with others. Some of his principles include:
" The essence of our being is love
" Health is inner peace
" Live in the now
" Become love finders rather than fault finders
" Learn to love others and ourselves by forgiving rather than judging
" We can choose to be peaceful inside regardless of what's going on outside
" We're all students and teachers to each other.
Part of Jerry's message is that by focusing on life as a whole, rather than in fragments, we can see what is truly important. His concepts, when embraced, positively affect how a child with autism thinks and feels about him or herself. Anger, resentment, judgment and similar feelings are all forms of fear. Since love and fear cannot co-exist, letting go of fear allows love to be the dominant feeling.
Look for the Miracles Daily, there are miracles and good things happening all around us. Learn intimately the challenges that children with autism/AS face in their everyday lives. Be on their team by tuning into who they truly are - unique expressions of divine light. Empower them to be themselves, perfectly okay with who and how they are. Do this by loving them for who they are now, today, not who you think they should become, after ABA, or speech therapy or learning 'appropriate' social skills. Consider that children and adults with autism/AS are wonderful beings here to teach us empathy, compassion, understanding and most importantly, how to love. Most importantly, do whatever it takes to include them in life rather than merely integrate their presence.
In genuine star sapphires there are tiny imperfections and inclusions that reflect light perfectly to form a star in the stone. Each child with autism is like this precious gem, unique in every way. Without the tiny inclusions, there would be no star. It is our job as parents, educators and professionals to "bring out the stars" in all of our special children by shining the light on their natural beauty. In so doing, we see their different abilities rather than their disabilities. And, then they will see them, too.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder 101
This is a type of mental disorder, which occurs primarily in school-aged children but can also be diagnosed for the first time in the late teens esp., if some of its symptoms are left unnoticed. It was once falsely thought that after puberty the children don?t need treatment. These types of children are given special advantages under Section 54 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Diagnosis
The disorder, as described in DSM IV-TR, is best characterized by three main symptoms of impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention. For making a diagnosis in a child the disorder must start before age 7 and the symptoms must continue for 6 months. Children having signs of impulsivity and hyperactivity are restless, unpredictability, tendency to fail, difficult to stay seated and blurting answers without even giving thought. Feelings of inattention are getting distracted, making careless mistakes and trying to finish off things very fast. Although they start very fast but quickly jump to another job without completing the former one. Besides these other symptoms are vision problems such as double vision
Cause
The cause is still not clear. Among the hypotheses are anatomical structural problems in frontal lobes and the basal ganglia of the brain. Some propose the theory of genetics. Others claim that certain environmental causes are smoking and having alcohol in pregnancy. Finally some hypothesize that taking artificial sweeteners and additives might be the cause.
Differential diagnosis
Certain disorders such as autism, certain personality disorders, oppositional defiant disorder and learning disorders might at times mimic ADHD and mislead the doctors. Some disorders like bipolar disorder may accompany ADHD. Some children with ADHD may eventually develop some conduct disorder or anxiety or depression. Untreated the child is prone to both the social and family problems besides decreased self-esteem.
Management
The first step in the diagnosis of the disorder is to interview the parents and then the teachers although psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians or the teachers of the child can diagnose the disorder. Generally the parents are not the first to notice. The best person to manage the child in this context is a psychiatrist. There are basically two sets of management and both are to be given simultaneously in order to manage the child. The disorder might run forever. Nutrition and child psychotherapy do not seem to help in the treatment.
Medical
Although there are different medications available in the market but the most effective ones are adderal, Ritalin and strattera. Like all other CNS medicines, these are not without any side effects. For e.g. adderal has side effects of nervousness, irritability, dry mouth, sleeplessness and stomach upset. Similarly Ritalin causes above symptoms and decreased appetite. Strattera comes with the side effects of insomnia and anorexia.
Diagnosis
The disorder, as described in DSM IV-TR, is best characterized by three main symptoms of impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention. For making a diagnosis in a child the disorder must start before age 7 and the symptoms must continue for 6 months. Children having signs of impulsivity and hyperactivity are restless, unpredictability, tendency to fail, difficult to stay seated and blurting answers without even giving thought. Feelings of inattention are getting distracted, making careless mistakes and trying to finish off things very fast. Although they start very fast but quickly jump to another job without completing the former one. Besides these other symptoms are vision problems such as double vision
Cause
The cause is still not clear. Among the hypotheses are anatomical structural problems in frontal lobes and the basal ganglia of the brain. Some propose the theory of genetics. Others claim that certain environmental causes are smoking and having alcohol in pregnancy. Finally some hypothesize that taking artificial sweeteners and additives might be the cause.
Differential diagnosis
Certain disorders such as autism, certain personality disorders, oppositional defiant disorder and learning disorders might at times mimic ADHD and mislead the doctors. Some disorders like bipolar disorder may accompany ADHD. Some children with ADHD may eventually develop some conduct disorder or anxiety or depression. Untreated the child is prone to both the social and family problems besides decreased self-esteem.
Management
The first step in the diagnosis of the disorder is to interview the parents and then the teachers although psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians or the teachers of the child can diagnose the disorder. Generally the parents are not the first to notice. The best person to manage the child in this context is a psychiatrist. There are basically two sets of management and both are to be given simultaneously in order to manage the child. The disorder might run forever. Nutrition and child psychotherapy do not seem to help in the treatment.
Medical
Although there are different medications available in the market but the most effective ones are adderal, Ritalin and strattera. Like all other CNS medicines, these are not without any side effects. For e.g. adderal has side effects of nervousness, irritability, dry mouth, sleeplessness and stomach upset. Similarly Ritalin causes above symptoms and decreased appetite. Strattera comes with the side effects of insomnia and anorexia.
Teachers: Could You Use The 10 Best Classroom Management Interventions To Turnaround Problem Behavior?
Unless you work with easy, mellow students, you will love our "Top 10 Best Classroom Management Interventions to Turnaround Problem Student Behavior." These interventions are taken from Youth Change Workshop's Solution Center (www.youthchg.com). There are hundreds of strategies on the site, ready to be used by teachers, counselors and youth workers. If classroom or group management is an on-going nightmare, it will take more than these ten new techniques to transform your class or group into a dream, so be sure to check out the web site for methods that are especially designed to rein in even the most uncontrollable students.
1. Teacher Telegram (or Counselor, Therapist... Telegram)
A veteran, "world-class" special ed teacher was working with a student when the child suddenly flipped over his desk and fled the room. You won't believe what this teacher had done! She had written on the student's math paper! That child interpreted that help to mean that the teacher thought he was too stupid to do the work himself, and bolted from the room in anger. Of course, had this teacher known that the child would react in that manner, she would have been happy to let the child do the writing, or she could have written on scratch paper instead.
This incident is a classic, common situation that could have easily been avoided if only the teacher had known the child's views. The Teacher Telegram surveys your youngsters to gather the information you need to avoid problems that can perhaps be averted or minimized. Make your telegram have about five finish-the-sentence statements, and include queries like: "Some of the things I like about your class are...," "The one thing I wish you would do differently is...," "The one thing that helps me is...," "The one thing that does not help me is...," and "My other comments are..." You may be pleasantly surprised at how much this little device, done periodically, can reduce or end problems.
2. Studies have indicated that when girls are involved in sports, they are far less likely to become pregnant, drop out or engage in serious misbehavior. To encourage your female students to consider sports, ask your girls to craft collages or posters entitled "Silly Boys, Sports Are for Girls."
3. A Taste of the Real World
It can be very hard to convince youth that they will desperately need education. For children who have very poor reading skills, here's an interesting and compelling activity. Create a menu in a foreign language and ask the students to order. To get you started, here are some Dutch dinner items, but you can also go to a page like and enter English menu terms and have the words translated into German, French or other language. You may wish to actually serve some of the items your students order. Select items that are very likely to be viewed as distasteful, so you might consider offering treats like sardines, stewed prunes and liver, foods that might be thoroughly disliked, but are easy to purchase.
Choose Your Dinner Gebakken garnalen (Pan-Roasted Shrimp) Gegrilde lamskoteletten (Grilled Lamb Chops) Vegeratische pastachotel (Vegetarian Pasta) Rijstpudding met frambozencoulis (Rice Pudding) When your students protest that they can't figure out what to do, let them know that could be their on-going adult experience in the world if they don't learn to read.
4. Education-- You Can't Live Life Without It
Ask your students to list out the most difficult things that they may face during their lives. Elicit answers like manage a serious illness or find a job. After reviewing the list, ask the students to identify if education would help or hurt in each situation. Assist students to note that education almost always helps, and never hurts. Assist students to realize: Education-- You Can't Live Life Without It.
5. There's Always Welfare Hurry up.
Welfare is going the way of the buggy and 8 track tape deck. The number of welfare recipients has dropped a phenomenal 50% in the past six years. Plus, in most cases, you can be on welfare for five years and then you are out for life,-- yes, life. The amount of money given out is down by as much as 90% in some places. The average person may live nearly 80 years so welfare may be available only 6% of the time. To convey how tiny 6% is to your youngsters, give 6% of your class a small treat, like a mint. Or, give each student $300 in play money and then take all but 6% away, leaving each youngster with just $18.
6. Three Little Lies
To convincingly teach students how hard it is to tell and keep a lie, ask each youngster to tell three lies about things that are occurring that day. So, a typical lie might be: "I have pink hair," said by a brunette. Ask students to repeat each lie at least three times an hour all day. The next day, discuss how much energy, concentration and focus it took to maintain those lies, and relate the discussion to actual lies students have told in the past. Include in the discussion: "Who does lying really fool?" Assist students to realize that in many ways, the liar really most fools himself or herself.
7. Pay Attention
Adults often expect young people to magically know how to pay attention, but no one may have actually taught the child how to do so. To teach the skills needed to pay attention, teach each of these five skills one at a time: Get your area ready, get yourself ready, watch the action, listen to the action, control your body. You should use pictures, rag dolls or other attention-grabbing devices to teach and drill the skills into habits. But, until you teach the skills, you shouldn't expect them.
8. Can You Compute?
Internet and/or computer skills are becoming required for almost any job. You may have to scan a badge to clock in at your job, or log onto a network to get your assignments. Have your students strut their stuff by performing internet or computer tasks. Here's one to start: Find where to get bakeapples, and locate a shipper to transport. Answer: Bakeapples are a Newfoundland, Canada food; UPS could provide shipping. Discuss with students where they can hone key internet and computer skills.
9. Computers Rule
For good or bad, computers are becoming absolutely key to everyday work and living. More and more mail is being sent over the internet, but at the same time, spam is becoming a bigger and bigger hassle. Here at Youth Change, we receive about 300 spams each day. It has gotten harder and harder to spot the real e-mail from the junk e-mail. In fact, an invitation to present our workshop in Europe was at first deleted as our spam deletion program thought it was junk mail. So, save up your real mail and junk e-mail (eliminating offensive or personal items) then ask students to sort through a very large amount of e-mail. Alternatively, create simulated e-mails to use instead. Note how many times important items like bills, renewal notices, and password information, are deleted. Be sure to include bogus virus alerts, e-mails containing "viruses", and deceptive offers in the e-mails you give students to process. When students mishandle items, note that education and computer training can help.
10. Misbehaved Employees Wanted
To show students that present classroom management problems, that misbehavior won't be tolerated in the adult world, ask them to search the employment classified ads for employers who seek employees with behavior problems.
1. Teacher Telegram (or Counselor, Therapist... Telegram)
A veteran, "world-class" special ed teacher was working with a student when the child suddenly flipped over his desk and fled the room. You won't believe what this teacher had done! She had written on the student's math paper! That child interpreted that help to mean that the teacher thought he was too stupid to do the work himself, and bolted from the room in anger. Of course, had this teacher known that the child would react in that manner, she would have been happy to let the child do the writing, or she could have written on scratch paper instead.
This incident is a classic, common situation that could have easily been avoided if only the teacher had known the child's views. The Teacher Telegram surveys your youngsters to gather the information you need to avoid problems that can perhaps be averted or minimized. Make your telegram have about five finish-the-sentence statements, and include queries like: "Some of the things I like about your class are...," "The one thing I wish you would do differently is...," "The one thing that helps me is...," "The one thing that does not help me is...," and "My other comments are..." You may be pleasantly surprised at how much this little device, done periodically, can reduce or end problems.
2. Studies have indicated that when girls are involved in sports, they are far less likely to become pregnant, drop out or engage in serious misbehavior. To encourage your female students to consider sports, ask your girls to craft collages or posters entitled "Silly Boys, Sports Are for Girls."
3. A Taste of the Real World
It can be very hard to convince youth that they will desperately need education. For children who have very poor reading skills, here's an interesting and compelling activity. Create a menu in a foreign language and ask the students to order. To get you started, here are some Dutch dinner items, but you can also go to a page like and enter English menu terms and have the words translated into German, French or other language. You may wish to actually serve some of the items your students order. Select items that are very likely to be viewed as distasteful, so you might consider offering treats like sardines, stewed prunes and liver, foods that might be thoroughly disliked, but are easy to purchase.
Choose Your Dinner Gebakken garnalen (Pan-Roasted Shrimp) Gegrilde lamskoteletten (Grilled Lamb Chops) Vegeratische pastachotel (Vegetarian Pasta) Rijstpudding met frambozencoulis (Rice Pudding) When your students protest that they can't figure out what to do, let them know that could be their on-going adult experience in the world if they don't learn to read.
4. Education-- You Can't Live Life Without It
Ask your students to list out the most difficult things that they may face during their lives. Elicit answers like manage a serious illness or find a job. After reviewing the list, ask the students to identify if education would help or hurt in each situation. Assist students to note that education almost always helps, and never hurts. Assist students to realize: Education-- You Can't Live Life Without It.
5. There's Always Welfare Hurry up.
Welfare is going the way of the buggy and 8 track tape deck. The number of welfare recipients has dropped a phenomenal 50% in the past six years. Plus, in most cases, you can be on welfare for five years and then you are out for life,-- yes, life. The amount of money given out is down by as much as 90% in some places. The average person may live nearly 80 years so welfare may be available only 6% of the time. To convey how tiny 6% is to your youngsters, give 6% of your class a small treat, like a mint. Or, give each student $300 in play money and then take all but 6% away, leaving each youngster with just $18.
6. Three Little Lies
To convincingly teach students how hard it is to tell and keep a lie, ask each youngster to tell three lies about things that are occurring that day. So, a typical lie might be: "I have pink hair," said by a brunette. Ask students to repeat each lie at least three times an hour all day. The next day, discuss how much energy, concentration and focus it took to maintain those lies, and relate the discussion to actual lies students have told in the past. Include in the discussion: "Who does lying really fool?" Assist students to realize that in many ways, the liar really most fools himself or herself.
7. Pay Attention
Adults often expect young people to magically know how to pay attention, but no one may have actually taught the child how to do so. To teach the skills needed to pay attention, teach each of these five skills one at a time: Get your area ready, get yourself ready, watch the action, listen to the action, control your body. You should use pictures, rag dolls or other attention-grabbing devices to teach and drill the skills into habits. But, until you teach the skills, you shouldn't expect them.
8. Can You Compute?
Internet and/or computer skills are becoming required for almost any job. You may have to scan a badge to clock in at your job, or log onto a network to get your assignments. Have your students strut their stuff by performing internet or computer tasks. Here's one to start: Find where to get bakeapples, and locate a shipper to transport. Answer: Bakeapples are a Newfoundland, Canada food; UPS could provide shipping. Discuss with students where they can hone key internet and computer skills.
9. Computers Rule
For good or bad, computers are becoming absolutely key to everyday work and living. More and more mail is being sent over the internet, but at the same time, spam is becoming a bigger and bigger hassle. Here at Youth Change, we receive about 300 spams each day. It has gotten harder and harder to spot the real e-mail from the junk e-mail. In fact, an invitation to present our workshop in Europe was at first deleted as our spam deletion program thought it was junk mail. So, save up your real mail and junk e-mail (eliminating offensive or personal items) then ask students to sort through a very large amount of e-mail. Alternatively, create simulated e-mails to use instead. Note how many times important items like bills, renewal notices, and password information, are deleted. Be sure to include bogus virus alerts, e-mails containing "viruses", and deceptive offers in the e-mails you give students to process. When students mishandle items, note that education and computer training can help.
10. Misbehaved Employees Wanted
To show students that present classroom management problems, that misbehavior won't be tolerated in the adult world, ask them to search the employment classified ads for employers who seek employees with behavior problems.
Successful Childhood Learning Starts With Reading Aloud
Research has consistently shown that children who love to read excel in school and continue to excel in higher education and life in later years. Reading aloud with your child is key to sparking the passion for reading.
Popular theory in the world of education has long been that a young child is an empty slate, just waiting to have information poured into them. That theory has promoted the idea that learning by rote will make a child smarter, and thus more likely to succeed. But studies of the last fifteen years or so have turned such thinking on its ear ' the new thought behind early childhood development is not to shove a book under their noses and say 'learn,' rather, it's to show your child how to learn, by reading with them, and forging not just an interest, but a real pleasure out of what the printed word can bring.
Let's looks at an example: 'The filibuster is a strategy employed in the United States Senate, whereby a minority can delay a vote on proposed legislation by making long speeches or introducing irrelevant issues. A successful filibuster can force withdrawal of a bill, and filibusters can be ended only by cloture.'
Pretty interesting, huh? No? Well, to be honest, we didn't think it would be. The fact of the matter is, if you don't have a passion for politics, a piece of information about a political process will likely go in one ear and out the other, even if you're forced to read the passage more than once. You could read it two or three times, memorize the words, and even be tested on them, but will you still remember that information next week? How about in a month?
When your child goes to school and is told to read several pages in a book that doesn't interest them, they're going through the exact same thing you just experienced. If there's no inherent passion for reading, and no passion for the subject matter, then there will be minimal retention at the end of it all.
A study of 74 schools by the UK National Foundation for Educational Research found that 'fewer youngsters believe reading is difficult, compared with 10 years ago. However, there is a substantial decrease in pupils reading for pleasure. 65% of 9-year-olds and 73% of 11-year-olds said they did not think reading was difficult, compared with 56% and 62% respectively in 1998. Just over 7 out of 10 of the younger age group enjoy reading as a pastime, compared with 78% five years ago, while for 11-year-olds, the proportion has declined from 77% to 65%. Children said they preferred watching television to going to the library or reading. But the biggest changes in attitudes were among boys. In Year 6, only 55% of boys said they enjoyed stories compared with 70% in 1998.'
Why? Perhaps other statistics in the same report might have some insight:
24% of children under the age of 4 had television sets in their bedrooms
More than 50% of children over the age of 4 have their own TVs
28% have computer games in their rooms
8.5% of under-fours have a VCR in their rooms
The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) recommends that parents read with their child for at least fifteen minutes every day, all the way through third grade, stating, 'Before you read each book, read the title and look at the cover and pictures inside. Ask your child what [he or] she thinks the book may be about. After reading the book, review [his or] her predictions. Was the prediction right? If not, what happened instead?'
The object in such an exercise is threefold: You make reading an interactive experience that a child can enjoy much as they do playing in the yard, you give the child an opportunity to ask questions about things they don't understand, and you promote creative thought within your child, where they learn to assess what they see, critically appraise it, and think beyond what they're seeing on the page.
The FCRR advice goes further, recommending a weekly trip with your child to the library, and rhyming games that make your child think about how words are put together, all of which are intended to show your child that reading is just as much fun off-the-page as it is on.
The ultimate object is to convince your child to open a book for fun, in their spare time, and thus begin a lifelong enjoyment of the written word and the information that books can bring. This doesn't just help them at school - according to the NCREL, readers 'have self-confidence that they are effective learners [and] see themselves as agents able to actualize their potential.'
It's important for every parent to realize the value of literacy in their child, at the earliest age possible, but it's even more important to understand the value of comprehension, and how you can help that seed take root.
Popular theory in the world of education has long been that a young child is an empty slate, just waiting to have information poured into them. That theory has promoted the idea that learning by rote will make a child smarter, and thus more likely to succeed. But studies of the last fifteen years or so have turned such thinking on its ear ' the new thought behind early childhood development is not to shove a book under their noses and say 'learn,' rather, it's to show your child how to learn, by reading with them, and forging not just an interest, but a real pleasure out of what the printed word can bring.
Let's looks at an example: 'The filibuster is a strategy employed in the United States Senate, whereby a minority can delay a vote on proposed legislation by making long speeches or introducing irrelevant issues. A successful filibuster can force withdrawal of a bill, and filibusters can be ended only by cloture.'
Pretty interesting, huh? No? Well, to be honest, we didn't think it would be. The fact of the matter is, if you don't have a passion for politics, a piece of information about a political process will likely go in one ear and out the other, even if you're forced to read the passage more than once. You could read it two or three times, memorize the words, and even be tested on them, but will you still remember that information next week? How about in a month?
When your child goes to school and is told to read several pages in a book that doesn't interest them, they're going through the exact same thing you just experienced. If there's no inherent passion for reading, and no passion for the subject matter, then there will be minimal retention at the end of it all.
A study of 74 schools by the UK National Foundation for Educational Research found that 'fewer youngsters believe reading is difficult, compared with 10 years ago. However, there is a substantial decrease in pupils reading for pleasure. 65% of 9-year-olds and 73% of 11-year-olds said they did not think reading was difficult, compared with 56% and 62% respectively in 1998. Just over 7 out of 10 of the younger age group enjoy reading as a pastime, compared with 78% five years ago, while for 11-year-olds, the proportion has declined from 77% to 65%. Children said they preferred watching television to going to the library or reading. But the biggest changes in attitudes were among boys. In Year 6, only 55% of boys said they enjoyed stories compared with 70% in 1998.'
Why? Perhaps other statistics in the same report might have some insight:
24% of children under the age of 4 had television sets in their bedrooms
More than 50% of children over the age of 4 have their own TVs
28% have computer games in their rooms
8.5% of under-fours have a VCR in their rooms
The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) recommends that parents read with their child for at least fifteen minutes every day, all the way through third grade, stating, 'Before you read each book, read the title and look at the cover and pictures inside. Ask your child what [he or] she thinks the book may be about. After reading the book, review [his or] her predictions. Was the prediction right? If not, what happened instead?'
The object in such an exercise is threefold: You make reading an interactive experience that a child can enjoy much as they do playing in the yard, you give the child an opportunity to ask questions about things they don't understand, and you promote creative thought within your child, where they learn to assess what they see, critically appraise it, and think beyond what they're seeing on the page.
The FCRR advice goes further, recommending a weekly trip with your child to the library, and rhyming games that make your child think about how words are put together, all of which are intended to show your child that reading is just as much fun off-the-page as it is on.
The ultimate object is to convince your child to open a book for fun, in their spare time, and thus begin a lifelong enjoyment of the written word and the information that books can bring. This doesn't just help them at school - according to the NCREL, readers 'have self-confidence that they are effective learners [and] see themselves as agents able to actualize their potential.'
It's important for every parent to realize the value of literacy in their child, at the earliest age possible, but it's even more important to understand the value of comprehension, and how you can help that seed take root.
When Your Child is the Target of a Bully or Excessive Criticism
My seven-year old daughter is adopted from Kazakhstan. She came to this country when she was five and a half not knowing any English. She lived in an orphanage her entire life and knew none of the comforts most children experience when they are babies and toddlers. She was a scared, abused little girl who suddenly found herself in America with a strange family, attending a real school for the first time in her life. She was the target of some of the cruelest and meanest comments I have ever heard come out of the mouths of five and six year old kids.
She is beautiful but had trouble with her balance and her gait. Her large motor skills were not fully formed yet. Her hair was chopped off and growing back unevenly. She had black and blue marks all over her from the beatings she took and from falling down frequently. She had over twenty warts all over her hands. Obviously, her English was non-existent. She stuck out like a sore thumb on the first day of Kindergarten. She was terrified and hadn?t really bonded to me yet. I knew some Russian, enough to communicate with her, but mostly I just had to stand by and watch her crying uncontrollably. She was terrified. The kids were all staring at her and some were laughing. One little girl came up and put her arm around her. My daughter reacted by hitting her. She wasn?t used to any kind of affection. It was a nightmare. I couldn?t leave her like that, so I decided to go to school with her until she felt comfortable and could at least speak some English. I went back to Kindergarten for eight weeks with her, every day. What an eye-opener!
I would like to report that most kids in this situation were kind; however, that was not the case. They didn?t know how to deal or react to a child from a foreign country with no social skills. As my daughter settled in to her new routine, she tried to catch on to our customs. She sang The Pledge of Allegiance every morning in some mixed up language. The kids would laugh at her, even rolling on the floor buckled over to prove their point. She would wear her pants pulled all the way up over her belly and refused to wear skirts or dresses. The girls would make fun of her and imitate her behavior in a cruel way. She would run on the playground with a slight limp and occasionally fall down. No one would help her up. Some kids literally walked right over her. Her writing was awful because she had never held a pencil before. Her drawings were posted in the room with everyone else?s but the kids would constantly make fun of her creations. As her English began to improve and she tried her best to communicate, the kids began ignoring her. She was hard to understand so she became a loner. She was desperate for a friend. During Kindergarten, it never was to be. Other parents were as cruel as their kids, openly handing out birthday party invitations and leaving my daughter out. Luckily she has a strong spirit and is a survivor, so she hung in there and put on a happy face enjoying her new found freedom. However, inside, she was hurting badly.
As she got older, she realized she had no friends. Now she is in second grade. She doesn?t fall down anymore, she writes beautifully, dances like a professional, is a star soccer player and doesn?t pull her pants up anymore, but she still won?t wear dresses. She is the victim of criticism and cruelty many days. Now the kids just ignore her and won?t include her at all in their activities. Some of the kids bully her and follow her around on purpose to annoy her. One girl tied her up with a jump rope and left her to get undone by herself. No one came to her rescue.
As a parent I wanted to make these kids feel the pain my child was feeling. I wanted to tell them and their parents to come and live in my shoes for a week and see what it is like to live with a child that was literally tossed away at birth and abused in every way one can imagine. Being treated like an outcast by her peers was so painful for her and for me. Luckily she has bonded with me, my husband and my 11 year old daughter, who was adopted from China at birth. She wants to know why kids are so mean to her and why she doesn?t have any friends. These are tough questions to answer. How can I expect her to understand and how do I instill in her a sense of respect for others when she is not treated well? Here is what I do and it works. My daughter, for all that she has been through is one of the most compassionate, kind, funny and caring little souls I know.
1) Listen to your children?s bad experiences with an open mind.
They say perception is reality and that is very true for a child. Let your child tell you what happened in detail. They need to vent and talk about what or who hurt them. Probe for details. Sometimes you will discover that the situation was blown a bit out of proportion. Reassure them and make them feel safe and supported. Don?t make the other child or person out to be the bad guy, but empathize as much as you can. Just having you listen and hug them and ?feel their pain? is extremely comforting for a child.
2) Give them suggestions on how to handle the situation if it occurs again.
After your child tells you the details of what or who hurt them, help them to figure out how they can deal with the problem in the future. Give them a set of tools to use ? words and actions. Teach them to be assertive, not aggressive. Teach them how to walk away from a situation and get an adult if you are not there. Emphasize that physically hurting another child is unacceptable, even if they were hit or kicked. In a school setting, they should be told to tell their teacher or the playground supervisor if something happens that they do not know how to handle.
3) Focus on the positive and boost their self-esteem as much as possible.
This is especially important if your child has been called ?stupid, fat, ugly, lazy, etc.? Assure them that you know they are a wonderful kid and to you they are very special. Be genuine. Kids can see through insincerity. Tell them that other children can be mean because they don?t know any other way to act. As hard as it is, don?t agree with their assessment of Sally being a jerk, even if she is one. Tell them Sally doesn?t have very good manners and that you know they know better than to call someone a bad name.
4) Role play difficult situations with your child.
If you are having a hard time understanding exactly what happened to upset your child, ask them to act it out with you. Let them play the role of the bully and you are your child. Sometimes children have difficulty communicating a bad situation, but if you ask them to show you or tell you what happened by being the ?bad guy? you can understand better. Do it twice. Once acting like you know your child acted ? angry, upset, confused, etc. and once acting the way you want them to practice acting ? in control, using their words, asserting themselves, etc. Practice this technique often with your child, it helps and it works!
5) If all else fails, go to the school and voice your complaints.
If the problems are occurring at school, make an appointment to talk to the teacher. It is important for them to be in the loop if there is a recurring situation at school that is negatively impacting your child. They are an extra set of eyes and ears and they can monitor your child?s moods and ask your child if they are OK if they seem upset. The more the teacher knows about what is happening, the better. If problems still occur, take it a step further and meet with the principal.
6) Don?t allow your child to play with kids that are not good influences.
This is difficult when you don?t have control of your child during the school week. However, if you can, volunteer or visit the classroom and scope out the kids that seem sensitive to the needs of others. If you work full-time and just can?t make it to school, call the teacher and ask for her help in matching your child up with the good role models. Plan a play date for your child and be involved the entire time so you can supervise and direct your child appropriately, when needed. If your little one is attracted to the bullies or troublemakers, discourage them from playing with them. This phenomenon will happen. As much as these kids hurt or torment your kid, for some reason they represent power and some kids will be attracted to that group because they pay attention to your child in negative ways, which is better than getting no attention at all. Discourage this kind of interaction! It?s unhealthy and does not promote good self-esteem.
There is nothing more difficult than knowing your child is hurting emotionally. Physical pain is easy to fix and take care of; emotional pain is so much harder. Constant reassurance, positive reinforcement for a job well done and lots of hugs and love will help your child deal with criticism from others. Instill a strong sense of self-esteem and confidence by focusing on the wonderful things your child does every day. Play down their weaknesses. Recognize them and actively help your child to improve in productive ways. Keep your expectations realistic, though. If your child isn?t a born athlete, don?t make them play soccer or baseball just to be social, it will only exacerbate their insecurities. Every child has special talents and gifts. Hone in on them and help your child bloom. If they feel good inside, the hurtful situations and people they will encounter throughout their entire lives will not seem so terrible.
She is beautiful but had trouble with her balance and her gait. Her large motor skills were not fully formed yet. Her hair was chopped off and growing back unevenly. She had black and blue marks all over her from the beatings she took and from falling down frequently. She had over twenty warts all over her hands. Obviously, her English was non-existent. She stuck out like a sore thumb on the first day of Kindergarten. She was terrified and hadn?t really bonded to me yet. I knew some Russian, enough to communicate with her, but mostly I just had to stand by and watch her crying uncontrollably. She was terrified. The kids were all staring at her and some were laughing. One little girl came up and put her arm around her. My daughter reacted by hitting her. She wasn?t used to any kind of affection. It was a nightmare. I couldn?t leave her like that, so I decided to go to school with her until she felt comfortable and could at least speak some English. I went back to Kindergarten for eight weeks with her, every day. What an eye-opener!
I would like to report that most kids in this situation were kind; however, that was not the case. They didn?t know how to deal or react to a child from a foreign country with no social skills. As my daughter settled in to her new routine, she tried to catch on to our customs. She sang The Pledge of Allegiance every morning in some mixed up language. The kids would laugh at her, even rolling on the floor buckled over to prove their point. She would wear her pants pulled all the way up over her belly and refused to wear skirts or dresses. The girls would make fun of her and imitate her behavior in a cruel way. She would run on the playground with a slight limp and occasionally fall down. No one would help her up. Some kids literally walked right over her. Her writing was awful because she had never held a pencil before. Her drawings were posted in the room with everyone else?s but the kids would constantly make fun of her creations. As her English began to improve and she tried her best to communicate, the kids began ignoring her. She was hard to understand so she became a loner. She was desperate for a friend. During Kindergarten, it never was to be. Other parents were as cruel as their kids, openly handing out birthday party invitations and leaving my daughter out. Luckily she has a strong spirit and is a survivor, so she hung in there and put on a happy face enjoying her new found freedom. However, inside, she was hurting badly.
As she got older, she realized she had no friends. Now she is in second grade. She doesn?t fall down anymore, she writes beautifully, dances like a professional, is a star soccer player and doesn?t pull her pants up anymore, but she still won?t wear dresses. She is the victim of criticism and cruelty many days. Now the kids just ignore her and won?t include her at all in their activities. Some of the kids bully her and follow her around on purpose to annoy her. One girl tied her up with a jump rope and left her to get undone by herself. No one came to her rescue.
As a parent I wanted to make these kids feel the pain my child was feeling. I wanted to tell them and their parents to come and live in my shoes for a week and see what it is like to live with a child that was literally tossed away at birth and abused in every way one can imagine. Being treated like an outcast by her peers was so painful for her and for me. Luckily she has bonded with me, my husband and my 11 year old daughter, who was adopted from China at birth. She wants to know why kids are so mean to her and why she doesn?t have any friends. These are tough questions to answer. How can I expect her to understand and how do I instill in her a sense of respect for others when she is not treated well? Here is what I do and it works. My daughter, for all that she has been through is one of the most compassionate, kind, funny and caring little souls I know.
1) Listen to your children?s bad experiences with an open mind.
They say perception is reality and that is very true for a child. Let your child tell you what happened in detail. They need to vent and talk about what or who hurt them. Probe for details. Sometimes you will discover that the situation was blown a bit out of proportion. Reassure them and make them feel safe and supported. Don?t make the other child or person out to be the bad guy, but empathize as much as you can. Just having you listen and hug them and ?feel their pain? is extremely comforting for a child.
2) Give them suggestions on how to handle the situation if it occurs again.
After your child tells you the details of what or who hurt them, help them to figure out how they can deal with the problem in the future. Give them a set of tools to use ? words and actions. Teach them to be assertive, not aggressive. Teach them how to walk away from a situation and get an adult if you are not there. Emphasize that physically hurting another child is unacceptable, even if they were hit or kicked. In a school setting, they should be told to tell their teacher or the playground supervisor if something happens that they do not know how to handle.
3) Focus on the positive and boost their self-esteem as much as possible.
This is especially important if your child has been called ?stupid, fat, ugly, lazy, etc.? Assure them that you know they are a wonderful kid and to you they are very special. Be genuine. Kids can see through insincerity. Tell them that other children can be mean because they don?t know any other way to act. As hard as it is, don?t agree with their assessment of Sally being a jerk, even if she is one. Tell them Sally doesn?t have very good manners and that you know they know better than to call someone a bad name.
4) Role play difficult situations with your child.
If you are having a hard time understanding exactly what happened to upset your child, ask them to act it out with you. Let them play the role of the bully and you are your child. Sometimes children have difficulty communicating a bad situation, but if you ask them to show you or tell you what happened by being the ?bad guy? you can understand better. Do it twice. Once acting like you know your child acted ? angry, upset, confused, etc. and once acting the way you want them to practice acting ? in control, using their words, asserting themselves, etc. Practice this technique often with your child, it helps and it works!
5) If all else fails, go to the school and voice your complaints.
If the problems are occurring at school, make an appointment to talk to the teacher. It is important for them to be in the loop if there is a recurring situation at school that is negatively impacting your child. They are an extra set of eyes and ears and they can monitor your child?s moods and ask your child if they are OK if they seem upset. The more the teacher knows about what is happening, the better. If problems still occur, take it a step further and meet with the principal.
6) Don?t allow your child to play with kids that are not good influences.
This is difficult when you don?t have control of your child during the school week. However, if you can, volunteer or visit the classroom and scope out the kids that seem sensitive to the needs of others. If you work full-time and just can?t make it to school, call the teacher and ask for her help in matching your child up with the good role models. Plan a play date for your child and be involved the entire time so you can supervise and direct your child appropriately, when needed. If your little one is attracted to the bullies or troublemakers, discourage them from playing with them. This phenomenon will happen. As much as these kids hurt or torment your kid, for some reason they represent power and some kids will be attracted to that group because they pay attention to your child in negative ways, which is better than getting no attention at all. Discourage this kind of interaction! It?s unhealthy and does not promote good self-esteem.
There is nothing more difficult than knowing your child is hurting emotionally. Physical pain is easy to fix and take care of; emotional pain is so much harder. Constant reassurance, positive reinforcement for a job well done and lots of hugs and love will help your child deal with criticism from others. Instill a strong sense of self-esteem and confidence by focusing on the wonderful things your child does every day. Play down their weaknesses. Recognize them and actively help your child to improve in productive ways. Keep your expectations realistic, though. If your child isn?t a born athlete, don?t make them play soccer or baseball just to be social, it will only exacerbate their insecurities. Every child has special talents and gifts. Hone in on them and help your child bloom. If they feel good inside, the hurtful situations and people they will encounter throughout their entire lives will not seem so terrible.
The Art And Science Of Teaching In The United States
Yeats, philosopher, once said, "Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of the fire" (www.quotations page.com). Teachers are the key to our children's future, they are the ones who will ignite their love for learning. Teaching contains two major concepts of learning, the arts and the science. The art is defined in the Encarta Encyclopedia as "the product of creative human activity in which material is shaped or selected to convey an idea, emotion, or visually interesting form." This describes exactly what a teacher does in a day, they create "human activity." While science is defined as, "a study of anything that can be examined, tested, or verified" (Encarta, 2003). The teacher is always studying the situation, examining what they can do, and verifying that their job has been complete. Teaching is an art and science that is learned and then developed through a teacher's learning style.
Albert Einstein once said, "Believe it or not, one of my deepest regrets [is that I didn't teach]. I regret this because I would have liked to have more contact with children. There has always been something about the innocence and freshness of young children that appeals to me and brings me great enjoyment to be with them. And they are so open to knowledge. I have never really found it difficult to explain basic laws of nature to children. When you reach them at their level, you can read in their eyes their genuine interest and appreciation" (Parkway, 2001, p. 5). Albert Einstein was a mastermind and knew that teaching children was the only way to open little minds to great wisdom. It takes a special kind of person, one who knew that teaching was the life, not career, that they wanted to lead. Teachers are required to do the "dance", a way of smoothly persuading the students to achieve greatness. This is the mentally, emotional, and physically preparation "dance", or motion, that develops the entire package of teaching the students how to learn. This is the ability to maneuver through lesson plans, teaching strategies, print-rich classroom environments, classroom management, discipline tactics, parental lack of support or to much support, and all the other encounters teachers learn to juggle. This is the art and science of teaching, the ability to multi-task all the above items and still manage to accomplish the goal of teaching the students.
Daniel Lipton, Educational Theorist, explains, "A love of learning, a love of inquiry, comes in many forms. In its carious manifestations we seem to reach beyond ourselves, to discover, create, and uncover. We invest ourselves in and engage ourselves with the world around us" (Lipton, 2000, 22). Teachers have made a commitment to their students, to the lasting learning process, and to the schools that they teach. This means that they are to find ways to teach their class everything that the students will need in their entire lifetime, not just the school year. Liston writes about the love of learning and teaching by stating:
"As teachers we share this love of learning with our students. To teach is to share publicly this love; it is to ask others to be drawn in by the same powers that lure and attract us; it is to try to get our students to see the grace and attraction that these "great things" have for us. In teaching we reach out toward our students in an attempt to create connections among them and our subjects. We want them to love what we find so alluring.
"As a teacher, you cannot settle for anything less than complete knowledge and dedication to your students. This requires an eagerness to teach the students to achieve far beyond their expectations of the classroom, a desire to stay educated. An example would be, that of a parent not letting their child leave the home without the proper sills and developments to live by themselves. Teachers do not want their "children" to go into life without the proper education" (Cain, 2001).
Liston writes, "Good teaching entails a kind of romantic love of the learning enterprise; it is motivated by and infuses other with a love of inquiry-if guided by an enlarged love, teaching can become an ongoing struggle that nourishes our students' and our own soul." (Liston, 2000, p. 81). Teaching is based on both a physical and emotional level, or "emotional and intellectual work." No matter what the age or grade level that is taught, teachers are effective through emotions and ideas on how to spark the students' interests in learning. When a teacher is successful in a lesson plan, it feels as though anything can be conquered. This is an affirmation that most professions will never achieve in their careers (Liston, 2000). Teachers have learned that their art of teaching is to shape and explore the needing minds of their students.
Frank Smith, a leading educational theorist, remarks, "The brutally simple motivation behind the development and imposition of all systematic instructional programs is a lack of trust that the teacher can teach and that the student can learn. To be effective, teachers must have flexibility to tailor their methods to the needs of individual students" (Perlich, 2000, pg. 1). This is the art and the science of teaching. The ability to put the trust back into the teacher and the students and to do it in a creative manner. Lesson planning is one of the ways that teachers can develop flexibility and tailor the needs of individual students. This is because the lesson plan is the core of the classroom stability and what will really make the student want to learn. There is a special art/style that a teacher must possess in order to accommodate to these classes. Lesson plans need to hold onto the child's interest and also to each student's learning style. The lesson should be well thought out and very well planned, on the teacher's behalf. Lesson plans should follow these simple rules:
1. Identify the special needs of each student through assessment and evaluation.
2. Choose a lesson based on the needs of the group and the experiences or lessons wanted to learn.
3. Make good decisions on how the book will be used in the class (Batzle, 1996).
Other questions a teacher might think of when developing lesson plans is is it interesting to the students and how long will it keep their attention. Learning should be fun and not something that gets moans and groans when talking about. Sesame Street is a great program for children to watch and this program is done in a manner that children, as young as 12 months, don't realize that they are learning. Melanie Roberts, Special Education Teacher, noticed that her 20 month old son could count to 20 without her help. Upon further investigation, she found that he had learned this from Sesame Street. He didn't even know he was learning because he was enjoying what he was doing (Roberts, 2003). This is how teacher's lessons should be, an unknown learning process. A way to do this is to always educate yourself and learn new strategies for teaching subjects.
For reading, a fun and educational lesson plan would be to have the students read or have the teacher read a favorite book. When the book is finished assess the students by shared writing or a writing workshop. An example would be reading the book, "Stone Soup". After having read the book, the students will then have the student make the story into a poster, create a new ending in groups, use a setting to create a postcard, or create a paper doll for each character and act out the book. The teacher can even have a special stone and make soup with the class after the lesson and assessment has been done. There are so many ways to have the students learn without realizing this.
Diane Perlich, leader for the California Literature Project, states, "Any way you look at it, children in our classroom will live in the future and it is our responsibility as educators to provide the learning environment in which they can be successfully prepared" (Perlich, 2000, p.1). A print rich environment is so important in developing a positive atmosphere that will provide learning in the classroom. With this aura developed by the teacher, the students will be able to openly express their thoughts and personality, breaching the door between a higher thought process and that child. This room will provide a place for the students to escape from any hardships they might encounter outside of the classroom and allow this place to be their "safe haven". A good example of how to make a classroom print-rich friendly is to have a moveable word wall. This is a giant piece of paper with the alphabet attached to it. When the students learn a new word, their spelling words, etc. the teacher attaches that word to the "Word Wall" under the appropriate letter. This will help with phonics, sight reading, and memorization of words. A literacy-rich environment would include, learning centers, colorful rugs, or grouped seating arrangements, Anything can make a classroom print-friendly, as long as the classroom will allow the students to feel important and comfortable when learning.
Lelia Christie Mullis, teacher of 20 years, writes, she encourages "students to reach back into their own memories and remember the fears, the embarrassment, and the joy of learning they felt." I hope they will give their students a liter positive environment, full of oral and written languages, which breeds joy more than any other emotion, That magical process we call learning can change lives forever (Perlich, 2000, p. 105). This is what teacher strive for, a place where learning is the center of each student's thinking. A teacher must be able to bring the information to the students in the way that she creatively thinks is effective. She must be able to establish positive relations with her students and their parents. She must create the lesson plans that she feels will be significant. The teacher must be the master of her room, allowing the atmosphere to reflect her teaching style. She must have complete control of her classroom and what happens inside of it. This is called education and, education is the art and science of teaching.
Albert Einstein once said, "Believe it or not, one of my deepest regrets [is that I didn't teach]. I regret this because I would have liked to have more contact with children. There has always been something about the innocence and freshness of young children that appeals to me and brings me great enjoyment to be with them. And they are so open to knowledge. I have never really found it difficult to explain basic laws of nature to children. When you reach them at their level, you can read in their eyes their genuine interest and appreciation" (Parkway, 2001, p. 5). Albert Einstein was a mastermind and knew that teaching children was the only way to open little minds to great wisdom. It takes a special kind of person, one who knew that teaching was the life, not career, that they wanted to lead. Teachers are required to do the "dance", a way of smoothly persuading the students to achieve greatness. This is the mentally, emotional, and physically preparation "dance", or motion, that develops the entire package of teaching the students how to learn. This is the ability to maneuver through lesson plans, teaching strategies, print-rich classroom environments, classroom management, discipline tactics, parental lack of support or to much support, and all the other encounters teachers learn to juggle. This is the art and science of teaching, the ability to multi-task all the above items and still manage to accomplish the goal of teaching the students.
Daniel Lipton, Educational Theorist, explains, "A love of learning, a love of inquiry, comes in many forms. In its carious manifestations we seem to reach beyond ourselves, to discover, create, and uncover. We invest ourselves in and engage ourselves with the world around us" (Lipton, 2000, 22). Teachers have made a commitment to their students, to the lasting learning process, and to the schools that they teach. This means that they are to find ways to teach their class everything that the students will need in their entire lifetime, not just the school year. Liston writes about the love of learning and teaching by stating:
"As teachers we share this love of learning with our students. To teach is to share publicly this love; it is to ask others to be drawn in by the same powers that lure and attract us; it is to try to get our students to see the grace and attraction that these "great things" have for us. In teaching we reach out toward our students in an attempt to create connections among them and our subjects. We want them to love what we find so alluring.
"As a teacher, you cannot settle for anything less than complete knowledge and dedication to your students. This requires an eagerness to teach the students to achieve far beyond their expectations of the classroom, a desire to stay educated. An example would be, that of a parent not letting their child leave the home without the proper sills and developments to live by themselves. Teachers do not want their "children" to go into life without the proper education" (Cain, 2001).
Liston writes, "Good teaching entails a kind of romantic love of the learning enterprise; it is motivated by and infuses other with a love of inquiry-if guided by an enlarged love, teaching can become an ongoing struggle that nourishes our students' and our own soul." (Liston, 2000, p. 81). Teaching is based on both a physical and emotional level, or "emotional and intellectual work." No matter what the age or grade level that is taught, teachers are effective through emotions and ideas on how to spark the students' interests in learning. When a teacher is successful in a lesson plan, it feels as though anything can be conquered. This is an affirmation that most professions will never achieve in their careers (Liston, 2000). Teachers have learned that their art of teaching is to shape and explore the needing minds of their students.
Frank Smith, a leading educational theorist, remarks, "The brutally simple motivation behind the development and imposition of all systematic instructional programs is a lack of trust that the teacher can teach and that the student can learn. To be effective, teachers must have flexibility to tailor their methods to the needs of individual students" (Perlich, 2000, pg. 1). This is the art and the science of teaching. The ability to put the trust back into the teacher and the students and to do it in a creative manner. Lesson planning is one of the ways that teachers can develop flexibility and tailor the needs of individual students. This is because the lesson plan is the core of the classroom stability and what will really make the student want to learn. There is a special art/style that a teacher must possess in order to accommodate to these classes. Lesson plans need to hold onto the child's interest and also to each student's learning style. The lesson should be well thought out and very well planned, on the teacher's behalf. Lesson plans should follow these simple rules:
1. Identify the special needs of each student through assessment and evaluation.
2. Choose a lesson based on the needs of the group and the experiences or lessons wanted to learn.
3. Make good decisions on how the book will be used in the class (Batzle, 1996).
Other questions a teacher might think of when developing lesson plans is is it interesting to the students and how long will it keep their attention. Learning should be fun and not something that gets moans and groans when talking about. Sesame Street is a great program for children to watch and this program is done in a manner that children, as young as 12 months, don't realize that they are learning. Melanie Roberts, Special Education Teacher, noticed that her 20 month old son could count to 20 without her help. Upon further investigation, she found that he had learned this from Sesame Street. He didn't even know he was learning because he was enjoying what he was doing (Roberts, 2003). This is how teacher's lessons should be, an unknown learning process. A way to do this is to always educate yourself and learn new strategies for teaching subjects.
For reading, a fun and educational lesson plan would be to have the students read or have the teacher read a favorite book. When the book is finished assess the students by shared writing or a writing workshop. An example would be reading the book, "Stone Soup". After having read the book, the students will then have the student make the story into a poster, create a new ending in groups, use a setting to create a postcard, or create a paper doll for each character and act out the book. The teacher can even have a special stone and make soup with the class after the lesson and assessment has been done. There are so many ways to have the students learn without realizing this.
Diane Perlich, leader for the California Literature Project, states, "Any way you look at it, children in our classroom will live in the future and it is our responsibility as educators to provide the learning environment in which they can be successfully prepared" (Perlich, 2000, p.1). A print rich environment is so important in developing a positive atmosphere that will provide learning in the classroom. With this aura developed by the teacher, the students will be able to openly express their thoughts and personality, breaching the door between a higher thought process and that child. This room will provide a place for the students to escape from any hardships they might encounter outside of the classroom and allow this place to be their "safe haven". A good example of how to make a classroom print-rich friendly is to have a moveable word wall. This is a giant piece of paper with the alphabet attached to it. When the students learn a new word, their spelling words, etc. the teacher attaches that word to the "Word Wall" under the appropriate letter. This will help with phonics, sight reading, and memorization of words. A literacy-rich environment would include, learning centers, colorful rugs, or grouped seating arrangements, Anything can make a classroom print-friendly, as long as the classroom will allow the students to feel important and comfortable when learning.
Lelia Christie Mullis, teacher of 20 years, writes, she encourages "students to reach back into their own memories and remember the fears, the embarrassment, and the joy of learning they felt." I hope they will give their students a liter positive environment, full of oral and written languages, which breeds joy more than any other emotion, That magical process we call learning can change lives forever (Perlich, 2000, p. 105). This is what teacher strive for, a place where learning is the center of each student's thinking. A teacher must be able to bring the information to the students in the way that she creatively thinks is effective. She must be able to establish positive relations with her students and their parents. She must create the lesson plans that she feels will be significant. The teacher must be the master of her room, allowing the atmosphere to reflect her teaching style. She must have complete control of her classroom and what happens inside of it. This is called education and, education is the art and science of teaching.
Why Can't Character Ed End Your Classroom Management Nightmares?
Character ed is becoming more and more popular in schools all over the U.S. But in our workshops around the country, more and more educators and counselors are complaining that character ed is not the solution for every youngster. They want to know what is wrong with character ed approaches.
First, let's make sure you know what character ed is. Character ed approaches attempt to use character-building to ensure or engender appropriate behavior. A character ed approach to bullying might require that the bully apologize and make amends to the victim of the bullying, for example. Character ed methods essentially use a single force to elicit satisfactory conduct. The logic is that by building character, conscience and moral values, students' behavior can be improved or maintained at a satisfactory level.
Unfortunately, human beings are not "uniform" creatures. Single-mode interventions of any type can be expected to fail with at least a portion of any group. Character ed is subject to this potential flaw just like any other style of student management. The education world does tend to move from trend to trend, and character ed may be the current one. This article will explain the biggest flaws and serious safety issues you may encounter if you use character ed, and will explain how to supplement character ed approaches to make them more effective with different types of youngsters. We'll also look at how to avoid the predictable safety issues that character ed methods can engender.
WHO DOES CHARACTER ED WORK WELL WITH? Ironically, character ed works best with the students who least need it. So, character ed can most impact youngsters who have a conscience, remorse and values. Obviously, youngsters who fit that description are not likely to be your worst bullies and agitators.
WHO DOES CHARACTER ED WORK WORST WITH? The sentence above may not be grammatically correct, but that is the least of your problems. Character ed works worst with students who lack a conscience, remorse and compassion. A whopping 11-15% of young people will fit this description. The mental health term that might be applied by a counselor to some of these youngsters is "conduct disorder," but the rather grim bottom line is that character ed is utterly ineffective with these students. You can can't successfully use conscience-based approaches with students who lack a conscience. These students will be your worst bullies and agitators yet character ed is virtually powerless to control them. These students are likely to be the source of many of your worst classroom and group management nightmares but character ed is utterly ineffective when used with them-- plus, safety concerns may be generated.
HOW CAN CHARACTER ED CAUSE SAFETY PROBLEMS? Safety problems can easily be created or worsened by using character ed methods with conduct disorders (children without a conscience). Here is an example: A conduct disordered child bullies another youngster. The bully is given classic character ed-style consequences such as being asked to apologize and make amends. Lacking relationship capacity, the child is unable to benefit from these relationship-based approaches, but it gets worse. Having been caught and required to make an apology may have angered or annoyed the bully, putting the victimized student at high risk of retribution.
ARE THERE OTHER SAFETY CONCERNS? Character ed approaches often involve helping the misbehaved child understand the harm he has done to his peer. If you help the bully "understand" how his behavior upset or saddened the victim-- which was his goal in the first place-- aren't you marking the victim for more torment? Bullies love a strong negative reaction from their victims, and character ed methods often highlight the victims' negative reaction. The effect is to place a "kick me more" sign on the back of the victim. Expect the bully's problem behavior towards the victim to increase. There are additional, important safety concerns that we cover in our workshops, books and ebooks (www.youthchg.com); we have covered just the most common concern here.
HOW CAN I SUPPLEMENT CHARACTER ED TO AVOID SAFETY PROBLEMS? It's easy to supplement character ed methods and eliminate the safety concerns. The most important step is to be sure all your staff are trained to know about conduct disorders. You must use a different set of interventions with conduct disorders. You can continue to use character ed methods with others if you are satisfied with the results that style of intervention delivers with some students.
HOW ELSE CAN I ENHANCE CHARACTER ED TO WORK BETTER? Character ed won't make up for a lack of skills, a bad attitude, or if students lack the motivation to improve their behavior. Add in those items, and watch the improvement. So, be sure to teach all the skills you want students to use, and cover everything from what to say to where do hands belong and not belong. Any behavior that you expect, you must teach. Without skills, students can not perform better no matter how much you build their character. Similarly, character ed usually doesn't make up for a bad attitude or poor motivation, so be sure to teach both of those. If you are thinking that no one knows how to teach students to have better attitudes and motivation, then you haven't been exposed to my terrific motivation-builders and bad attitude-busters. Great methods do exist. For example, check out a completely free sampler of great bad attitude-busters at www.youthchg.com/solvat.html so you can see that these tools do exist.
First, let's make sure you know what character ed is. Character ed approaches attempt to use character-building to ensure or engender appropriate behavior. A character ed approach to bullying might require that the bully apologize and make amends to the victim of the bullying, for example. Character ed methods essentially use a single force to elicit satisfactory conduct. The logic is that by building character, conscience and moral values, students' behavior can be improved or maintained at a satisfactory level.
Unfortunately, human beings are not "uniform" creatures. Single-mode interventions of any type can be expected to fail with at least a portion of any group. Character ed is subject to this potential flaw just like any other style of student management. The education world does tend to move from trend to trend, and character ed may be the current one. This article will explain the biggest flaws and serious safety issues you may encounter if you use character ed, and will explain how to supplement character ed approaches to make them more effective with different types of youngsters. We'll also look at how to avoid the predictable safety issues that character ed methods can engender.
WHO DOES CHARACTER ED WORK WELL WITH? Ironically, character ed works best with the students who least need it. So, character ed can most impact youngsters who have a conscience, remorse and values. Obviously, youngsters who fit that description are not likely to be your worst bullies and agitators.
WHO DOES CHARACTER ED WORK WORST WITH? The sentence above may not be grammatically correct, but that is the least of your problems. Character ed works worst with students who lack a conscience, remorse and compassion. A whopping 11-15% of young people will fit this description. The mental health term that might be applied by a counselor to some of these youngsters is "conduct disorder," but the rather grim bottom line is that character ed is utterly ineffective with these students. You can can't successfully use conscience-based approaches with students who lack a conscience. These students will be your worst bullies and agitators yet character ed is virtually powerless to control them. These students are likely to be the source of many of your worst classroom and group management nightmares but character ed is utterly ineffective when used with them-- plus, safety concerns may be generated.
HOW CAN CHARACTER ED CAUSE SAFETY PROBLEMS? Safety problems can easily be created or worsened by using character ed methods with conduct disorders (children without a conscience). Here is an example: A conduct disordered child bullies another youngster. The bully is given classic character ed-style consequences such as being asked to apologize and make amends. Lacking relationship capacity, the child is unable to benefit from these relationship-based approaches, but it gets worse. Having been caught and required to make an apology may have angered or annoyed the bully, putting the victimized student at high risk of retribution.
ARE THERE OTHER SAFETY CONCERNS? Character ed approaches often involve helping the misbehaved child understand the harm he has done to his peer. If you help the bully "understand" how his behavior upset or saddened the victim-- which was his goal in the first place-- aren't you marking the victim for more torment? Bullies love a strong negative reaction from their victims, and character ed methods often highlight the victims' negative reaction. The effect is to place a "kick me more" sign on the back of the victim. Expect the bully's problem behavior towards the victim to increase. There are additional, important safety concerns that we cover in our workshops, books and ebooks (www.youthchg.com); we have covered just the most common concern here.
HOW CAN I SUPPLEMENT CHARACTER ED TO AVOID SAFETY PROBLEMS? It's easy to supplement character ed methods and eliminate the safety concerns. The most important step is to be sure all your staff are trained to know about conduct disorders. You must use a different set of interventions with conduct disorders. You can continue to use character ed methods with others if you are satisfied with the results that style of intervention delivers with some students.
HOW ELSE CAN I ENHANCE CHARACTER ED TO WORK BETTER? Character ed won't make up for a lack of skills, a bad attitude, or if students lack the motivation to improve their behavior. Add in those items, and watch the improvement. So, be sure to teach all the skills you want students to use, and cover everything from what to say to where do hands belong and not belong. Any behavior that you expect, you must teach. Without skills, students can not perform better no matter how much you build their character. Similarly, character ed usually doesn't make up for a bad attitude or poor motivation, so be sure to teach both of those. If you are thinking that no one knows how to teach students to have better attitudes and motivation, then you haven't been exposed to my terrific motivation-builders and bad attitude-busters. Great methods do exist. For example, check out a completely free sampler of great bad attitude-busters at www.youthchg.com/solvat.html so you can see that these tools do exist.
A Special Education Success Story With ADD And ADHD
The Problem
In our rapidly moving culture, special education students, diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are an ever-increasing challenge for teachers. Having taught in some capacity for nearly 40 years and being a parent of an active little boy, I have studied these conditions with immediate personal interest.
Holding Their Attention
Early in my work with the attentionally challenged, I observed that if the learning activity were engaging enough, many of these students could hold attention for long periods. Special Education students diagnosed with ADD or ADHD often have the ability to attend for long periods working with computers or video games. I wondered, could the problem lie more in the pace of the learning activity?
Give Them What They Need
Subsequently, I began to provide activities in my classroom that had some of the same qualities of the immediate response achieved in those computerized attention-holders. One of the most successful of these was the excavation of fossils.
The Setup
Fossil excavation was a 6-week class - more of a club, really ? in which students excavated a real fossil fish from a soft rock matrix. This time the class was made up of many special education students with various learning challenges, especially ADHD. The outcome of the class was remarkable.
Getting Their Interest and Attention
We started with a sort of guessing game involving fossils hidden in velvet bags and moved quickly into individual excavation of the fossils. Within minutes, my work was done; the students worked independently for the remainder of the two-hour class. My hardest work that day was to enforce clean-up-the students simply didn?t? t want to stop working.
Tools And Supplies
The only tools needed for this activity were small screw drivers-the sort that are available from any hardware store in a set of increasing sizes beginning with an eye-glass tool . I also provided magnifiers of varying types. The most sought after were the dissecting microscopes, which gave the individual the best view of the fragile fossil. However, much of the work could be easily accomplished using the naked eye or a magnifier in a stand, just to leave the hands free.
And Then There Are the Behavioral Challenges
I was presented with a new challenge about halfway into the second class: a behaviorally disruptive student who had been removed from another class. I did what I could to introduce him to our work and bring him up to speed. His initial work was little more than digging a hole through his rock, paying little attention to the fossil it contained.
Success!
Then a wonderful thing happened. Another boy, a challenging special education student who generally had little academic success, began to teach. You see, this boy was enthralled with digging out the fossil and he was having incredible success. He single-handedly took over and my work was done.
In our rapidly moving culture, special education students, diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are an ever-increasing challenge for teachers. Having taught in some capacity for nearly 40 years and being a parent of an active little boy, I have studied these conditions with immediate personal interest.
Holding Their Attention
Early in my work with the attentionally challenged, I observed that if the learning activity were engaging enough, many of these students could hold attention for long periods. Special Education students diagnosed with ADD or ADHD often have the ability to attend for long periods working with computers or video games. I wondered, could the problem lie more in the pace of the learning activity?
Give Them What They Need
Subsequently, I began to provide activities in my classroom that had some of the same qualities of the immediate response achieved in those computerized attention-holders. One of the most successful of these was the excavation of fossils.
The Setup
Fossil excavation was a 6-week class - more of a club, really ? in which students excavated a real fossil fish from a soft rock matrix. This time the class was made up of many special education students with various learning challenges, especially ADHD. The outcome of the class was remarkable.
Getting Their Interest and Attention
We started with a sort of guessing game involving fossils hidden in velvet bags and moved quickly into individual excavation of the fossils. Within minutes, my work was done; the students worked independently for the remainder of the two-hour class. My hardest work that day was to enforce clean-up-the students simply didn?t? t want to stop working.
Tools And Supplies
The only tools needed for this activity were small screw drivers-the sort that are available from any hardware store in a set of increasing sizes beginning with an eye-glass tool . I also provided magnifiers of varying types. The most sought after were the dissecting microscopes, which gave the individual the best view of the fragile fossil. However, much of the work could be easily accomplished using the naked eye or a magnifier in a stand, just to leave the hands free.
And Then There Are the Behavioral Challenges
I was presented with a new challenge about halfway into the second class: a behaviorally disruptive student who had been removed from another class. I did what I could to introduce him to our work and bring him up to speed. His initial work was little more than digging a hole through his rock, paying little attention to the fossil it contained.
Success!
Then a wonderful thing happened. Another boy, a challenging special education student who generally had little academic success, began to teach. You see, this boy was enthralled with digging out the fossil and he was having incredible success. He single-handedly took over and my work was done.
Help! My Classroom Is Out Of Control! How To Control The Uncontrollable Classroom Now
"They're yelling." "They're disrespectful." "They're rude." "They're inattentive." "They're off task." "They're side-talking." Does that describe your class or group? If it does, you're not alone. Those are the nonstop complaints we've been hearing at our workshops and at Live Expert Help on our web site. The classroom management issues are serious, frequent and dominant, but we're here to help.
Here's the answer to the misbehavior. You have to teach the behaviors before you can expect them. This does not mean restating the expectations. This means that you actually teach the specific skills that you want to see in your classroom or group room. This means that you teach each aspect of the target behavior, just as you must teach all elements of spelling or riding a bike, in order to ensure mastery. So, you have to teach all the skills for acting in a respectful manner, talking one at a time, hand raising, focusing, and so on.
Although we won't include any here, be sure that you use lots of our popular motivation-makers so your youngsters value your site and service. (There is a sampling of our dynamic motivation-makers on our site at www.youthchg.com/nws3moti.html) The more students value your service, the more their behavior will reflect that. Similarly, the less they value your service, the more their behavior will reflect that too.
Here are some ways to teach "mouth control", but don't forget to cover all the other behaviors that youth and children need to act acceptably in your setting:
Give Me Five
This is a fun intervention for younger students. Have the child give you a "high five" slap while saying: "High Five! 2 ears listening. 2 eyes watching. 1 mouth shut."
Do the Wave
This is an incredibly fun intervention that doesn't come alive at all in writing; you simply have to give it a try to appreciate how wonderful it is. This intervention can be used with any age group. Raise your hand, then teach your group to fall silent while rhythmically clapping to this beat: 1-2, 1-2-3 (two slow claps and then three fast.) Most classes quickly learn to instantly transform from rowdy to silent. The effect of the sudden clapping is similar to a crowd doing the wave at a basketball game. Allow students to take turns performing the job of raising a hand to initiate the clapping. You end up with a very quiet room-- with no work required on your part to achieve it.
The Mouth Goes Shut
This device is fun with any age group, and it's quick and simple. You simply raise your hand and teach your class: "When the hand goes up, the mouth goes shut." If you wish, a student can perform the raising the hand part of this intervention for you.
Dragnet Helps
This device generates instant quiet. Sing the theme of the TV show, Dragnet: dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun. Teach students to be quiet in time to sing the last note with you. (The entire tune: dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun, dun!)
Classroom Behavior Barometer
Craft a barometer out of poster board and show green, yellow and red areas on the barometer. Label the green area as "Go," the yellow as "Caution," and the red as "Stop." Affix a moveable pointer and move it as necessary to alert the class to how well they are controlling their verbal behavior. You may use a traffic light signal instead of a barometer, if you prefer.
How Often to Talk
This intervention is so simple, yet so often overlooked. Ideally, every teacher or counselor would offer this help to their group at first contact. Kids do not magically know how often to talk during your class or group. Some talk nonstop while others never speak at all. Have your class establish a recommended number of times to talk per hour. You can even create a chart to show each group member how they are doing. But it's important to remember that you must give specific, quantifiable goals to students prior to expecting them to conform. Without a specific number, many children will be unable to discern what is a "reasonable number of times to talk." If you have problems with talk-outs, test out this suggestion. You may be very surprised.
The Talk Thing
Younger children, youth with ADHD, and many other populations, can have trouble maintaining proper "mouth control." If you don't like to require hand raising, or you have found it ineffective, then consider using a "talk thing." "What's that?" you wonder. A talk thing is any item that you designate, but prior to talking, the youngster must be holding the talk thing. You can use a tennis ball, a pen, or any item that your group selects. You are simply substituting external structure for that lack of internal control. Many youngsters find the talk thing to be silly and fun, and may comply more readily. For youth who impulsively speak out a lot, the talk thing can provide brake
Here's the answer to the misbehavior. You have to teach the behaviors before you can expect them. This does not mean restating the expectations. This means that you actually teach the specific skills that you want to see in your classroom or group room. This means that you teach each aspect of the target behavior, just as you must teach all elements of spelling or riding a bike, in order to ensure mastery. So, you have to teach all the skills for acting in a respectful manner, talking one at a time, hand raising, focusing, and so on.
Although we won't include any here, be sure that you use lots of our popular motivation-makers so your youngsters value your site and service. (There is a sampling of our dynamic motivation-makers on our site at www.youthchg.com/nws3moti.html) The more students value your service, the more their behavior will reflect that. Similarly, the less they value your service, the more their behavior will reflect that too.
Here are some ways to teach "mouth control", but don't forget to cover all the other behaviors that youth and children need to act acceptably in your setting:
Give Me Five
This is a fun intervention for younger students. Have the child give you a "high five" slap while saying: "High Five! 2 ears listening. 2 eyes watching. 1 mouth shut."
Do the Wave
This is an incredibly fun intervention that doesn't come alive at all in writing; you simply have to give it a try to appreciate how wonderful it is. This intervention can be used with any age group. Raise your hand, then teach your group to fall silent while rhythmically clapping to this beat: 1-2, 1-2-3 (two slow claps and then three fast.) Most classes quickly learn to instantly transform from rowdy to silent. The effect of the sudden clapping is similar to a crowd doing the wave at a basketball game. Allow students to take turns performing the job of raising a hand to initiate the clapping. You end up with a very quiet room-- with no work required on your part to achieve it.
The Mouth Goes Shut
This device is fun with any age group, and it's quick and simple. You simply raise your hand and teach your class: "When the hand goes up, the mouth goes shut." If you wish, a student can perform the raising the hand part of this intervention for you.
Dragnet Helps
This device generates instant quiet. Sing the theme of the TV show, Dragnet: dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun. Teach students to be quiet in time to sing the last note with you. (The entire tune: dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun, dun!)
Classroom Behavior Barometer
Craft a barometer out of poster board and show green, yellow and red areas on the barometer. Label the green area as "Go," the yellow as "Caution," and the red as "Stop." Affix a moveable pointer and move it as necessary to alert the class to how well they are controlling their verbal behavior. You may use a traffic light signal instead of a barometer, if you prefer.
How Often to Talk
This intervention is so simple, yet so often overlooked. Ideally, every teacher or counselor would offer this help to their group at first contact. Kids do not magically know how often to talk during your class or group. Some talk nonstop while others never speak at all. Have your class establish a recommended number of times to talk per hour. You can even create a chart to show each group member how they are doing. But it's important to remember that you must give specific, quantifiable goals to students prior to expecting them to conform. Without a specific number, many children will be unable to discern what is a "reasonable number of times to talk." If you have problems with talk-outs, test out this suggestion. You may be very surprised.
The Talk Thing
Younger children, youth with ADHD, and many other populations, can have trouble maintaining proper "mouth control." If you don't like to require hand raising, or you have found it ineffective, then consider using a "talk thing." "What's that?" you wonder. A talk thing is any item that you designate, but prior to talking, the youngster must be holding the talk thing. You can use a tennis ball, a pen, or any item that your group selects. You are simply substituting external structure for that lack of internal control. Many youngsters find the talk thing to be silly and fun, and may comply more readily. For youth who impulsively speak out a lot, the talk thing can provide brake
Conduct Disordered, Oppositional Defiant, Violent, Disruptive Students: Must-know Safety Information You May Not Have
There are three types of kids who may be at the highest risk of extreme violence. Obviously, you must take seriously any threat or indication of danger from any kid, so if a dangerous child you know doesn't fit one of these categories, please don't just breathe a sigh of relief. Rather, the point of emphasizing these three top-risk youth, is to have you apportion your time wisely. You can't monitor each child equally. This information may guide you on who you monitor most closely, especially in the absence of other events or information to guide you.
In this space, we will have time to cover only one of these youth in any kind of detail. We will cover the second two kids in a subsequent article. But, we understand you may want to know all that right now, so if you want to learn more immediately about any of these three youth, go to our web site to http://www.youthchg.com/hottopic.html and read a reprint of the full article that this text is excerpted from. Our information on the 3 most violent kids was first published by The Child Welfare Report in 1998, and is updated and revised here.
The youth at highest risk of extreme violence may be the conduct disordered child. If you don't already know this term, visualize the fictional character, J.R. from the TV show "Dallas" because the hallmark of being a conduct disorder (c.d.), is having no heart, no conscience, no remorse. Only a mental health professional can diagnose a conduct disorder for sure, but being aware that you may have a conduct disordered child in your class or group, is important to ensuring your safety, along with the safety of your kids, because you work with conduct disorders completely differently than other kids. Since the c.d. child has little relationship capacity, you should not use relationship-based approaches with a diagnosed conduct disorder.
It would be insensitive to call a conduct disorder a "baby sociopath," but that is close to what the term means. It means that the child acts in ways that appear to be seriously anti-social, and the concern is that the child may grow up to be a sociopathic type of person. Since this child cares only about himself (c.d.'s are predominately male), there are little brakes on this child from serious or extreme violence. Not every conduct disordered child will engage in horrific behavior. There is a range of misbehavior c.d.'s may get involved with, ranging from lying to setting fires or being a sexual predator. At the most serious end of the spectrum, lies the possibility of extreme violence, such as a school shooting.
In this space, we will have time to cover only one of these youth in any kind of detail. We will cover the second two kids in a subsequent article. But, we understand you may want to know all that right now, so if you want to learn more immediately about any of these three youth, go to our web site to http://www.youthchg.com/hottopic.html and read a reprint of the full article that this text is excerpted from. Our information on the 3 most violent kids was first published by The Child Welfare Report in 1998, and is updated and revised here.
The youth at highest risk of extreme violence may be the conduct disordered child. If you don't already know this term, visualize the fictional character, J.R. from the TV show "Dallas" because the hallmark of being a conduct disorder (c.d.), is having no heart, no conscience, no remorse. Only a mental health professional can diagnose a conduct disorder for sure, but being aware that you may have a conduct disordered child in your class or group, is important to ensuring your safety, along with the safety of your kids, because you work with conduct disorders completely differently than other kids. Since the c.d. child has little relationship capacity, you should not use relationship-based approaches with a diagnosed conduct disorder.
It would be insensitive to call a conduct disorder a "baby sociopath," but that is close to what the term means. It means that the child acts in ways that appear to be seriously anti-social, and the concern is that the child may grow up to be a sociopathic type of person. Since this child cares only about himself (c.d.'s are predominately male), there are little brakes on this child from serious or extreme violence. Not every conduct disordered child will engage in horrific behavior. There is a range of misbehavior c.d.'s may get involved with, ranging from lying to setting fires or being a sexual predator. At the most serious end of the spectrum, lies the possibility of extreme violence, such as a school shooting.
Learning Math With Manipulatives - Base Ten Blocks (Part I)
Base ten blocks are an excellent tool for teaching children the concept of addition because they allow children to touch and manipulate something real while learning important skills that translate well into paper and pencil addition. In this article, I will describe base ten blocks and how to use them to represent and add numbers.
The numbering system that children learn and the one most of us are familiar with is the base ten system. This essentially means that you can only use ten unique digits (0 to 9) in each place of a base ten number. For instance, in the number 345, there is a hundreds place, a tens place and a ones place. The only possible digits that could go in each place are the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. In this example, the place value of the ones place is 5.
Base ten blocks turn the base ten concept into something children can see and touch.
Base ten blocks consist of cubes, rods, flats, and blocks. Cubes represent the ones place and look exactly like their name suggests - a small cube usually one centimeter by one centimeter by one centimeter. Rods represent the tens place and look like ten cubes placed in a row and fused together. Flats, as you might have guessed, represent hundreds, and blocks represent thousands. A flat looks like one hundred cubes place in a 10 x 10 square and attached together. A block looks like ten flats piled one on top of the other and bonded together.
In order to use base ten blocks to add numbers, students should be familiar with how to represent numbers using base ten blocks. To see what base ten blocks look like, and to try them out, go to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives:
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_154_g_1_t_1.html
To represent a number using base ten blocks, make piles of base ten blocks to represent each place value. If your number was 2,784, you would make a pile of 2 blocks, a pile of 7 flats, a pile of 8 rods, and a pile of 4 cubes. It is useful to arrange the piles in a row in the same order that they appear in the number as that will be useful later on when children learn the paper and pencil algorithm.
Another useful skill to practice is trading base ten blocks. Each block can be traded for 10 flats, each flat for 10 rods, and each rod for 10 cubes. Going the other way, 10 cubes can be traded for one rod, 10 rods for one flat, and 10 flats for one block.
One simple use of base ten blocks that translates well to a paper and pencil method of addition is to add by regrouping. To add two or more numbers, start by representing each number with base ten blocks. Put all of the cubes from both numbers in the same pile; do this with the rods, flats, and blocks as well. Next, trade any groups of 10 cubes for a rod. Trade any groups of 10 rods for a flat; then trade any groups of 10 flats for a block. To read the resulting number, count the number of base ten blocks left in each pile and read the number.
To illustrate this procedure, picture the addition question, 568 + 693. After representing both numbers with base ten blocks and combining the piles of like base ten blocks, you should have a pile of 11 cubes, a pile of 15 rods, and a pile of 11 flats. Trading 10 of the cubes for 1 rod means you now have 1 cube, 16 rods and 11 flats. Trading 10 of the rods for one flat results in 1 cube, 6 rods, and 12 flats. Trading 10 of the flats for one block gives you your final piles of 1 cube, 6 rods, 2 flats, and 1 block. The answer to the addition question, therefore, is 1,261.
The numbering system that children learn and the one most of us are familiar with is the base ten system. This essentially means that you can only use ten unique digits (0 to 9) in each place of a base ten number. For instance, in the number 345, there is a hundreds place, a tens place and a ones place. The only possible digits that could go in each place are the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. In this example, the place value of the ones place is 5.
Base ten blocks turn the base ten concept into something children can see and touch.
Base ten blocks consist of cubes, rods, flats, and blocks. Cubes represent the ones place and look exactly like their name suggests - a small cube usually one centimeter by one centimeter by one centimeter. Rods represent the tens place and look like ten cubes placed in a row and fused together. Flats, as you might have guessed, represent hundreds, and blocks represent thousands. A flat looks like one hundred cubes place in a 10 x 10 square and attached together. A block looks like ten flats piled one on top of the other and bonded together.
In order to use base ten blocks to add numbers, students should be familiar with how to represent numbers using base ten blocks. To see what base ten blocks look like, and to try them out, go to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives:
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_154_g_1_t_1.html
To represent a number using base ten blocks, make piles of base ten blocks to represent each place value. If your number was 2,784, you would make a pile of 2 blocks, a pile of 7 flats, a pile of 8 rods, and a pile of 4 cubes. It is useful to arrange the piles in a row in the same order that they appear in the number as that will be useful later on when children learn the paper and pencil algorithm.
Another useful skill to practice is trading base ten blocks. Each block can be traded for 10 flats, each flat for 10 rods, and each rod for 10 cubes. Going the other way, 10 cubes can be traded for one rod, 10 rods for one flat, and 10 flats for one block.
One simple use of base ten blocks that translates well to a paper and pencil method of addition is to add by regrouping. To add two or more numbers, start by representing each number with base ten blocks. Put all of the cubes from both numbers in the same pile; do this with the rods, flats, and blocks as well. Next, trade any groups of 10 cubes for a rod. Trade any groups of 10 rods for a flat; then trade any groups of 10 flats for a block. To read the resulting number, count the number of base ten blocks left in each pile and read the number.
To illustrate this procedure, picture the addition question, 568 + 693. After representing both numbers with base ten blocks and combining the piles of like base ten blocks, you should have a pile of 11 cubes, a pile of 15 rods, and a pile of 11 flats. Trading 10 of the cubes for 1 rod means you now have 1 cube, 16 rods and 11 flats. Trading 10 of the rods for one flat results in 1 cube, 6 rods, and 12 flats. Trading 10 of the flats for one block gives you your final piles of 1 cube, 6 rods, 2 flats, and 1 block. The answer to the addition question, therefore, is 1,261.
Latin Lives On--333 Common Words Identical in Latin and English
"Latin Lives On" is news you can use in English, Latin and History classes: every day your students use words that have remained entirely unchanged for 2000 years...
Almost 15 years ago I was riding the New York subway and chanced to read a sign about rapid transit. It struck me that this word transit must be pure Latin, that is, unchanged in a single letter in 20 centuries. Nero wrote this word, and spoke it! I was astonished. Were there other such survivors? Yes, and one by one they came to mind, exit, ego, verbatim, stratum, bonus, alias, minutia, victor. All pure Latin. Or more precisely, pure Latin-English.
But how could all this be such a shock? I had studied Latin for three years in high school and almost entered a Latin course at Princeton, where I majored in English literature. I had certainly heard endlessly about origins, etymologies, derivations, and roots. I had heard a hundred times that English is profoundly indebted to Latin.
But here's the rub, etymologies and derivations are abstractions, and dry ones. To say that a word derives from Latin or Chinese or Arabic is interesting but not gripping. To say that you're speaking a word unchanged in 2,000 years is gripping. I'm sure this situation is unique in the worlds' history. There are, I suspect, few if any French words identical to Latin ones, even though the etymological debt may be greater. So it seems that by some marvel of perversity my books and teachers had harped on origins without ever declaring one of the most arresting facts of our culture, that we daily use words that Cicero used.
I was, of course, aware of the legal phrases and the occasional italicized Latin word. (If a word is italicized, or should be, it is ipso facto not English.) But my emphasis here is on common English words, the profoundly ordinary words that do not announce their heritage. Words like editor, pelvis, opera, humor, labor . . . .
Reasoning ad hominem. I suspected that a majority of people have had a similar experience. Informal research confirms this. I have over the years asked dozens of people these three questions, Did you take Latin? If so, do you know whether there are any words that are the same letter for letter in both Latin and English? And if you think so, can you give an example?
The answers can be simple summarized. Roughly half of the people who took Latin state flatly that there are no such identicals. These people, by the way, quickly add that there are, of course, thousands of cognates and derivative and linguistic descendants and so on and on. "You know," they say, "like manufacture and homicide." Then they look proud of themselves, confident in their ignorance. What's even more intriguing is that the other half, the people who assert confidently that there surely are such words, can virtually never think of even one!
How can all this be?
There is Latin on sundials and Latin on coins and Latin on doorways and Latin on college rings, and all of these occurrences are interesting. But the most interesting Latin of all is most definitely the Latin on our lips.
Would you not think that Latin teachers (and English teachers as well) would be eager to capitalize on these amazing survivors from a long-ago culture? Yes, if you reflect on it for a minute, you would think that. But they generally do not.
Something there is in the pedagogical mind, it seems to me, that does not like to consort too intimately with the immediate, the known, the obvious, the vulgar slant on things. If salt and pepper will illustrate a point in chemistry, you can be reasonably sure that the chemistry text will speak in dispassionate tones of copper sulfate. And something there is in every textbook that is poisonously concerned with seeming professorial in the worst sense versus going for the students' hearts or, better still, guts.
In short, the epiphany that started out with the word transit has led me to a whole world of insight, insight into how education should and should not be conducted. I have been thinking obsessively about my own education, and the thing that strikes me over and over is how teachers and courses so often conspired to avoid mentioning the stupendously relevant, the breathtakingly fascinating, or the unforgettably immediate. Let me offer as Exhibit A the accompanying list of 333 common words that are letter-for-letter the same in Latin and English!
I hope that this list of glorious survivors will be used widely (and xeroxed ad infinitum) to help excite beginning Latin students and to make Latin seem easier to learn and more vital to all our lives.
It probably goes without saying that the meaning of the words or the pronunciation or the part of speech (or all three) may have shifted over the centuries. But the changes and differences are themselves fascinating and instructive. What the Romans meant when they said bonus and alias, and what we mean, can provide an interesting story and a visceral way to remember a word and its full historic freight.
My list was stopped, somewhat arbitrarily, at 333, mainly because I liked the symmetry of the number. Naturally, every Latin scholar will think of words that might have been included. Indeed, the list could be pushed to 350 or even 400 (or, with lots of medical terminology, to 500 or 600). But you quickly reach more and more obscure words, which defeats my purpose. The power of this list does not come from its comprehensiveness, but from the ordinariness of the words. The power comes from being able to say to a high school class, "You already know these words." Omissions, therefore, are not of moment. What's important is that Latin (and English) teachers can use this list to increase the efficiency of their classes. Simply declare, as dramatically as possible, "Isn't this amazing?" Here are all these words you already know and "guess what?" Caesar wrote these same words! Nero spoke at least a few of them while Rome was burning. The early Christians, awaiting the lions, used these words in their prayers."
This list, simply by being, tells us all 'viscerally and unforgettably' that Latin lives on. In our minds. In our thoughts. In our sentences. In our lives.
Almost 15 years ago I was riding the New York subway and chanced to read a sign about rapid transit. It struck me that this word transit must be pure Latin, that is, unchanged in a single letter in 20 centuries. Nero wrote this word, and spoke it! I was astonished. Were there other such survivors? Yes, and one by one they came to mind, exit, ego, verbatim, stratum, bonus, alias, minutia, victor. All pure Latin. Or more precisely, pure Latin-English.
But how could all this be such a shock? I had studied Latin for three years in high school and almost entered a Latin course at Princeton, where I majored in English literature. I had certainly heard endlessly about origins, etymologies, derivations, and roots. I had heard a hundred times that English is profoundly indebted to Latin.
But here's the rub, etymologies and derivations are abstractions, and dry ones. To say that a word derives from Latin or Chinese or Arabic is interesting but not gripping. To say that you're speaking a word unchanged in 2,000 years is gripping. I'm sure this situation is unique in the worlds' history. There are, I suspect, few if any French words identical to Latin ones, even though the etymological debt may be greater. So it seems that by some marvel of perversity my books and teachers had harped on origins without ever declaring one of the most arresting facts of our culture, that we daily use words that Cicero used.
I was, of course, aware of the legal phrases and the occasional italicized Latin word. (If a word is italicized, or should be, it is ipso facto not English.) But my emphasis here is on common English words, the profoundly ordinary words that do not announce their heritage. Words like editor, pelvis, opera, humor, labor . . . .
Reasoning ad hominem. I suspected that a majority of people have had a similar experience. Informal research confirms this. I have over the years asked dozens of people these three questions, Did you take Latin? If so, do you know whether there are any words that are the same letter for letter in both Latin and English? And if you think so, can you give an example?
The answers can be simple summarized. Roughly half of the people who took Latin state flatly that there are no such identicals. These people, by the way, quickly add that there are, of course, thousands of cognates and derivative and linguistic descendants and so on and on. "You know," they say, "like manufacture and homicide." Then they look proud of themselves, confident in their ignorance. What's even more intriguing is that the other half, the people who assert confidently that there surely are such words, can virtually never think of even one!
How can all this be?
There is Latin on sundials and Latin on coins and Latin on doorways and Latin on college rings, and all of these occurrences are interesting. But the most interesting Latin of all is most definitely the Latin on our lips.
Would you not think that Latin teachers (and English teachers as well) would be eager to capitalize on these amazing survivors from a long-ago culture? Yes, if you reflect on it for a minute, you would think that. But they generally do not.
Something there is in the pedagogical mind, it seems to me, that does not like to consort too intimately with the immediate, the known, the obvious, the vulgar slant on things. If salt and pepper will illustrate a point in chemistry, you can be reasonably sure that the chemistry text will speak in dispassionate tones of copper sulfate. And something there is in every textbook that is poisonously concerned with seeming professorial in the worst sense versus going for the students' hearts or, better still, guts.
In short, the epiphany that started out with the word transit has led me to a whole world of insight, insight into how education should and should not be conducted. I have been thinking obsessively about my own education, and the thing that strikes me over and over is how teachers and courses so often conspired to avoid mentioning the stupendously relevant, the breathtakingly fascinating, or the unforgettably immediate. Let me offer as Exhibit A the accompanying list of 333 common words that are letter-for-letter the same in Latin and English!
I hope that this list of glorious survivors will be used widely (and xeroxed ad infinitum) to help excite beginning Latin students and to make Latin seem easier to learn and more vital to all our lives.
It probably goes without saying that the meaning of the words or the pronunciation or the part of speech (or all three) may have shifted over the centuries. But the changes and differences are themselves fascinating and instructive. What the Romans meant when they said bonus and alias, and what we mean, can provide an interesting story and a visceral way to remember a word and its full historic freight.
My list was stopped, somewhat arbitrarily, at 333, mainly because I liked the symmetry of the number. Naturally, every Latin scholar will think of words that might have been included. Indeed, the list could be pushed to 350 or even 400 (or, with lots of medical terminology, to 500 or 600). But you quickly reach more and more obscure words, which defeats my purpose. The power of this list does not come from its comprehensiveness, but from the ordinariness of the words. The power comes from being able to say to a high school class, "You already know these words." Omissions, therefore, are not of moment. What's important is that Latin (and English) teachers can use this list to increase the efficiency of their classes. Simply declare, as dramatically as possible, "Isn't this amazing?" Here are all these words you already know and "guess what?" Caesar wrote these same words! Nero spoke at least a few of them while Rome was burning. The early Christians, awaiting the lions, used these words in their prayers."
This list, simply by being, tells us all 'viscerally and unforgettably' that Latin lives on. In our minds. In our thoughts. In our sentences. In our lives.
Learning Math With Manipulatives - Base Ten Blocks (Part II)
In part one of this article, you read about representing and adding numbers using base ten blocks. Once these two skills are mastered, it is time to move onto many a child's nightmare: subtraction. Subtraction, as you may have heard, is essentially addition in reverse. It can be an arduous task on paper, but it can be quite easy with base ten blocks.
Recall that there are four different base ten blocks: cubes (ones), rods (tens), flats (hundreds), and blocks (thousands). Groups of ten base ten blocks can be regrouped or traded for equivalent amounts of other base ten blocks; for instance, ten cubes can be traded for one rod because both are worth ten. For subtraction, it is useful to know how to trade down rods, flats, and blocks. Trading down means converting larger place value blocks into smaller place value blocks. For instance, one flat can be traded for ten rods since they are both worth 100.
Before describing the subtraction procedure, let's go over some vocabulary . . .
Minuend - The amount from which you are subtracting.
Subtrahend - The amount that you are subtracting.
Difference - The answer.
In the equation, 234 - 187 = 47, the minuend is 234, the subtrahend is 187, and the difference is 47. Most people don't bother with the terms minuend and subtrahend, but they are useful in describing the subtraction procedure using base ten blocks.
To begin, represent the minuend with base ten blocks. Try to keep the blocks in order from largest to smallest as this will help to transfer knowledge and skills to paper and pencil methods later on. Remove from the minuend piles, enough blocks to represent the subtrahend. If there aren't enough blocks available, trade some of the larger place value blocks until there are enough smaller place value blocks to remove. The resulting piles after the subtrahend is removed represents the difference.
In the example, begin by representing 234 with 2 flats, 3 rods, and 4 cubes. The goal is to remove 187 or 1 flat, 8 rods, and 7 cubes from these piles. Removing one flat is simple enough, but 8 rods and 7 cubes are difficult to remove if there are only 3 rods and 4 cubes! To solve this problem, trade in one flat for 10 rods, and one rod for 10 cubes. The result would be 1 flat, 12 rods, and 14 cubes. Removing the subtrahend - 1 flat, 8 rods, and 7 cubes - at this point would leave no flats, 4 rods, and 7 cubes. The difference is whatever is left after removing the subtrahend, so the difference is 47.
For beginners, it would be wise to start with subtraction that does not require trading. For example 1954 - 1831 would require no trading because there are enough blocks in the minuend to remove the subtrahend. For more advanced students, questions that include zeros can present a bit of a challenge. For example, 4000 - 3657 would require several trading steps all starting with four blocks. Math-Drills.com has several thousand free math worksheets including subtraction questions with no regrouping (trading). One of the nice features of this website is that answer keys are provided, so students can get feedback on their results.
With enough experience, students learn subtraction on a conceptual level and are better equipped to apply it to pencil and paper methods later on. Students who only learn the paper and pencil method don't always develop a conceptual understanding of subtraction and are less able to identify errors in their work.
Recall that there are four different base ten blocks: cubes (ones), rods (tens), flats (hundreds), and blocks (thousands). Groups of ten base ten blocks can be regrouped or traded for equivalent amounts of other base ten blocks; for instance, ten cubes can be traded for one rod because both are worth ten. For subtraction, it is useful to know how to trade down rods, flats, and blocks. Trading down means converting larger place value blocks into smaller place value blocks. For instance, one flat can be traded for ten rods since they are both worth 100.
Before describing the subtraction procedure, let's go over some vocabulary . . .
Minuend - The amount from which you are subtracting.
Subtrahend - The amount that you are subtracting.
Difference - The answer.
In the equation, 234 - 187 = 47, the minuend is 234, the subtrahend is 187, and the difference is 47. Most people don't bother with the terms minuend and subtrahend, but they are useful in describing the subtraction procedure using base ten blocks.
To begin, represent the minuend with base ten blocks. Try to keep the blocks in order from largest to smallest as this will help to transfer knowledge and skills to paper and pencil methods later on. Remove from the minuend piles, enough blocks to represent the subtrahend. If there aren't enough blocks available, trade some of the larger place value blocks until there are enough smaller place value blocks to remove. The resulting piles after the subtrahend is removed represents the difference.
In the example, begin by representing 234 with 2 flats, 3 rods, and 4 cubes. The goal is to remove 187 or 1 flat, 8 rods, and 7 cubes from these piles. Removing one flat is simple enough, but 8 rods and 7 cubes are difficult to remove if there are only 3 rods and 4 cubes! To solve this problem, trade in one flat for 10 rods, and one rod for 10 cubes. The result would be 1 flat, 12 rods, and 14 cubes. Removing the subtrahend - 1 flat, 8 rods, and 7 cubes - at this point would leave no flats, 4 rods, and 7 cubes. The difference is whatever is left after removing the subtrahend, so the difference is 47.
For beginners, it would be wise to start with subtraction that does not require trading. For example 1954 - 1831 would require no trading because there are enough blocks in the minuend to remove the subtrahend. For more advanced students, questions that include zeros can present a bit of a challenge. For example, 4000 - 3657 would require several trading steps all starting with four blocks. Math-Drills.com has several thousand free math worksheets including subtraction questions with no regrouping (trading). One of the nice features of this website is that answer keys are provided, so students can get feedback on their results.
With enough experience, students learn subtraction on a conceptual level and are better equipped to apply it to pencil and paper methods later on. Students who only learn the paper and pencil method don't always develop a conceptual understanding of subtraction and are less able to identify errors in their work.
Literacy Improvement Co-ordinator Required; Must be Able to Read
This is an interesting letter that I wrote as part of the requirements of a Reading Specialist course. If you aren't familiar with Ontario curriculum, a level three is given to a student who is meeting the expectations; a level four is given to a student who is exceeding the expectations. The letter describes the characteristics of an ideal candidate for a literacy improvement co-ordinator position.
I.M. Needed
Box "Read By Grade 3"
Where All Children Read and Write, Ontario
T3C 2R4 (Teach 3 Children to Read 4life)
Canada
Desperate Lee C. King
4 Better Results, Levels 3 and 4
Can't Do It Alone, Ontario
L4N 3G2 (Level 4's Needed, 3's Good Too)
Canada
Dear Mr. King,
Please accept this letter in application for the position of "Literacy Improvement Co-Ordinator" at the Needs Improvement Elementary School. I meet the requirements necessary for the position: Ontario College of Teachers Certificate of Qualification and The Reading Specialist Certificate. If selected, I would bring a vision for creating a school where all children read and write.
Improvement requires a special kind of leadership. It is leadership that makes everyone want a part in effecting change. One of the main characteristics of an effective leader is that they have vision. I think that my vision has the potential to motivate, to initiate, and to validate improvements in the way literacy is delivered at Needs Improvement Elementary School. All staff need to share in the leadership to improve literacy. Collaboration is key. There must be an environment that supports staff in their individual and group improvement efforts. This is the kind of leadership that I can provide.
Teachers need support to deliver effective literacy programs that cause all students to read and write. I have a broad knowledge of the materials necessary for the implementation of a comprehensive and balanced literacy program at all grade levels. In addition, I have experience in creating an environment, free of distraction, full of instruction, where all children read and write. Furthermore, I have a solid theoretical and practical knowledge of the strategies necessary to improve scores on the Provincial Assessments. I have read many resources regarding this assessment, participated in Provincial Assessment results improvement efforts, and implemented improvement plans in split classrooms.
As Richard L. Allington and Patricia M. Cunningham put it in their book, Schools That Work: Where All Children Read and Write, "Good schools are collections of good teachers." I have demonstrated through my own experience just how profound this statement is. By spending over 400 hours learning about literacy through additional qualification courses, workshops, and other training, I was able to significantly improve classrooms in which I taught. This naturally led other teachers to be curious about my strategies, inspired them to change their teaching practices, and in some cases, led them to pursue professional development opportunities. This resulted in an improved school. Staff development needs to be encouraged, promoted, supported, and accessible.
The final aspect of literacy improvement involves the school improvement planning process. As the Literacy Improvement Co-Ordinator, I would welcome the opportunity to provide my expertise in the planning and implementation processes. I feel it is important to communicate improvement plans to the school community, celebrate successes on a regular basis, and continually revisit, assess and revise the improvement plan. I have a great familiarity with the School Improvement Planning process and have been involved in several successful school improvement planning efforts.
I.M. Needed
Box "Read By Grade 3"
Where All Children Read and Write, Ontario
T3C 2R4 (Teach 3 Children to Read 4life)
Canada
Desperate Lee C. King
4 Better Results, Levels 3 and 4
Can't Do It Alone, Ontario
L4N 3G2 (Level 4's Needed, 3's Good Too)
Canada
Dear Mr. King,
Please accept this letter in application for the position of "Literacy Improvement Co-Ordinator" at the Needs Improvement Elementary School. I meet the requirements necessary for the position: Ontario College of Teachers Certificate of Qualification and The Reading Specialist Certificate. If selected, I would bring a vision for creating a school where all children read and write.
Improvement requires a special kind of leadership. It is leadership that makes everyone want a part in effecting change. One of the main characteristics of an effective leader is that they have vision. I think that my vision has the potential to motivate, to initiate, and to validate improvements in the way literacy is delivered at Needs Improvement Elementary School. All staff need to share in the leadership to improve literacy. Collaboration is key. There must be an environment that supports staff in their individual and group improvement efforts. This is the kind of leadership that I can provide.
Teachers need support to deliver effective literacy programs that cause all students to read and write. I have a broad knowledge of the materials necessary for the implementation of a comprehensive and balanced literacy program at all grade levels. In addition, I have experience in creating an environment, free of distraction, full of instruction, where all children read and write. Furthermore, I have a solid theoretical and practical knowledge of the strategies necessary to improve scores on the Provincial Assessments. I have read many resources regarding this assessment, participated in Provincial Assessment results improvement efforts, and implemented improvement plans in split classrooms.
As Richard L. Allington and Patricia M. Cunningham put it in their book, Schools That Work: Where All Children Read and Write, "Good schools are collections of good teachers." I have demonstrated through my own experience just how profound this statement is. By spending over 400 hours learning about literacy through additional qualification courses, workshops, and other training, I was able to significantly improve classrooms in which I taught. This naturally led other teachers to be curious about my strategies, inspired them to change their teaching practices, and in some cases, led them to pursue professional development opportunities. This resulted in an improved school. Staff development needs to be encouraged, promoted, supported, and accessible.
The final aspect of literacy improvement involves the school improvement planning process. As the Literacy Improvement Co-Ordinator, I would welcome the opportunity to provide my expertise in the planning and implementation processes. I feel it is important to communicate improvement plans to the school community, celebrate successes on a regular basis, and continually revisit, assess and revise the improvement plan. I have a great familiarity with the School Improvement Planning process and have been involved in several successful school improvement planning efforts.
Flexible Estimation in Math
Adults use rounding and estimation in their everyday lives. They approximate the temperature, the cost of items, the time, and even their age. Consider this conversation:
"How much did it cost to fix your car?"
"Six hundred bucks!"
Without any words such as: about, approximately, around, roughly, or nearly, it can be assumed that the second person rounded the actual cost. Before they had their car fixed, they probably received an estimated cost of the repair from the shop. Adults experience rounding and estimation skills in their daily lives. Children need to learn these important skills partly because they often hear estimation and use estimation, but more importantly, it helps to solidify math learning by teaching them the idea of reasonableness.
Even though rounding and estimating are related, there is a significant difference. Rounding involves converting a known number into a number that is easier to use. Estimation is an educated guess of what a number should be without knowing the actual number. In the conversation above, it is unlikely that the second person remembered the actual price of the bill; they likely rounded the number at the time, so they could better remember it.
Children usually learn rounding as an explicit skill, often with the purpose of estimating the answers to math questions. They commonly use estimation to check the reasonableness of an answer by either estimating ahead of time or after they have completed the question. Students run into difficulty when estimating because they don't have the intuitive sense that adults do to break the rules.
For the uninitiated, the idea of rounding is fairly simple - decide where to round the number (e.g. the hundreds place), either keep the digit at the rounding place the same or round it up, and replace the digits to the right with zeros. The decision to keep the digit the same or to round it up is based on everything that comes after the digit. If it is less than half, the digit remains the same; if it is greater than half, the digit is increased by one; if it is exactly half, the digit remains the same if it is even and increases by one if it is odd. For example, to round 638 to the nearest hundred, you would base your decision on the "38" portion of the number. Since it is less than half (50), the digit in the hundreds place remains the same, and the 38 is changed to zeros, so the rounded number is 600. If the question is to round 7500 to the nearest thousand, you would round up to 8000. 8500 also rounds to 8000, but 8501 rounds to 9000. Hopefully, this illustrates that rounding follows a strict set of rules that often cause difficulties for children in estimation.
To give you an idea of how following the rounding rules can be problematic in estimation, consider the question 7359 divided by 82. The first difficulty is deciding what place to round to. Let's say that the student decides to round to the nearest hundred in the first number and the nearest ten in the second number, thus the question is now 7400 divided by 80. At this point some students might resort to a calculator, others to long division, and others might stare confusedly at their paper. An adult with more intuitive sense might look at the numbers and recognize that if she rounded 7359 to 7200, it would be fairly simple to divide by 80 (because 72 divided by 8 is easy).
Many people develop an ability to estimate both by following the rules and by breaking the rules of rounding. Many children need to be taught these skills, so there is a genuine purpose to their estimation rather than just another question to answer. Estimation should be thought of as a tool to quickly determine whether an answer is reasonable or not. One way of teaching estimation for this purpose is by allowing students to break the rounding rules and find an easy question that they can do in their head. In the question 3564 - 2801, rounding to the nearest hundred results in 3600 - 2800, but 3700 - 2700 is much easier to handle, and it is not so far off the real answer. If the purpose of estimating was to get as close to the real answer as possible, you might as well use a calculator to check your answer instead.
"How much did it cost to fix your car?"
"Six hundred bucks!"
Without any words such as: about, approximately, around, roughly, or nearly, it can be assumed that the second person rounded the actual cost. Before they had their car fixed, they probably received an estimated cost of the repair from the shop. Adults experience rounding and estimation skills in their daily lives. Children need to learn these important skills partly because they often hear estimation and use estimation, but more importantly, it helps to solidify math learning by teaching them the idea of reasonableness.
Even though rounding and estimating are related, there is a significant difference. Rounding involves converting a known number into a number that is easier to use. Estimation is an educated guess of what a number should be without knowing the actual number. In the conversation above, it is unlikely that the second person remembered the actual price of the bill; they likely rounded the number at the time, so they could better remember it.
Children usually learn rounding as an explicit skill, often with the purpose of estimating the answers to math questions. They commonly use estimation to check the reasonableness of an answer by either estimating ahead of time or after they have completed the question. Students run into difficulty when estimating because they don't have the intuitive sense that adults do to break the rules.
For the uninitiated, the idea of rounding is fairly simple - decide where to round the number (e.g. the hundreds place), either keep the digit at the rounding place the same or round it up, and replace the digits to the right with zeros. The decision to keep the digit the same or to round it up is based on everything that comes after the digit. If it is less than half, the digit remains the same; if it is greater than half, the digit is increased by one; if it is exactly half, the digit remains the same if it is even and increases by one if it is odd. For example, to round 638 to the nearest hundred, you would base your decision on the "38" portion of the number. Since it is less than half (50), the digit in the hundreds place remains the same, and the 38 is changed to zeros, so the rounded number is 600. If the question is to round 7500 to the nearest thousand, you would round up to 8000. 8500 also rounds to 8000, but 8501 rounds to 9000. Hopefully, this illustrates that rounding follows a strict set of rules that often cause difficulties for children in estimation.
To give you an idea of how following the rounding rules can be problematic in estimation, consider the question 7359 divided by 82. The first difficulty is deciding what place to round to. Let's say that the student decides to round to the nearest hundred in the first number and the nearest ten in the second number, thus the question is now 7400 divided by 80. At this point some students might resort to a calculator, others to long division, and others might stare confusedly at their paper. An adult with more intuitive sense might look at the numbers and recognize that if she rounded 7359 to 7200, it would be fairly simple to divide by 80 (because 72 divided by 8 is easy).
Many people develop an ability to estimate both by following the rules and by breaking the rules of rounding. Many children need to be taught these skills, so there is a genuine purpose to their estimation rather than just another question to answer. Estimation should be thought of as a tool to quickly determine whether an answer is reasonable or not. One way of teaching estimation for this purpose is by allowing students to break the rounding rules and find an easy question that they can do in their head. In the question 3564 - 2801, rounding to the nearest hundred results in 3600 - 2800, but 3700 - 2700 is much easier to handle, and it is not so far off the real answer. If the purpose of estimating was to get as close to the real answer as possible, you might as well use a calculator to check your answer instead.
Can You Draw a Perfect Hexagon?
It may not sound like a difficult task, but constructing hexagons and other polygons can be a frustrating and daunting task for children and adults. A sketch of a square is fairly simple to make as the corners are familiar right angles that most people have no trouble creating. Every other regular polygon from equilateral triangles to dodecagons and beyond can be a challenge without a highly developed ability to recognize and construct a variety of angles. Thankfully, there is a slick technique for constructing all sorts of regular polygons based on the fact that all regular polygons fit neatly inside of a circle.
For the uninitiated, a regular polygon is a closed figure with equal length sides and equal angles. A pentagon with three centimetre sides and 108 degree angles is a regular pentagon. Regular polygons are the figures that are most commonly used to represent each family of polygons.
To experience the most success with this method, it is recommended that you use a full circle protractor. A half circle protractor will work just fine except the procedure changes slightly. The basic procedure for the full circle protractor is to place the protractor on a piece of paper, make a bunch of dots, and join the dots. The trick is dividing the 360 degrees of the circle by the number of vertices in the regular polygon, and making dots at the resulting interval. In a hexagon, for example, there are six vertices, so divide 360 degrees by six to get sixty degrees. Starting at zero degrees, make a mark every sixty degrees around the full circle protractor; there will be dots at 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 degrees. Join the dots, and voila; you have a perfect regular hexagon. With a half circle protractor, it is necessary to establish a center point first, so when you rotate the protractor to complete the dots on the other side, it can be lined up properly with the zero point and the center point.
The really nice thing about using a 360 degree circle to construct regular polygons is that it works for all of the regular polygons that one would encounter in an elementary or primary school. This is because 360 is divisible by 24 different numbers including 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 12. To construct an equilateral triangle, for example, first divide 360 by three to get 120. Make dots at 0, 120, and 240, join the dots, and enjoy a perfectly drawn equilateral triangle. Squares are constructed by marking dots at 90 degree intervals, pentagons at 72 degree intervals, octagons at 45 degree intervals, nonagons at 40 degree intervals, decagons at 36 degree intervals, and dodecagons at 30 degree intervals. "But what about a heptagon?" you may ask. Even numbers that don't divide evenly into 360 can be approximated using this method. For example, a heptagon (seven sided polygon) can be approximated quite well using 51 degree intervals. It will be hard to tell with the naked eye that you were one or two degrees off.
One limitation of this method is that there is only one size of circle available, so all of the polygons come out quite large. With a little ingenuity, this limitation can be overcome. One simple solution is to cut out a circle of paper and place it on top of the round protractor. Any paper circle smaller than the round protractor can be used. Make the dots around the edge of the paper circle lining them up with the scale on the protractor. The paper circle becomes an intermediate protractor that can be used just as the regular protractor, but it will make a smaller polygon.
Another limitation is that your students might not be at the point where they can divide or find multiples of large numbers. In this case, you could tell your students at which numbers to make the dots, or create paper protractors with just the intervals marked on them for each polygon.
This is the quickest and most efficient method I have seen for constructing regular polygons. It takes little time to teach and little time to learn, and it makes the construction of regular polygons a simple and painless activity for students. And if you need a bit of a challenge, try the 180 sided polygon with two degree intervals. I'll bet you never guessed you could make one of those so easily!
For the uninitiated, a regular polygon is a closed figure with equal length sides and equal angles. A pentagon with three centimetre sides and 108 degree angles is a regular pentagon. Regular polygons are the figures that are most commonly used to represent each family of polygons.
To experience the most success with this method, it is recommended that you use a full circle protractor. A half circle protractor will work just fine except the procedure changes slightly. The basic procedure for the full circle protractor is to place the protractor on a piece of paper, make a bunch of dots, and join the dots. The trick is dividing the 360 degrees of the circle by the number of vertices in the regular polygon, and making dots at the resulting interval. In a hexagon, for example, there are six vertices, so divide 360 degrees by six to get sixty degrees. Starting at zero degrees, make a mark every sixty degrees around the full circle protractor; there will be dots at 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 degrees. Join the dots, and voila; you have a perfect regular hexagon. With a half circle protractor, it is necessary to establish a center point first, so when you rotate the protractor to complete the dots on the other side, it can be lined up properly with the zero point and the center point.
The really nice thing about using a 360 degree circle to construct regular polygons is that it works for all of the regular polygons that one would encounter in an elementary or primary school. This is because 360 is divisible by 24 different numbers including 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 12. To construct an equilateral triangle, for example, first divide 360 by three to get 120. Make dots at 0, 120, and 240, join the dots, and enjoy a perfectly drawn equilateral triangle. Squares are constructed by marking dots at 90 degree intervals, pentagons at 72 degree intervals, octagons at 45 degree intervals, nonagons at 40 degree intervals, decagons at 36 degree intervals, and dodecagons at 30 degree intervals. "But what about a heptagon?" you may ask. Even numbers that don't divide evenly into 360 can be approximated using this method. For example, a heptagon (seven sided polygon) can be approximated quite well using 51 degree intervals. It will be hard to tell with the naked eye that you were one or two degrees off.
One limitation of this method is that there is only one size of circle available, so all of the polygons come out quite large. With a little ingenuity, this limitation can be overcome. One simple solution is to cut out a circle of paper and place it on top of the round protractor. Any paper circle smaller than the round protractor can be used. Make the dots around the edge of the paper circle lining them up with the scale on the protractor. The paper circle becomes an intermediate protractor that can be used just as the regular protractor, but it will make a smaller polygon.
Another limitation is that your students might not be at the point where they can divide or find multiples of large numbers. In this case, you could tell your students at which numbers to make the dots, or create paper protractors with just the intervals marked on them for each polygon.
This is the quickest and most efficient method I have seen for constructing regular polygons. It takes little time to teach and little time to learn, and it makes the construction of regular polygons a simple and painless activity for students. And if you need a bit of a challenge, try the 180 sided polygon with two degree intervals. I'll bet you never guessed you could make one of those so easily!
Adding From Left to Right--A Better Way to Add
More than likely, when you learned how to add, you started on the right and moved to the left. If you were adding whole numbers, you added the ones, "carried" if necessary, and repeated for the tens, hundreds and so on. This works well on paper, and it is the most efficient paper and pencil method; however, adding in the other direction has several desirable advantages: the left to right method promotes a better understanding of place value, it can be done mentally with much greater ease, and it does not require that numbers be lined up in a column. Students can learn left to right addition, so they have another method to choose from when presented with addition problems.
Left to right addition involves adding the largest place values first. As you move from left to right, you keep a cumulative total, so it is simply a number of smaller addition problems. To give you an idea of how it works and what it sounds like, consider the example, 677 + 938.
Begin by adding the left most place values. In the example this is 600 plus 900 equals 1500. Add the values in the next place, one at a time, to the previous sum, and keep track of the new sum each time. In the example, 1500 + 70 is 1570, 1570 + 30 is 1600. For students who are more proficient at this algorithm, they don't necessarily think "plus 70" or "add 30." Their thought process, if said out loud might sound like, "600, 1500, 1570, 1600, . . ." Continue adding the values in each subsequent place until finished. The final steps in the example are 1600 + 7 is 1607, 1607 plus 8 is 1615. The sum is 1615.
As you can imagine, students need to be proficient at single digit addition and have an understanding of place value before attempting left to right addition. When they are first learning it, they might try repeating sums as they go along (e.g. 1500, 1570, 1570, 1570, 1600, . . .) to help them retain the newest sums. They might also cross out digits as they are adding. There is no rule about having to add in this way mentally. Students could write down the sums as they proceed.
Left to right addition promotes a better understanding of place value than right to left addition. In right to left addition, single digits are carried or regrouped with little emphasis placed on what the value of those carried digits are. In the example, 1246 + 586, students add 6 + 6 to get 12; they write down the 2 and carry the 1 when they should be carrying the ten. In the next step, they add 8 + 4 + 1 to get 13; they write down the 3 and carry the 1 when they should be adding 80 + 40 + 10, writing the 3 in the tens place (i.e. 30) and carrying the hundred. Essentially, right to left addition excludes vocabulary related to place value. Left to right addition, on the other hand, promotes an understanding of place value as each digit is given its correct value. In the example, the one in the thousands place is one thousand, the two in the hundreds place is two hundred, and so on.
Left to right addition is well-suited to mental addition since the sum is cumulative with no steps in between; in other words, there is nothing for the student to keep in mind except for the cumulative sum. In right to left addition, several numbers must be remembered as the student proceeds. To illustrate this, consider the simple example, 64 + 88. In left to right addition, the sum is simple to find: 60, 140, 144, 152. Only one number had to be remembered at any point. In right to left addition, 4 + 8 is 12, so there are already two numbers to remember: the two in the ones place and the regrouped ten. The next step is to add 60 + 80 + 10 to get 150. At this point, the two must be recalled and added to the 150 to get 152. Although this sounds simple, it becomes more complicated with more digits.
Right to left addition does not require numbers to be lined up in a column, but it is often taught that way because the method tends to ignore place value and relies on a student's ability to line up the place values to compensate. Many errors that students make in right to left addition occur because they don't have a strong knowledge of place value, and they forget or don't realize that like place values need to be lined up. They might, for instance, add a digit in the tens place to a digit in the hundreds place. Another scenario is a sloppy recording of numbers where a digit is mistakenly added to the wrong column. In left to right addition, the emphasis is on finding a certain place value in each number rather than relying on the place values being aligned. Students, of course, need to be able to recognize place value before they can be successful at this method. For instance, they should be able to recognize that the ones in the numbers: 514, 1499, and 321 are in the tens, thousands, and ones places respectively. If they can't, further teaching on place value is required before addition can be taught effectively.
Left to right addition involves adding the largest place values first. As you move from left to right, you keep a cumulative total, so it is simply a number of smaller addition problems. To give you an idea of how it works and what it sounds like, consider the example, 677 + 938.
Begin by adding the left most place values. In the example this is 600 plus 900 equals 1500. Add the values in the next place, one at a time, to the previous sum, and keep track of the new sum each time. In the example, 1500 + 70 is 1570, 1570 + 30 is 1600. For students who are more proficient at this algorithm, they don't necessarily think "plus 70" or "add 30." Their thought process, if said out loud might sound like, "600, 1500, 1570, 1600, . . ." Continue adding the values in each subsequent place until finished. The final steps in the example are 1600 + 7 is 1607, 1607 plus 8 is 1615. The sum is 1615.
As you can imagine, students need to be proficient at single digit addition and have an understanding of place value before attempting left to right addition. When they are first learning it, they might try repeating sums as they go along (e.g. 1500, 1570, 1570, 1570, 1600, . . .) to help them retain the newest sums. They might also cross out digits as they are adding. There is no rule about having to add in this way mentally. Students could write down the sums as they proceed.
Left to right addition promotes a better understanding of place value than right to left addition. In right to left addition, single digits are carried or regrouped with little emphasis placed on what the value of those carried digits are. In the example, 1246 + 586, students add 6 + 6 to get 12; they write down the 2 and carry the 1 when they should be carrying the ten. In the next step, they add 8 + 4 + 1 to get 13; they write down the 3 and carry the 1 when they should be adding 80 + 40 + 10, writing the 3 in the tens place (i.e. 30) and carrying the hundred. Essentially, right to left addition excludes vocabulary related to place value. Left to right addition, on the other hand, promotes an understanding of place value as each digit is given its correct value. In the example, the one in the thousands place is one thousand, the two in the hundreds place is two hundred, and so on.
Left to right addition is well-suited to mental addition since the sum is cumulative with no steps in between; in other words, there is nothing for the student to keep in mind except for the cumulative sum. In right to left addition, several numbers must be remembered as the student proceeds. To illustrate this, consider the simple example, 64 + 88. In left to right addition, the sum is simple to find: 60, 140, 144, 152. Only one number had to be remembered at any point. In right to left addition, 4 + 8 is 12, so there are already two numbers to remember: the two in the ones place and the regrouped ten. The next step is to add 60 + 80 + 10 to get 150. At this point, the two must be recalled and added to the 150 to get 152. Although this sounds simple, it becomes more complicated with more digits.
Right to left addition does not require numbers to be lined up in a column, but it is often taught that way because the method tends to ignore place value and relies on a student's ability to line up the place values to compensate. Many errors that students make in right to left addition occur because they don't have a strong knowledge of place value, and they forget or don't realize that like place values need to be lined up. They might, for instance, add a digit in the tens place to a digit in the hundreds place. Another scenario is a sloppy recording of numbers where a digit is mistakenly added to the wrong column. In left to right addition, the emphasis is on finding a certain place value in each number rather than relying on the place values being aligned. Students, of course, need to be able to recognize place value before they can be successful at this method. For instance, they should be able to recognize that the ones in the numbers: 514, 1499, and 321 are in the tens, thousands, and ones places respectively. If they can't, further teaching on place value is required before addition can be taught effectively.
Learning Math With Manipulatives - Base Ten Blocks (Part III)
In the first two parts, representing, adding, and subtracting numbers using base ten blocks were explained. The use of base ten blocks gives students an effective tool that they can touch and manipulate to solve math questions. Not only are base ten blocks effective at solving math questions, they teach students important steps and skills that translate directly into paper and pencil methods of solving math questions. Students who first use base ten blocks develop a stronger conceptual understanding of place value, addition, subtraction, and other math skills. Because of their benefit to the math development of young people, educators have looked for other applications involving base ten blocks. In this article, a variety of other applications will be explained.
Multiplying One- and Two-Digit Numbers
One common way of teaching multiplication is to create a rectangle where the two factors become the two dimensions of a rectangle. This is easily accomplished using graph paper. Imagine the question 7 x 6. Students colour or shade a rectangle seven squares wide and six squares long; then they count the number of squares in their rectangle to find the product of 7 x 6. With base ten blocks, the process is essentially the same except students are able to touch and manipulate real objects which many educators say has a greater effect on a student's ability to understand the concept. In the example, 5 x 8, students create a rectangle 5 cubes wide by 8 cubes long, and they count the number of cubes in the rectangle to find the product.
Multiplying two-digit numbers is slightly more complicated, but it can be learned fairly quickly. If both factors in the multiplication question are two-digit numbers, the flats, the rods, and the cubes might all be used. In the case of two-digit multiplication, the flats and the rods just quicken the procedure; the multiplication could be accomplished with just cubes. The procedure is the same as for one-digit multiplication - the student creates a rectangle using the two factors as the dimensions of the rectangle. Once they have built the rectangle, they count the number of units in the rectangle to find the product. Consider the multiplication, 54 x 25. The student needs to create a rectangle 54 cubes wide by 25 cubes long. Since that might take a while, the student can use a shortcut. A flat is simply 100 cubes, and a rod is simply 10 cubes, so the student builds the rectangle filling in the large areas with flats and rods. In its most efficient form, the rectangle for 54 x 25 is 5 flats and four rods in width (the rods are arranged vertically), and 2 flats and five rods in length (with the rods arranged horizontally). The rectangle is filled in with flats, rods, and cubes. In the whole rectangle, there are 10 flats, 33 rods, and 20 cubes. Using the values for each base ten block, there is a total of (10 x 100) + (33 x 10) + (20 x 1) = 1350 cubes in the rectangle. Students can count each type of base ten block separately and add them up.
Division
Base ten blocks are so flexible, they can even be used to divide! There are three methods for division that I will describe: grouping, distributing, and modified multiplying.
To divide by grouping, first represent the dividend (the number you are dividing) with base ten blocks. Arrange the base ten blocks into groups the size of the divisor. Count the number of groups to find the quotient. For example, 348 divided by 58 is represented by 3 flats, 4 rods, and 8 cubes. To arrange 348 into groups of 58, trade the flats for rods, and some of the rods for cubes. The result is six piles of 58, so the quotient is six.
Dividing by distributing is the old "one for you and one for me" trick. Distribute the dividend into the same number of piles as the divisor. At the end, count how many piles are left. Students will probably pick up the analogy of sharing quite easily - i.e. We need to give everyone an equal number of base ten blocks. To illustrate, consider 192 divided by 8. Students represent 192 with one flat, 9 rods and 2 cubes. They can distribute the rods into eight groups easily, but the flat has to be traded for rods, and some rods for cubes to accomplish the distribution. In the end, they should find that there are 24 units in each pile, so the quotient is 24.
To multiply, students create a rectangle using the two factors as the length and width. In division, the size of the rectangle and one of the factors is known. Students begin by building one dimension of the rectangle using the divisor. They continue to build the rectangle until they reach the desired dividend. The resulting length (the other dimension) is the quotient. If a student is asked to solve 1369 divided by 37, they begin by laying down three rods and seven cubes to create one dimension of the rectangle. Next, they lay down another 37, continuing the rectangle, and check to see if they have the required 1369 yet. Students who have experience with estimating might begin by laying down three flats and seven rods in a row (rods vertically arranged) since they know that the quotient is going to be larger than ten. As students continue, they may recognize that they can replace groups of ten rods with a flat to make counting easier. They continue until the desired dividend is reached. In this example, students find the quotient is 37.
Changing the Values of Base Ten Blocks
Up until now, the value of the cube has been one unit. For older students, there is no reason why the cube couldn't represent one tenth, one hundredth, or one million. If the value of the cube is redefined, the other base ten blocks, of course, have to follow. For example, redefining the cube as one tenth means the rod represents one, the flat represents ten, and the block represents one hundred. This redefinition is useful for a decimal question such as 54.2 + 27.6. A common way to redefine base ten blocks is to make the cube one thousandth. This makes the rod one hundredth, the flat one tenth, and the block one whole. Besides the traditional definition, this one makes the most sense, since a block can be divided into 1000 cubes, so it follows logically that one cube is one thousandth of the cube.
Representing and Working With Large Numbers
Numbers don't stop at 9,999 which is the maximum you can represent with a traditional set of base ten blocks. Fortunately, base ten blocks come in a variety of colors. In math, the ones, tens, and hundreds are called a period. The thousands, ten thousands, and hundred thousands are another period. The millions, ten millions and hundred millions are the third period. This continues where every three place values is called a period. You may have figured out by now that each period can be represented by a different colour of place value block. If you do this, you eliminate the large blocks and just use the cubes, rods, and flats. Let us say that we have three sets of base ten blocks in yellow, green, and blue. We'll call the yellow base ten blocks the first period (ones, tens, hundreds), the green blocks the second period, and the blue blocks the third period. To represent the number, 56,784,325, use 5 blue rods, 6 blue cubes, 7 green flats, 8 green rods, 4 green cubes, 3 yellow flats, 2 yellow rods, and 5 yellow cubes. When adding and subtracting, trading is accomplished by recognizing that 10 yellow flats can be traded for one green cube, 10 green flats can be traded for one blue cube, and vice-versa.
Integers
Base ten blocks can be used to add and subtract integers. To accomplish this, two colours of base ten blocks are required - one colour for negative numbers and one colour for positive numbers. The zero principle states that an equal number of negatives and an equal number of positives add up to zero. To add using base ten blocks, represent both numbers using base ten blocks, apply the zero principle and read the result. For example (-51) + (+42) could be represented with 5 red rods, 1 red cube, 4 blue rods, and 2 blue cubes. Immediately, the student applies the zero principle to four red and four blue rods and one red and one blue cube. To finish the problem, they trade the remaining red rod for 10 red cubes and apply the zero principle to the remaining blue cube and one of the red cubes. The end result is (-9).
Subtracting means taking away. For instance, (-5) - (-2) is represented by taking two red cubes from a pile of five red cubes. If you can't take away, the zero principle can be applied in reverse. You can't take away six blue cubes in (-7) - (+6) because there aren't six blue cubes. Since a blue cube and a red cube is just zero, and adding zero to a number doesn't change it, simply include six blue cubes and six red cubes with the pile of seven red cubes. When six blue cubes are taken from the pile, 13 red cubes remain, so the answer to (-7) - (+6) is (-13). This procedure can, of course, be applied to larger numbers, and the process might involve trading.
Other Uses
By no means have I explained all of the uses of base ten blocks, but I have covered most of the major uses. The rest is up to your imagination. Can you think of a use for base ten blocks when teaching powers of ten? How about using base ten blocks for fractions? So many math skills can be learned using base ten blocks simply because they represent our numbering system - the base ten system. Base ten blocks are just one of many excellent manipulatives available to teachers and parents that give students a strong conceptual background in math.
Multiplying One- and Two-Digit Numbers
One common way of teaching multiplication is to create a rectangle where the two factors become the two dimensions of a rectangle. This is easily accomplished using graph paper. Imagine the question 7 x 6. Students colour or shade a rectangle seven squares wide and six squares long; then they count the number of squares in their rectangle to find the product of 7 x 6. With base ten blocks, the process is essentially the same except students are able to touch and manipulate real objects which many educators say has a greater effect on a student's ability to understand the concept. In the example, 5 x 8, students create a rectangle 5 cubes wide by 8 cubes long, and they count the number of cubes in the rectangle to find the product.
Multiplying two-digit numbers is slightly more complicated, but it can be learned fairly quickly. If both factors in the multiplication question are two-digit numbers, the flats, the rods, and the cubes might all be used. In the case of two-digit multiplication, the flats and the rods just quicken the procedure; the multiplication could be accomplished with just cubes. The procedure is the same as for one-digit multiplication - the student creates a rectangle using the two factors as the dimensions of the rectangle. Once they have built the rectangle, they count the number of units in the rectangle to find the product. Consider the multiplication, 54 x 25. The student needs to create a rectangle 54 cubes wide by 25 cubes long. Since that might take a while, the student can use a shortcut. A flat is simply 100 cubes, and a rod is simply 10 cubes, so the student builds the rectangle filling in the large areas with flats and rods. In its most efficient form, the rectangle for 54 x 25 is 5 flats and four rods in width (the rods are arranged vertically), and 2 flats and five rods in length (with the rods arranged horizontally). The rectangle is filled in with flats, rods, and cubes. In the whole rectangle, there are 10 flats, 33 rods, and 20 cubes. Using the values for each base ten block, there is a total of (10 x 100) + (33 x 10) + (20 x 1) = 1350 cubes in the rectangle. Students can count each type of base ten block separately and add them up.
Division
Base ten blocks are so flexible, they can even be used to divide! There are three methods for division that I will describe: grouping, distributing, and modified multiplying.
To divide by grouping, first represent the dividend (the number you are dividing) with base ten blocks. Arrange the base ten blocks into groups the size of the divisor. Count the number of groups to find the quotient. For example, 348 divided by 58 is represented by 3 flats, 4 rods, and 8 cubes. To arrange 348 into groups of 58, trade the flats for rods, and some of the rods for cubes. The result is six piles of 58, so the quotient is six.
Dividing by distributing is the old "one for you and one for me" trick. Distribute the dividend into the same number of piles as the divisor. At the end, count how many piles are left. Students will probably pick up the analogy of sharing quite easily - i.e. We need to give everyone an equal number of base ten blocks. To illustrate, consider 192 divided by 8. Students represent 192 with one flat, 9 rods and 2 cubes. They can distribute the rods into eight groups easily, but the flat has to be traded for rods, and some rods for cubes to accomplish the distribution. In the end, they should find that there are 24 units in each pile, so the quotient is 24.
To multiply, students create a rectangle using the two factors as the length and width. In division, the size of the rectangle and one of the factors is known. Students begin by building one dimension of the rectangle using the divisor. They continue to build the rectangle until they reach the desired dividend. The resulting length (the other dimension) is the quotient. If a student is asked to solve 1369 divided by 37, they begin by laying down three rods and seven cubes to create one dimension of the rectangle. Next, they lay down another 37, continuing the rectangle, and check to see if they have the required 1369 yet. Students who have experience with estimating might begin by laying down three flats and seven rods in a row (rods vertically arranged) since they know that the quotient is going to be larger than ten. As students continue, they may recognize that they can replace groups of ten rods with a flat to make counting easier. They continue until the desired dividend is reached. In this example, students find the quotient is 37.
Changing the Values of Base Ten Blocks
Up until now, the value of the cube has been one unit. For older students, there is no reason why the cube couldn't represent one tenth, one hundredth, or one million. If the value of the cube is redefined, the other base ten blocks, of course, have to follow. For example, redefining the cube as one tenth means the rod represents one, the flat represents ten, and the block represents one hundred. This redefinition is useful for a decimal question such as 54.2 + 27.6. A common way to redefine base ten blocks is to make the cube one thousandth. This makes the rod one hundredth, the flat one tenth, and the block one whole. Besides the traditional definition, this one makes the most sense, since a block can be divided into 1000 cubes, so it follows logically that one cube is one thousandth of the cube.
Representing and Working With Large Numbers
Numbers don't stop at 9,999 which is the maximum you can represent with a traditional set of base ten blocks. Fortunately, base ten blocks come in a variety of colors. In math, the ones, tens, and hundreds are called a period. The thousands, ten thousands, and hundred thousands are another period. The millions, ten millions and hundred millions are the third period. This continues where every three place values is called a period. You may have figured out by now that each period can be represented by a different colour of place value block. If you do this, you eliminate the large blocks and just use the cubes, rods, and flats. Let us say that we have three sets of base ten blocks in yellow, green, and blue. We'll call the yellow base ten blocks the first period (ones, tens, hundreds), the green blocks the second period, and the blue blocks the third period. To represent the number, 56,784,325, use 5 blue rods, 6 blue cubes, 7 green flats, 8 green rods, 4 green cubes, 3 yellow flats, 2 yellow rods, and 5 yellow cubes. When adding and subtracting, trading is accomplished by recognizing that 10 yellow flats can be traded for one green cube, 10 green flats can be traded for one blue cube, and vice-versa.
Integers
Base ten blocks can be used to add and subtract integers. To accomplish this, two colours of base ten blocks are required - one colour for negative numbers and one colour for positive numbers. The zero principle states that an equal number of negatives and an equal number of positives add up to zero. To add using base ten blocks, represent both numbers using base ten blocks, apply the zero principle and read the result. For example (-51) + (+42) could be represented with 5 red rods, 1 red cube, 4 blue rods, and 2 blue cubes. Immediately, the student applies the zero principle to four red and four blue rods and one red and one blue cube. To finish the problem, they trade the remaining red rod for 10 red cubes and apply the zero principle to the remaining blue cube and one of the red cubes. The end result is (-9).
Subtracting means taking away. For instance, (-5) - (-2) is represented by taking two red cubes from a pile of five red cubes. If you can't take away, the zero principle can be applied in reverse. You can't take away six blue cubes in (-7) - (+6) because there aren't six blue cubes. Since a blue cube and a red cube is just zero, and adding zero to a number doesn't change it, simply include six blue cubes and six red cubes with the pile of seven red cubes. When six blue cubes are taken from the pile, 13 red cubes remain, so the answer to (-7) - (+6) is (-13). This procedure can, of course, be applied to larger numbers, and the process might involve trading.
Other Uses
By no means have I explained all of the uses of base ten blocks, but I have covered most of the major uses. The rest is up to your imagination. Can you think of a use for base ten blocks when teaching powers of ten? How about using base ten blocks for fractions? So many math skills can be learned using base ten blocks simply because they represent our numbering system - the base ten system. Base ten blocks are just one of many excellent manipulatives available to teachers and parents that give students a strong conceptual background in math.
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