Three weeks ago I decided that Social Studies was not important. Instead, building community, listening, practicing empathy, and creating connections was more important. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, this has been a rough year for me with school changes, student behaviors, and consistency. The icing on the cake was a student saying, “I love this class, but I don’t know anyone.” That was said in December and I felt like a failure. The cherry on top was a group of students that walked in and asked me, “Mr. Moler who do you think won the fight?” I lost it.
Rather than go negative, I thought back to June of 2019 and the best keynote speech I ever heard from Joe Sanfelippo. He preached, “30 seconds is all it takes to change culture.” The next day, I wrote my message up on the whiteboard, “It’s not the amount of time, it’s what you do with the time. In a 7 hour day, you have 840 thirty second chances to connect to someone and make a difference in their life.” I took a chance and we took 2 minutes to send an email or text to someone and thank them. It made a huge impact – some students were scared to push send and some began crying. But that was alleviated when they received a nice reply. HUGE IMPACT. After 3 weeks, we devote Thursdays for taking 30 seconds, but I have noticed many students doing this on their own during the week.
To help students get to know each other, I took a chance and implemented a Monte Syrie idea of Smiles and Frowns. At the beginning of class, I say each student’s name and they have an opportunity to tell me something that made them smile or frown in the last 24 hours. We do this EVERYDAY for 5 minutes. At first it was awkward, especially for 7th graders. However, more and more students are sharing. We have applauded successes, and gave pats on the back for failures. I’m seeing a community being built. Students are hearing each other’s names. We are getting to know each other. I wish I started this at the beginning of the year instead of 3 weeks ago. What happens in week 5? Week 10? Week 20? I haven’t a clue, but I’m seeing some great results now.
Update: I intentionally didn’t do smiles or frowns, or 30 seconds this week (Feb. 17 week) to see if anyone would say something. I wanted to see if it mattered. The students spoke loud and clear – IT MATTERS!
Moler's Musings 