Creating Compassionate Classroon

Let’s learn more and practice of nonviolent communication!
Visit these sites: www.cnvc.org,www.tcnvc.org,www.nvctraining.com
Participate in a training with Marshall Rosenberg www.cnvc.org/mrsched.htm

This winter, I truly and greatly enjoyed the interactive workshop class at the MFT. There were 10 sessions of 2 hours each. Four two hours class, I did not feel that I was too long at all. Instead, I felt the session went by too fast each day. Class participants actually and actively got to practice how to converse with a classmate. Dealing with issues, has something to do with the UNIVERSAL HUMAN NEEDS, FEELINGS when NEEDS are satisfied, and also the FELINGS when NEEDS are not met. We must understand these 3 important things to understand and communicate better with others.
We were exploring how heightened emotional intelligence increases student achievement and restores the sweetness to teaching. We practiced the skills of compassionate communication, as developed by Marshall Rosenberg. I personally, did try to use these skills with my own students in an effort to help my students feel more connected with me, and they them-selves connected with each other. I wanted my students to get more engaged and enthusiastic about learning.
How the NVC impacted my students, my relationship with my students and my role as a teacher?
1. My students were able to practice developing skills through activities and games I took from the book “The Compassionate Classroom” by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson.
2. My relationship with my students is better while it was pretty good before.
3. My role as a teacher is to continuously searching for improvement with my teaching, the two ways communication .One can be good, but why not better and even best.
The principles of NVC are basically the followings:
*Aware of our own and others feeling and needs, it is OK for teachers to express their anger fully and wholeheartedly in classroom. NVC does not encourage us to ignore squash or swallow anger.
*There is nothing another person can do that can make us angry.
*It is how we look at situations that creates our anger, not the stimulus itself. The cause of our anger lies in our thinking and our judgments.
*Killing people is too superficial. Any kind of killing, blaming of other people, is a very superficial expression of our anger.
*Anger is a result of life alienating thinking that is disconnected from needs. It indicates that we have moved up to our head to analyze and judge somebody, rather than focus on which of our needs are not getting met.
* All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.
*NVC stresses that it is dangerous to think of anger as something to be repressed or bad. It shows us how to use anger as an alarm that tells us we are thinking in ways that are not likely to get our needs met.
* In addressing anger Marshall recommends connecting emphatically with our own needs and those of others. We can do this by consciously replacing the , “ I am angry because they…” with “I am angry because I am needing…”

*What obstacles do I face implementing NVC?
Not much, but time to practice with my students is needed . I already have an established curriculum for my site.
*Do I like the Books?
Indeed I do like the books. Anyone who has not have a chance to read or skim them should check them out .What I like the about “The Compassionate Classroom” was that I was able to use the tools provided in section II of the book for creating my own compassionate classroom.
The second book that like to keep and reuse as my future resource is “Life-Enriching Education” Nonviolent Communication Helps Schools Improve Performance, Reduce Conflict, and Enhance Relationship by MarshallB.Rosenberg,Ph.D.
Working with diverse students who came from so many different background , teacher should learn to be prepared to meet their needs, without effective communication tools ,we may face misunderstanding and frustration sometimes.
* Lastly my reflection on books and Collegial feedbacks I had from the classroom sessions, have been A very educational, helpful and a worthwhile experience for me.

Mill City Museum

Mill City Museum
Originally uploaded by Chauncer

It was a very interesting, fun and educational field trip that we all from Wellstone High did yesterday!
Our whole school went together. Terry asked me to take some pictures from the site. I took lots of fun activities that our students learned there.

Lunar Eclipse 8/28/07 on Vimeo

Lunar Eclipse 8/28/07 on Vimeo
Originally uploaded by banlang2000

I read Terry's post about the lunar eclipse. I like to watch it.There was an eclipe last month. I was watching it in the sky with my daughter LELA all night till it was over.The morning of the following day ,I went to work , my students talked about the eclipse too. But they had their own version of understanding about the elipse.I used the TeacherTube to show a short video clip about the elipses to my students , by ladyringo and the total eclipse by DBean 67770. I like the one that Terry shared with us more. Thank you much Terry!

Working with early Interediate ESL students

Working with early Intermediate Level ESL
Teacher should:

- Assist students to actively developing receptive vocabulary.
- Promote students to Produce one & two- word answers to short sentences, and make them recite and repeat poems, songs, and chants.
- Students can retell simple stories using pictures and objects, and can engage in dialogues, interviews, or role-plays.

*Provide opportunities for contextually supported activities
*Model processes expected of students while verbally guiding students through tasks
*Use scaffolding techniques through out lessons, assisting and supporting
student comprehension
*Expose students to patterned or predictable books
*Provide opportunities for expression in speech and print for a variety of purposes and audiences

*Structure group discussion
*Provide some real texts

*Provide opportunities to create oral and written narratives
*Structure a variety of realistic writing experiences and include opportunities for journal writing, student-authored stories . and language experience activities.

*Use higher level questioning techniques to elicit generative responses
(Accountable Talk,I FL)
***Use data from results of classroom activities & assignments to determine what to teach next.

Exploring Teacher tube

When I spent sometimes watching and listening to teacher tube, I found one talking about"Why let our students blog?" I read the followings answers from many teachers:
for ownership, for sharing, for collabaration, for discussion, for empowerment, for interaction, for aprticipation, for motivation, for engagement, for CONVERSATION, for creativity, for excitemnent, for REFLECTION , for blogging to LEARN, to extend the wall of classroom, to give students a learning environment and for writing to learn. Most students are very young on the video. Check it out, www.teachertube.com

At first , I was looking for plants & and animals video clips for my ESL Science class then I found someone talking about student blogging.

The Center of Attention/Differentiated Instruction

The Center of Attention
Originally uploaded by jonSpot

I'm posting this teaching strategy for my student teacher.Birds are flying different ways too so our students them-selves learn at different pace.
Beginning Preproduction

-Simple repeated amounts of English instruction
-Rely on visual and other clues for understanding
-Students may illustrate characters, objects, and actions to convey meaning.
*Provide opportunities for active listening , incorporating props, visuals aids, and real objects into presentations
*pair or group students with more proficient speakers of English
*Conduct shared and guided reading that incorporate prior knowledge and involve the use of visual and graphic supports
*Use and involve students in physical movement and expression
*Involve students in literacy activities and provide students with exposure to written English
* Have students label and manipulate real objects and photographs or illustrations
*Pause during lessons to allow students to process and reflect on the information they are learning.
Source:Hampton Brown

Interesting SIOP website for teachers who work with ELL/ESL students.

Even though one may have been trained for SIOP strategies from Hamline University, it is good idea to refresh our teaching skills. Visit this website, I found it very useful, and I found more tools then I learned SIOP sometimes ago. Strategy of teaching Content Subjects to ELL students.www.siopinstitude.net