Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Advice I gave my students in 2014.

2014 has been a year full of personal and professional growth for me, and as a homeroom teacher getting involved in the pastoral care of my students, at times I found my internal dialogue start up with, 

"Yeah, yeah, Ms. Kuiper. That's all well and good, but to what extent are you following your own advice?". 

So, that's the challenge. As the Argentinean band Los Enanitos Verdes song Solo Dame Otra Oportunidad (Just Give Me Another Chance) goes, 
'They say best advice is that which you give yourself.'
'Dicen que el mejor consejo es el que se da uno mismo'.

So here is a re-cap of some of the advice I gave my students, and I'll try to remember to check at the end of 2015 with an update on how well I followed it myself.

  • Be proud of your successes but more importantly, learn from your mistakes. #GrowthMindest
  • Hone your creative, oratorical and collaborative skills.
  • Get to know your own personality and how it affects other people.
  • Work on building rapport with your classmates, they are your partners in learning and understand your school experience like nobody else. #VisibleLearning
  • Don't cut yourself off from feeling hurt. Numbing your ability to feel sad may actually numb all of your feelings and end up limiting your ability to feel happiness. (From: The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown)
  • Invest in having positive interactions with everyone. Move quickly to sort out issues.
  • Apologize properly - a proper apology has three parts. (This is an invaluable interpersonal skill that everyone, not just students, should learn from an early age.)

So, what advice did you give your students this year?

Ishigaki Island at dusk, Okinawa. By @MsKuiper.




Monday, December 22, 2014

To scold or to laugh it off?

Should we give high school students 'the talk' or just turn it into a joke?

Sometimes a scolding is required, but knowing when to err on the humorous side is very valuable. This is the story of my experience and the lessons learned.

The sleeping beauty.

Many years ago, one of my students kept falling asleep during lessons. She would let her hair flop in front of her eyes and then nod off. What to do in this situation? 

The background. 

It was a small class of high schoolstudents and over the year and a half I had already taught them, we had gotten to know each other well. It was their final year of high school and they were facing university entrance exams, applications and difficult choices and so I knew how exhausted and stressed out they were.

So when this particular student, kept falling asleep, a scolding just didn't seem fair. But allowing students sleep through lessons is not an option either, so, what to do?

Turning it into a joke, instead of a big deal.

Back in the teachers' room after one lesson involving more snoozing by Sleeping Beauty, I made this sign on a whim, which I pasted onto my lesson planning notebook. Then the next lesson when bangs flopped down and eyes closed, I silently held the sign up in protest. The awake students giggled, rousing sleeping beauty to read this sign being held in front of her. She just smiled reticently, but after that she magically seemed a lot less sleepy.
Original Image: Pedro Machuca 

No offense taken.

Towards the end of the year, S. Beauty was accepted into one of the most prestigious private universities in the country. I was so glad for her that when she told me, I burst into tears. As she graduated, she let me know how much she appreciated how;

'[... ] you tried to understand how we were and what kind of circumstances we were in. 
Even though most teachers would have scolded me [...] , 
you made it a funny moment, and laughed it away.

The lesson learned.

Students are tired. Teachers are busy. Endless scolding is just more exhausting and wears everyone down. Turning minor issues, especially when there are extenuating circumstances, into a laugh can help a student correct their behavior and still keep the mood positive and allow the whole class to keep learning in a nicer environment without the finger wagging, hands-on-hips strictness that can cause teenagers to stop listening. Of course, I don't recommend laughing everything off. Eraser throwing, gum chewing, these may be minor issues too, but are dealt with very swiftly by me.

Why be lenient?

I was lucky to have taken my CertTESOL at VUW when Professor Paul Nation was one of the faculty teaching the course. He was a superstar teacher for many reasons. One day, he talked about erring on the side of compassion and had a great anecdote about a student who claimed to have "lost" his essay. Paul thought, "Hmmm...", but he just said, "Alright, bring it to me tomorrow." Later that day as he was walking back to the faculty room from his office, Paul saw some paper blowing in one of the bushes and when he picked it up, it turned out to be that student's essay.

Where have I gone from here?

Well, I still turn sleeping during lessons into a joke. I always make sure it is a joke where we are laughing with, not laughing at the slumbering teenager. Students still attempt sleeping during my lessons, no matter how interesting I attempt to be. My new tactic for the prevention of in-class sleeping is:


- sneak up behind the sleeping student and suddenly roar, 'Raaaaah!'.

Then I laugh much louder that any of the students when the sleeping student has been startled awake. Feigning enjoyment in these situations is a tactic I got from another educator I admire (there are many!) Phil Beadle, but more on Phil in another future post.

One 10th grade student was very startled indeed, gasped loudly and jumped to his feet. He has never attempted even a second of shut-eye again. His surprise was so genuine that the whole class was in stitches for a good minute.

And aim, of course, is to create a positive atmosphere where all students can enjoy laughing, and learning. You do have to be careful and make sure that it is a student you know really well, of course.

As this video on How To Maintain Classroom Discipline from 1947 shows, it's hardly a new idea. The narrator notes, 

"a friendly attitude with a sprinkling of humor goes a long way to winning the regard of the class."




Check out Marisa Constantinides' wonderful edublog where I came across this video - it's a real gem! 


Sunday, December 21, 2014

This teacher gets to school by - guess what?

You will never complain about commuting to school again.

Now on the morning train, I smile just thinking of Juvencia's story.

Last December I started volunteering as a Spanish to English translator for Kiva.org, a micro-finance non-profit based in California. This animation explains how Kiva works.
Last weekend I translated this loan for Juvencia and was surprised to read her reason for requesting a loan to purchase a motorcycle.

First of all, Juvencia and I have something in common. She has been a teacher all her life. Now her commute to school is where our life stories start to differ drastically.
[screenshot from Kiva.org]

It turns out that to do her job as the head of a school district in El Sauce, Nicaragua, Juvencia has been riding to all of the schools in her district by horse, and at her age, she's a little tired of it. So she would like take out a small loan so that she can zip around her schools on a motorbike.

I was astounded, especially while translating it didn't occur to me that the second half of the sentence would include any horseback commuting.

So this Christmas I will be thankful that I take a speedy, warm, clean train to school.

In fact if you need any gift ideas for Christmas, a Kiva gift card is a great option.

As of publishing this post, Juvencia's loan is still funding so please consider helping her out.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

What's the best way to learn Japanese?


A week ago my older brother asked me about the best way to learn Japanese.

Chuffed to be asked for advice, my reply turned into an essay-length email. Having made several big mistakes in my initial approach to picking up the language, I wanted to prevent my dear brother from making the same blunders. Also, I love teaching and learning languages. What could be more exciting or cool than speaking another language?

So now I am using that email as a base for this post.

My brother, I have to point out, has been very busy studying to become a brilliant emergency physician and thus has not realised that I'm not actually a completely fluent, near-native speaker of Japanese. I don't do anything to spoil the allusion though, and I can definitely hold my own in a conversation as long as it's not about something tricky, like the discovery of the Higgs boson particle.

One natural advantage I have with learning languages is a keen ear, imitating what I hear and then having no fear trying it out on someone else to gauge their reaction and figure out how to use new chunks of language. This aptitude helped me learn French and Spanish before I moved to Japan. 

But the more important advantage is that I love my mistakes. Not because I don't care about making mistakes or am sloppy, far from it. It's because learning from mistakes is a valuable way of learning, and the funny slip-ups made when a beginner are some of the best jokes to tell to native speakers in conversation once you're finally able to converse. I definitely approach my own language learning with a growth mindset. 

So here is my advice.

First step is: learn all the kana. 

Master hiragana and then move on to katakana. 

Kana are the building blocks of Japanese, and as they are phonetic (for the most part!) they are really useful because if you can read them, you can pronounce any word correctly. Japanese syllables don't make sense without knowing kana and there's a big difference between, say, ゆ and ゆう. So when you are writing Japanese down, here is a big pearl of wisdom:

Avoid taking notes in romaji. 

Why not? Because Japanese isn't written in romaji. The first 6 months in Japan I wrote new vocabulary down in romaji because I presumed that learning kana was impossible, only achievable by Stephen Hawking or Terence Tao. Now I know that if Japanese was so difficult to learn, many of the Japanese people I know wouldn't be able to speak or write it either. 

When my American friend who arrived with me in Japan mastered kana in the first few months, I realised that writing in kana right from the beginning would have helped me learn faster and just made a whole lot more sense. So, don't make my mistake and write new vocabulary down in kana and kanji as soon as you can.

I'd say on any given page of Japanese text, hiragana is used more often, so learn that first. Some Japanese people think foreigners should learn katakana first because foreign words are written in it, but overall I'd say katakana definitely makes it into less words per page than hiragana. My first Japanese teacher was a one a million teacher who got us to learn them in that order, so I recommend it. 

Start learning kanji right from the beginning.


I recommend learning the kanji actually as you go, right from the start. Otherwise it's double handling and you just have to go back and learn the kanji for words you already know, which is more precious study time misspent. So 1) learn about stroke order and 2) get a good app which has stroke order diagrams and videos, such as Midori which is my favorite Japanese dictionary app, and you are all set to start writing kanji.

So just say you learn the verb tabemasu, to eat.

Write it in kanji, even if your kanji looks like a drunk salariman's. It's good for your brain and you will get better at writing later. Then put the hiragana on top of the kanji (furigana) so you remember how to pronounce it. Like this:

食べます

Verb forms: start with ~ます.

It makes sense to learn lots of verbs first all in the ~ます form first because it's polite and often used. Then you can start to learn other forms like past tense, dictionary form, etc.

Get a good textbook.

My favorite textbook as a beginner was 'Japanese in 45 Hours'. Does that sound like a lot of hours? It isn't, really. We got through it in a year or even six months and most importantly, it was funny and had helpful cartoons illustrating the exercises which made it easy to follow. Get the workbook too, and practice away. When you're done, there is a sequel called にほんごつぎの45じかん - Japanese, In 45 Hours and More. The only drawback with the series is that it is all in hiragana, no kanji integration right from the beginning as I advocated above. 





Get a teacher. Get a study buddy.

I took private lessons with my American study buddy for a year and a half. The teacher came to one of our apartments once a week and it was great way to learn for several reasons.

1) Both my friend and I found one-to-one lessons too intense, but group lessons tend to get a bit unfocused. So learning with one other friend took that pressure off but gave us both the right amount of attention from the teacher.  Also having a friend there was a great motivator.
2) Our teacher was awesome - no app or textbook can ever replace having a human being explaining things to you. She was relaxed enough to teach us any words we ever asked her no matter what the topic, and strict enough to give us kanji quizzes at the beginning of lessons to help keep us on our toes.
3) Sensei had great resources. One book in particularly liked that she used was 絵で導入・絵で練習 Practice with pictures, Learn through pictures, a fantastic aid for students because it is all cartoons, which it helps keep the dialogue with the teacher in the target language - Japanese. I liked it so much that I went out and bought it myself, even though I'm not a Japanese teacher.

My last advice is: get a good mindset about kanji.

Don't let kanji intimidate you, or dismiss them as unimportant. They are not scary and they are important. 

For one thing, one big ol' scary-looking kanji is actually just lots of simple kanji squished together.  

E.g.

木 tree  き
林 wood はやし
森 forest  もり

Without knowing kanji, Japanese just does not make sense. When I learnt that kyou means today but kyonen means 'last year' I got confused and exclaimed, "Why? That makes no sense." to the principal of one of my first schools. He then explained that it isn't the sound, but the kanji that gives the words their meaning.

きょうkyou
今日 now day

きょうねん kyonen
去年 gone year

Just start from the beginning with kanji, like a kid.

Learn the kanji that Japanese elementary school kids learn, unless you're learning Japanese for a test which is slightly different story.

If Japanese children in primary school learn about 100 kanji a year, then an adult who works full time, has two kids and spends his working days saving people's lives can do it too.

A kanji practice notebook with the squares and the gaps for furigana is good idea. So just use muscle memory to learn kanji by writing them over and over again - probably 8 times minimum per character. Get one of these kanji notebooks and GO FOR IT!



Good luck on your Japanese learning journey.

*And remember, you can learn anything. #GrowthMindset

*That's from the Khan Academy, but I don't think Sal would mind me borrowing their slogan.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Try IT On Monday in Japanese ー TIOMは日本語でやります!

Japan ASCD has another Try IT On Monday (TIOM) seminar coming up in Tokyo this Saturday December 6th. 

TIOM is characterized by its relaxed vibe, while being very practical and accessible to teachers at any level of the IT spectrum.

This one coming up is aimed at Japanese educators and will be hosted by the lovely people at Nishimachi International School. As you can see on the flyer, they have coffee!

I highly recommend attending, our teachers really enjoyed the atmosphere while picking up very useful skills at the TIOM we attended (in English) this April. 

Please get the word out to your Japanese colleagues. 

Links: 
Try IT On Monday - in Japanese
Register

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Creativity Expert - Sir Ken Robinson

Revolutionary ideas on education and razor-sharp wit. 

Sir Ken Robinson is very widely-known, yet his ideas deserve even more spreading, especially around teachers, school administrators, politicians, parents, and basically everyone.

An expert on creativity and one of the wittiest public speakers I've ever heard, Sir Ken's TED Talks are so popular that he's done at least three - they keep asking him back. I'm having difficulty deciding which one of his books to read first. Any suggestions?

One of the anecdotes he gives in one of his talks is that of British choreographer and director Gillian Lynne, most famous for her work on the musical Cats. As a young girl of eight, she simply couldn't sit still in class or turn her homework in on time. Her mother was called in to school, and this is what happened...




Picking favorite quotes from his TED Talks is difficult, so here are just two:

1) Escaping Education's Death Valley
"you can't improve education if you don't pick great people to teach and if you don't keep giving them constant support and professional development. Investing in professional development is not a cost. It's an investment"

2) From Bring on the learning revolution!
"every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly." 



See more on his website and on YouTube.   http://sirkenrobinson.com/?page_id=14

Monday, April 28, 2014

Try IT On Monday 2014 - Part I

On Saturday I went to Try IT On Monday (TIOM) 2014 with some teachers from my school. It was our first time at the event, and it was well worth it. There were over 100 teachers from international schools mostly around Tokyo to exchange ideas with. The aim of TIOM is for teachers to share IT ideas that are useful, but still easy enough to use that you can walk into your own classroom on Monday and try them out.

TIOM had a great atmosphere, professional yet relaxed - the perfect combination for teachers volunteering their time on a Saturday morning. According to the coordinator, Kiyo Horii, a successful TIOM event includes these flavors and spices:

  • informal
  • flexible
  • variety of presentations
  • open registration
  • student involvement
  • free lunch and snacks
Check it out at http://jascd-tiom.ning.com/

Some of the presenters (do I dare call them 'techsperts'?) were IT integrators or Google certified teachers, others were regular teachers who had figured out how to do something cool or time-saving using IT.


The sessions I saw were:


1) blogging 

2) Google sites 
3) efficient report card writing

As you can see, I really am trying IT on Monday with this new blog. Over the coming year, I will share ideas from the sessions I went to, and much, much more...


A big thanks to our hosts at Nishimachi International School - otsukaresama guys! 



Efficient report card writing session at TIOM2014 - no more spelling mistakes, ever again! 
www.schoolreportwriter.com

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Coming soon...

This blog starts Monday, 28th April, 2014. 

The first blog entries include Try IT On Monday and Sir Ken Robinson.