Skip to main content

Teacher Reads: OPENING MINDS

"Failure to attend to children's moral and social development will lead neither to happiness nor to economic security." - Peter H. Johnston


Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives, by Peter H. Johnston, asserts that words have significant power in the lives of students. The ideas and research presented in his book echo many of the same themes in my other readings this year, but Johnston's book adds depth and context. Throughout the book, he explains that teachers need to be deliberate in the words they use to engage and motivate students. In turn, students need deliberate opportunities to rehearse using the power of their own words.

He begins by explaining the impact of fixed- performance and dynamic-learning frames through Dweck and others' research. I was reminded of Dweck's "power of yet" TED Talk. To encourage dynamic-learning frames, Johnston encourages positive language over praise and process feedback rather than personal.

Johnston then turns to the role of conversation in the classroom. He offers realistic strategies for making meaningful conversations happen in the classroom.  Not just "turn and talks" but actual dialogue that allows students opportunities to talk, but more importantly offers them opportunities to listen and respond thoughtfully. In doing so, we are opening the door for students to diversity and acceptance. He also reinforces the importance of student-selected texts and silent reading that Donalyn Miller and Kelly Gallagher champion as an effective way for students to explore social problems (or as Gallagher calls them "imaginative rehearsals").

In reading this book, I realized that many of the opportunities I give students to discuss are likely superficial, which results in less than meaningful conversations between students. I hadn't really thought of the complexity of teaching students to think and solve problems together. I also realize that this takes practice and that we can't expect students to fall into meaningful dialogue immediate. It's difficult as a teacher to keep your mouth shut while letting the awkward silences and divergent ideas of your students lead the way. I think many of us were taught in a way where the teacher was the central figure and director of everything that was said and done in the classroom. However, I think it's an old paradigm that is beginning to fade away.

I loved that the focus of this book was on the need to help students become socially intelligent before we can make them academically intelligent. In the end, this conscious work of helping our students communicate effectively leads to students who are able to self-regulate, carefully listen to others, are more resilient, and are more likely to act for social justice. What teacher wouldn't want those outcomes for their students?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Perception vs. Reality

Before I became a "real" teacher, my perception of teaching English was that I would be blowing kids' minds with classic literature and handing out grammar worksheets.  Needless to say, that hasn't happened...yet. Instead, I was surprised to find that I loved teaching about writing. In particular, I found a love of teaching argumentation and persuasion. The seventh graders are gearing up for argumentative writing. We begin by talking about the concepts of perception and reality and how those two things influence our views of the world and all its issues. I have them make a poster that's based off a popular meme to help ground those concepts. It hardly seems like work, and it's one of the few assignments we do where I get to hear things like, "Can I finish this at home?" or "Can I do another one?" The task is to make a perception and reality poster. I start by showing them an example for a teacher, like this one . This makes for a great ...

Killer Waves, Students Teach, and We Believe

This week was our first full, five day week...and oh boy, it was a  full week! :) Most of CHS at the Chris Herren assembly.  Really puts into perspective how small our school is! We were swept up in the short story "Rogue Wave" by Theodore Taylor in 7th grade this week.  It was a challenging story, but it had a great plot that kept us on the edges of our seats. We practiced writing summaries together and did some activities to help us identify multiple themes. Before we started reading the story, the 7th graders made their own vocabulary lists by scanning the story for unknown words. Then they put their lists on Quizlet so they could practice their words in a variety of ways. On Friday, students wrote their  Genuis Hour project proposals on our blog .  One of my fantastic students posting evidence from the text to support a theme. The summary my students helped write together. Deciding what evidence is relevant. Sp...

Carpe Diem (a philosophical rambling)

Teaching seniors is hard. Teaching seniors during the last month before graduation and attempting to instill some kind of appreciation and enthusiasm for Hamlet is reckless behavior. Yet, that's exactly what I am doing. Kelly Gallagher describes it best: "I have done many difficult things in my life. I have run a marathon. I have eaten escargot to impress a date. I have sat in the middle seat of a cross-country flight, wedged between a snorer and a person in desperate need of Gas-X. Worse, I have sat through an episode of  Sex and the City. But all of these pale in comparison to the hardest thing I have ever done: stand in front of thirty-seven teenagers with the expressed purpose of teaching Hamlet. "  He defends this seemingly impossible task by saying that if we help students see the reward of the hard work it takes to tackle a complex text, they will surprise you and work hard. I'm not sure how successful I've been at doing that this year. I'm trying, b...