The 2x10 Strategy

It's a no brainer really.

Talking with a student for 2 minutes for 10 consecutive days will help grow a solid relationship with them, and it will reflect in so many areas of their learning, behavior and general person. 

I got the 2x10 strategy from reading this blog, and as any teacher talking with students is something you do on a daily basis, and I know that the more I get to know my learners, the better I will be able to teach them... but i'm not that often directly intentional with it. 

While doing kids camps, during our morning meeting each leader would name 1 or 2 kids in their small group who would be their 'focus' for the day. We would intentionally be building relationships, and while camp was only a week long, because we were thinking about it, we could build awesome relationships with the kids there. We also had to name times of the day that would be best for this relationship building... during whole group activities not so much, but maybe during a meal time or kids free time would be great :) 

As a teacher it's all that more important... while I have longer to build these relationships, the urgency isn't any less. The blog talks about having the 2x10 strategy for 'at risk' students, but I do strongly believe it's for ALL students. 

So this is going to link in the my last post about being more culturally responsive/learning about the cultures in the classroom. Maybe alter it a bit 2 students a day where I take the 2 minutes either in the morning or at the start of morning tea or lunch to just talk. Let them guide the conversation and see what excites them and what makes them, them. 

I'll have a reflect back on it when I have been doing this 'intentional' talking for a while! :) 

Bring on Term 4!

It's a New Term!

Term 4, 2014 begins... TOMORROW!!!!

Well for the kids at least, it probably begun about a month ago for me :) 

One of the things on my mind over the holidays was about being culturally responsive to ALL my students. 

I was very lucky at my last school to have a high proportion of the school being Māori, Tongan and Samoan, so I have had the chance to learn some of their culture... but even in that i've only scratched the surface. 

In my current class I have an absolutely wonderful group of students, and they are such a mix of cultures and backgrounds. Out of my 18 students I have 9 different cultures... how awesome is that!!

Last year some educators from around Canterbury had the chance to go to Samoa to experience school and Island life to better understand their students.

Here is a video about their visit...

Right at the end there is a challenge given, which I'm going to take as my challenge for this term.

Something I started at my last school (but misplaced in the move!) was a list of how to say some classroom directions and praise in the different languages represented in my room... written correctly and phonetically so I could try and learn it.

It was a great list to have, so I'm going to start it up again with the help of my parents... probably as a google doc this time so I can't misplace it!