Cascadia Connections
Communicating to Connect
By Karen Sherman
N OUR SEPTEMBER ISSUE of Cascadia Connections, Cynthia Drakos shared with us her vision of a community in which every member was positively supported by each other. To encourage and foster this mutually supportive community, open and honest communication between community members is essential. Cynthia wrote of a community built upon trust. To achieve this trust we must work together in support of one another, as well as in support of our children. Without a collaborative relationship between adults, our children may receive conflicting messages. We must align our interactions with communication methods that invite connections between people and seek solutions that will support our children’s sense of security and confidence in their school experience. This does not mean that we will always be in total agreement, but that we as a community will work together and model for our children how to peacefully and positively address our disagreements and work to create solutions which uplift us all.
We all wish to help our children develop a positive sense of self and to know they are accepted, loved and supported in being the best they can be. This does not mean that we can allow students to behave any way they please. Rather, we must set clear expectations for behavior with reasonable limitations and consistently reinforce these limits in loving and respectful ways. We cannot expect our children to be perfect at all times, nor can we expect perfection from one another. When conflicts arise or responsibilities are not being met we must have appropriate strategies for helping our young people improve their situation. Likewise we can also work in support of one another in improving the effectiveness of how we interact with each other and our children.
During an independent work period, small groups of middle school students receive feedback and support from their teachers.
Respected adolescent psychologist William Glasser M.D. in his book Choice Theory identifies two categories of communication habits that can either create barriers in communication or encourage positive connections between people. The habits that create barriers include criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing and rewarding to control. The habits that facilitate connections are caring, trusting, listening, supporting, negotiating, befriending and encouraging.
Glasser advises us not to take for granted that our children know that we love them. We must, therefore, make an ongoing effort to connect with our children by encouraging and listening to them. He asserts that it is through giving up the notion that we must control our children’s behavior that we give them ownership of their actions and develop in them a sense of personal responsibility. This more collaborative adult role creates a relationship in which our children can feel supported in making good choices that are in their own best interest, and fosters an environment where our children are more likely to request our help when they find themselves in trouble.
We must also be mindful of our relationships to one another as teachers and parents. We must begin with a deep respect for each other as individuals and with that a belief that each of us is doing the best we know how. Our conversations can then be constructive uplifting and inspiring, rather than critical, condemning or judgmental. Perceived flaws and errors can then be seen as opportunities from which we can all learn and thus better serve our children. What went well? What could I do differently next time? These are key phrases that we use regularly in the middle school community. We seek to have our students develop a practice of honest self-assessment. We wish to foster a sense of their own responsibility for their successes and mistakes and an open-minded outlook towards their growth and development as human beings. We strive to also model this in our own work.
One of the best resources I have seen for improving communication with children and with people in general is a book written by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish titled How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. These authors are nationally recognized and celebrated for their clear, practical advice. This book illustrates very practical methods and techniques we can incorporate into our every day interactions. The remainder of this article is a summary of the techniques discussed by the authors.
Helping children deal with their feelings
TO HELP CHILDREN deal with their feelings, first listen to them quietly and attentively. Remember that all feelings can be accepted, but that certain actions must be limited. Children are often not able to identify with words exactly what they are feeling. We can give them the language to begin expressing their emotions with words and not actions. Finally, we can acknowledge a child’s frustration with the impossible by giving the child a vision of their wishes in a fantasy.
For example, if a child has just hit another child out of frustration such support might include simply taking the time to listen to the child’s telling of what occurred without interrupting. Then, respond with phrases such as, “I can see that you are very angry.” “You couldn’t get him to stop and you became frustrated.” “I wish I could snap my fingers and make a new unbroken toy appear.” “You can use words to show him you are angry. You cannot use your fists.”
Engaging a child’s cooperation
WHEN A CHILD is becoming resistant and uncooperative, we often find ourselves in a power struggle. Typically, the more we insist the less they are willing to comply. To redirect this opposition we can avoid giving direct commands and instead describe the problem that needs attention. We can give information about the hazards of the situation. We can communicate our observations with the shortest possible phrase, and we can describe our own feelings. Each of these techniques helps raise the child’s awareness of their situation yet leaves them in control over the resolution. Rather than commands we might use phrases such as “Your milk glass is very close to the edge of the table.” “I am afraid that your glass will get knocked over.” “Your milk!” “I don’t enjoy eating a cold dinner after taking time to clean up spills.”
Seeking alternatives to punishment
FOR MANY PEOPLE punishment seems necessary to correct improper behavior. The difficulty with this approach is that punishment, more often than not, creates feelings of resentment and diverts the focus of the interaction away from the problem at hand. If the intent is truly to create better behavior, then the focus should remain on correcting the behavior and determining an appropriate solution.
Faber and Mazlish discuss six alternatives to punishment. First, express your feelings strongly – without attacking the person’s character. “I am furious that my new saw was left outside and rusted in the rain.” Next, state your expectations for the future. “I expect my tools to be returned after they’ve been borrowed.” Third, provide a way for the child to make up for their mistake. “Let me show you how to get the rust off of this tool with some steel wool.” Fourth, give the child a choice. “You can borrow my tools and return them or you can give up the privilege of using them.” Fifth, you can take action without saying anything. “Why is the tool box locked?” . . .“You tell me why.” And finally, problem-solve together. “What can we work out so that you can use my tools when you need them, and so that I’ll be sure they’re ready when I need them?”
Encouraging independence
O ENCOURAGE a child’s independence the authors suggest the following: Let children make choices as often as possible, show respect for a child’s struggle offering suggestions to guide them to success, yet do not take over the task at hand, don’t ask too many questions, don’t rush to provide answers to their questions, encourage them to seek information from sources outside of the home, and don’t take away their hopes and dreams. By trying to protect children from disappointment, we protect them from hoping, striving, dreaming, and sometimes from achieving their dreams. It is OK for children to have grandiose dreams of their own potential. We need to encourage this dreaming and support children in recognizing and developing the skills they will need to keep making progress toward these goals. Their goals may change, the important thing to remember is that these are their goals, their dreams, and our work is to support them from behind.
Middle School teacher Eric Lanners, after giving a lesson to the entire class about calculating geologic time in a linear dimension, encourages independent work for an extended time (an hour or more) as students brainstorm together to develop answers.
Avoiding evaluation and praise
AVOIDING QUICK PRAISE is, perhaps, the hardest habit to break. It is so easy and natural to say “that is a good picture!” Such unspecific praise, however, is not very meaningful. If you can describe what it is you see in the child’s effort, your words will have more significance. For example, “I see a beautiful sunset and so much red.” We can also describe what we feel, “This reminds me of when we were at the beach this summer. That was a really special day.” You can also identify a particular positive behavior trait demonstrated by the child’s work, “You spent all that time making this picture just for me. That was very thoughtful of you.” These focused comments show the child that you really do see not just the product but also the process and effort that went into it’s completion. The emphasis is more on the effort and less on the object. Such comments encourage thoughtful and productive behavior and support children in developing awareness of their specific abilities.
Freeing children from becoming locked into particular behavioral roles
WHEN CHILDREN REPEATEDLY make the same mistakes they can begin to feel that they are “hopeless cases” and give up on trying to make different choices. We can help our children by looking for opportunities to show each child a new picture of himself or herself. We can give children opportunities to try new things they might not have thought they were capable of. We can let them overhear us saying positive things about them. We can model specifically the things we want them to see. “This is so delicious. I could keep on eating, but I am really full, so I am going to stop.”
We can be a storehouse for our children’s most successful moments. “I remember when you ….” When the child acts according to an old label clearly state your feelings and your expectations. “I am frustrated by your loud crying. Even when you are very upset I expect you to use your words to tell us what is wrong.” Each of these interactions again focuses on specific behaviors and shows respect for the child and his or her future opportunities for making positive choices.
ET’S REVIEW how these methods and techniques can build a more supportive community in our homes and at our school. We want to find a way to live with each other so that we can feel good about ourselves, and help the people we love feel good about themselves. We want to find a way to live without blame and recrimination. We want to find a way to be more sensitive to one another’s feelings. We want to find a way to express our irritation or anger without doing damage. We want to find a way to be respectful of our children’s needs and to be just as respectful of our own needs. We want to find a way that makes it possible for our children to be caring and responsible. We want to break the cycle of unhelpful talk that has been handed down from generation to generation, and pass on a different legacy to our children – a way of communicating that they can use for the rest of their lives, with their friends, their co-workers, their parents, their mates and one day with children of their own.
Great advice you may be thinking, but I can’t always remember or think of just the right response. The real life dramas that children engage us in every day don’t give us time for rehearsal or careful thought. Though we may still do and say things we regret, with some new guidelines we have a very clear direction to which we can return. There are basic principles we can depend upon.
Let’s not cast ourselves in roles either – good parent, bad parent, permissive parent, authoritarian parent. Let’s start thinking of ourselves as human beings first, with great potential for growth and change. The process of living or working with children is demanding and exhausting. It requires heart, intelligence and stamina. When we don’t live up to our own expectations (or each others) – and we won’t, always – let’s be as kind to ourselves (and each other) as we are to our youngsters. We know that we can’t go too far wrong if we take time to listen to our children’s feelings, or talk about our own feelings, or work in terms of future solutions rather than past blame. We may be thrown off course occasionally, but chances are we’ll never lose our way completely.
The above material was summarized from How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. I hope that many of you will take time to read the book. Other books written by Faber and Mazlish are Liberated Parents, Liberated Children; How to Talk So Kids Can Learn – At Home and At School; How to Talk So Teens Will Listen & Listen So Teens Will Talk, and Siblings Without Rivalry. I especially enjoyed the book on siblings and have found the ideas very helpful at home with my two children. They do still argue at times, but I feel better equipped to understand their frustrations and provide positive support for them in learning to appreciate one another. Finally, if you have any interest in forming a parenting discussion group, please email me at karen.cascadia@gmail.com.
From the Lupine Classroom
By Tami O’Kinsella
OSITIVE AND SUPPORTIVE communication between teachers, parents and children in an optimal environment that encourages us all to be our best selves — that is the subject of Karen Sherman’s leading article for this newsletter. There is so much I can say on this subject regarding the happenings in the Lupine classroom this month.
I think, first of all, of the Open House night we just had on October 22nd. All of the children were very animated as they moved
through the classroom showing their parents what they could do. Just your presence was obviously meeting their need for support, affirmation and connection with their world. I heard a number of positive words from parent to children and I also received some, which helped me to feel appreciated. The following day, I suggested to the children that they write about their Open House experience. I gave the children an example, which several of them followed. Then I noticed they came up with more original illustrations. A few students had drawings of themselves and their parents or other significant adult who attended , with bubbles above them containing words like “good,” “cool,” “right” and “awesome.” Obviously, these words stuck and were part of their joy and their self-assessment.
When I compliment a child, I strive to orient the compliment around what the child is doing. It is my conviction that all children are good and my opportunity to work with them is a gift. I don’t want to make value statements about them related to how they behave. This leads to a sense of self-worth based on their performance, which I want to avoid. Therefore, when they do something I appreciate, for example, helping one of their peers or figuring out how to multiply with a three-digit multiplier I will say something like, “I noticed you helping ________, and I was pleased by your patient attention to him,” or “Wow, you figured out how to multiply a really big number!”
We have had many discussions around the topic of grace and courtesy, which always leads back to positive communication. For example, we talked about taking opportunities to celebrate, as opposed to staying disappointed. When a child gets picked to call names to dismiss children to line up to go home, for the most part now instead of the others groaning because they were not picked, they are spontaneously clapping for the person that did get picked.
Children showing their geometric designs (they were making congruent,
similar and equivalent shapes) that were made using the iron insets.
We have also talked about what kind of words to use when you are eating with others. When a person sitting close to you has a food item you don’t care for, rather than making negative comments or expressions, we simply do not say anything out of respect for the fact that the other person is eating it.
Two first graders, working together, composed a sentence about a botany experiment using the moveable letters. Then they organized the materials needed to make a written copy, and completed the project with an illustration.
We have talked about words that are offensive to others. As I am sure you have noticed, this age is one of much experimentation with language and humor. Children start to notice that certain words get a lot of attention and cause some people to laugh. We have talked about the negative ramifications of some language use and the children have been finding ways to be funny that are not offensive to some people. This is happening through the writing of poems, jokes and stories. Some of the children have especially enjoyed writing out and reading Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutski and Lewis Caroll poems to their classmates as a way to meet their need for play and humor with each other. Finally, as a group we are reading Ramona and her Father, by Beverly Clearly, a very funny book. It keeps us all laughing and the children enjoy it so much they don’t want me to stop reading! It also gives them examples of ways to be funny that work for most people.
Fall Highlights from the Larkspur Classroom . . .
By Judi Simmons
e’ve been on Quite A ROLL since school started this year. The excitement, motivation and work environment have been so positive - the students are engaged and challenging themselves in new ways. We have made a big effort to build a supportive community, and I thank the parents who are a big part of that support!
Has anyone noticed our collaborative hallway mural this month? This Halloween project, lead by the Lupine classroom, also helps to model and build team work within our school community. The students are always going out to observe their work and to see what others have added, as well. The outdoor environment has been teeming with activity recently as various species of birds come to visit and sample the bird feeders. Bird watching and identification is an ongoing point of interest!
First grade students are sharing a table to carry out two different manipulative activities, Word Study and Math (left). A third grader cleans a snack container at the end of the morning before taking it to the kitchen to go through the dishwasher (right).
PE Highlights for October
By Kami Miller
HIGHLIGHT this past month in PE was our triathlon. We did a "jump, kick and run" triathlon involving jumping rope, kicking soccer balls into the goal, and running around the track. The students of all levels had fun and learned the importance of self-motivation and improvement as they competed against themselves in this event. We will do another triathlon in a few months to measure how well the students did improve. We also played kick ball, capture the flag, and other cooperative games. The students learned to communicate effectively with their team members in order to accomplish their goal. The students are having fun while learning physical skills that will be beneficial throughout their lives.
Upper Elementary Happenings
By Zoe Clute (6th grade)
UR CLASS HAS BEEN especially busy lately! We are all focusing on the writing process by making outlines, rough drafts, editing each other’s work, making revisions and then doing the final draft. We have also spent several afternoons learning about Biomes, which are regions on earth that correspond to a certain climate and are characterized by specific types of plants and animals, e.g. tropical rain forest or desert.
Every year the 6th graders get to plan a Halloween party for the entire class, and we are doing our best to carry on this tradition. It's hard not to let the details out, but one thing we can tell everyone is that it's going to be lots of fun! We are also planning our ‘Great Lessons’ (another 6th grade fall tradition) which are the stories of: 1) the Origins of the Universe 2) the Evolution of Life on Earth 3) the Lives of Early Humans 4) the Story of Numbers 5) the Story of Letters. These are big, dramatic lessons that teachers give to first graders every year, and at Cascadia the 6th graders give them again by acting them out or making puppet shows for the Upper El. class. The Universe story has already been presented, and the Coming of Life and Coming of Humans stories are coming along nicely
6th grade students acting out a volcanic eruption in the first of 5 Great Stories: "As the cooling continued, a layer formed around the new planet, like the skin that forms on milk or pudding that has boiled and been left to cool. It seemed as if the Earth had taken some shape, but the elements inside were still very hot and now they were trapped under the skin that had formed. Trapped or not, they had to follow the principle that says if you are hot you expand. Because there was no place to expand, they had no choice but to burst out!"
Marisa Lundsten, a 5th grade student, planned out an entire International Food Day for our class, complete with dances and games from
many children's nationalities. One of these dances Marisa did herself with a group of her friends. “We call it the Jai-Ho,” she said as her friends practiced the dance. “My cousins in the Philippines performed this dance in front of their entire island. Then they taught most of it to me. Then they told me to put a part of me into the choreography of the dance, too. So I did. And it came out like this!” I personally think it turned out quite well. As they practiced, my friend Katie Chamberlain and I began dancing with them. At first we were just fooling around, but soon we had completely joined in. It was really fun! The dance was performed on Tuesday, October 27 for the whole class.
5th and 6th grade students performing the "Jai-Ho", a dance from the Phillipines, at the International Food Day event (left).
4th grade students preparing to take a bow (right) after performing 'The Story of the Seasons' at the recent Fall Festival.
A large group of the fourth graders have been writing a script and practicing it this fall that they titled “The Story of the Seasons”, and they performed it recently at the Fall Festival for everyone who was there. Their script was based on Greek mythology and the story was of Persephone and Hades. The acting was great and everyone loved their performance!
Middle School News
(compiled by 7th grade students)
HE EXPLORATIONS CLASS in the middle school is off to a great start this year. Explorations is a new class that we are offering to begin implementing some of the more practical components of a Montessori Middle School program. It is built upon Montessori’s concept of incorporating micro-economies and occupations in the middle school curriculum. At Cascadia we are developing ways for our students to be engaged in meaningful work (work that benefits the community in some way) that might also have the opportunity for the exchange of goods and services. The following are some of the Explorations that we have started on recently.
Beautification
We take on responsibilities around the school to make it more beautiful. We are currently putting together our ideas for what we will be doing next. Thus far we have cleaned the sheds by getting rid of a lot of miscellaneous items and re-organizing the tools and P.E. supplies. We also spread the bark chips around the track and the play structure. Most recently we have decorated the Fall Festival and designed the seasonal decorations that are near the school entrance.
(by Faith, Zane, Jennifer and Emma)
Planting Crew
So far the plant group has accomplished a lot. We started building a fully functioning greenhouse complete with light shelves and trays (it has wheels so is mobile). We plan to have the greenhouse rotate through classrooms allowing all students access to it. We are currently working on getting material and seeds for the house. We eventually hope to sell the products we grow for a little extra money. All in all we hope that our efforts will create some extra reserve for the school and bring the whole school together to help with the project.
(by Cole, Devin and Tyler)
Vermicomposting
Our group’s goal is to eliminate the amount of compostable material that Cascadia throws away. In order to accomplish this we need to start by educating each class about what can be composted in our worm bins and what cannot. Thus far we have been maintaining a worm bin and making the large cedar worm bin suitable for use. We emptied all the material out of it, cleaned the inside and outside and treated the entire bin to protect it from the elements. Next we are going to repair some parts of the worm bin that have broken and are purchasing more red wiggler worms so we will be able to compost more. Shortly the plant crew will be doing some plantings with our castings. Our long term goal is to be able to sell some castings to our community.
(by Jordan, Josh, Will and Robert)
Beautification Crew members transplanting grasses from the front of the school to an area around the dumpster to enhance that area with natural, green screening (left). A Vermicomposting Crew member works on the compostable material that his group collects from all classrooms each day. Planting Crew members are planning to use some of the composted material in their Grow Lab projects.
Recycling Crew
This year our goal is to implement a school-wide recycling program to reduce the amount of waste that we generate. So far we have cleaned and organized the trash/recycling area by the dumpster. We have also constructed a survey for the teachers that will help us understand how well the classrooms are recycling, and if they need help to be more efficient. We are off to a great start and foresee success!
(by Maura, Travis and Jessica)
*Additional photos of all Exploration Crew Projects will be posted here soon!