This year, I decided to get involved with our Board’s N.T.I.P. Mentorship Program. It’s been many years since I’ve been involved, and I thought that this would be an exciting new leadership opportunity for me. On Thursday, we met for our first session as mentors. I was really excited when I heard that Kristin Roy would be joining us to give us some training around the Seven Norms of Collaboration. While I’ve heard of these norms before and discussed them at some staff meetings in the past, my learning around these norms is still new. I was eager to dig into them more. We focused on two norms: paraphrasing and pausing. As I tweeted during the session, I had some initial thoughts on both of these norms, and I’ve contemplated them even more since Thursday.
"The power of the pause!" Love @krinr's reminder about this. Learning to pause is something I can continue to do. Makes me think of the need of "wait time" for kids. How long should we wait?
— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) October 4, 2018
.@krinr's note on paraphrasing makes me think about what my teaching partner, Paula, does when she says, "You sound really sad." This is all that's needed for the child to open up. Good for adults too!
— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) October 4, 2018
Since returning to school at the end of the day on Thursday, I’ve found Kristin’s voice running through my head. At the end of her presentation, all of the mentors thought of ways that we could practice these norms before meeting with the new teachers in the next couple of weeks. I had a few different thoughts on how I could practice, but one was definitely in the classroom.
My teaching partner, Paula, and I have had many recent conversations around “wait time,” and I definitely see the connection between this and “pausing.” Since we record so many videos in the classroom, listening back to the recordings after school each day, gives us an opportunity to reflect on wait time. I happened to think even more about this on Thursday, as Paula also shared with me some videos that she took while I was away. Since I wasn’t there to hear the discussions at the time, I listened even more carefully to them, and even reflected on them in my Instagram posts.
When I returned to the school Thursday afternoon, I took a few minutes to talk to Paula before our staff meeting. Most of our talk was around “wait time.” We both struggle with the same thing: we know that wait time is valuable for kids, but how do we give students the additional time that they need in a busy Kindergarten classroom where time can be at a premium?
I wondered about the idea of walking away. If we gave the student a prompt such as, “What sounds do you hear?,” and then moved away to work with another child, would that first student start to problem solve independently? I don’t know. I think of a couple of children that keep coming up again to ask for help, or want to know that each sound is correct before moving on. I wonder about that child who waits until you’re there to even attempt the task, and then waits for reassurance before moving on. How much wait time do you give the child? How do you know when a student actually needs more help versus needs more time? Sometimes I’ve seen success with working through a problem together first, building confidence, and then being able to provide the wait time for independence. But is one problem enough? If the child looks for support do you give it or do you wait? I want to be kind and empathetic, but I also don’t want to solve problems for children that they can solve on their own.
On Friday, I really pushed myself to wait when working with a child on some reading and writing. In many ways, it worked, although at times I wonder if I still gave her more support than she needed. Did I say sounds again when she could have been prompted to repeat them?
As I mentioned after school to Paula, there was a lot that I put off as I sat here to work with this child. Was my time spent with her valuable? Yes. Did it help her build some confidence in her skills? Yes. But is it always possible to put some other things off, and what might be some possible drawbacks in doing so? I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons here, while figuring out what’s necessary, what’s reasonable, and how reality might compare to the research. How do you make “wait time” a feasible reality in your classroom or home, and how might children respond to having this extra time? I can’t help but think of a conversation that I had yesterday with my principal minutes before the nutrition break bell rang for returning to class. He ended up pausing when I most definitely should have, but the pressure of the bell, changed things for me. I certainly have work left to do on “pausing,” but if nothing else, Thursday’s training has made me far more aware of this. Thanks for taking up an important spot in my head, Kristin Roy!
Aviva