KensieWilson
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Mindset
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Week 4 of 5
KensieWilson commits to:
Provide rich teaching for students growing up in poverty.
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Next report due:
April 2
5:00 AM GMT
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My Commitment Journal
 KensieWilson
March 23, 2025, 6:00 PM
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A. Achievement B. Reading did not come naturally to me, it was a terribly long process that included private tutoring sessions, hours of practice, my mom purchasing a phonics program for home, and changing schools. No one ever just said I wasn’t good at reading, I just needed extra help. My parents pushed me and eventually things got better. I haven’t concluded that any of my students just aren’t good at something. I just say they haven’t been given the resource that will help them yet. Then I attempt to find the successful resource. I am reminded of a student who just could not multiply decimals this week. They weren’t able to do it with standard algorithm and they didn’t respond to an area model. I was stumped then determined maybe they just needed to hear the material from a different face. They were able to multiply for one of the school assistants within an hour. Question 4 made me think. I do have so many students who struggle to keep up. I am given a time block especially for intervention time. My usual approach to handling a struggle is to give the student extra practice during that intervention time. I give oral and written feedback to all of my students. They usually take the feedback to heart and ask how they can improve on something. For example, when I wrote something about handwriting on an essay, the student came back and asked for sentence strips to practice. C. Insight: The handbook mentions a teacher who just blames the parent on student issues being stuck as a professional. This stood out to me! I find myself saying certain kids would be so much better behaved or they would understand subject material if the parent practiced with them. I’ve got to do better with this and try to fix the issues instead of blaming it on parents. Question: How do you set gutsy goals with students when they won’t even attempt to accomplish a simple goal? Question: Should formative assessments also serve as grades? We are standards based grading, so I really need these formative assessments to serve as markers for accomplishing a standard. Should they just be used for planning purposes/data collection? D. This week I would like to try to drop the labels. We recently took a state check in and will be going over student data this week. In data meetings, all of the staff refer to labels like underachievers, minorities, and exceptional. The students may not hear these conversations, but it does cause teachers/staff to look at the students a certain way. I’ve heard “this someone is exceptional; we can’t expect them to score at grade level. They are a minority; they can’t understand the grade level English on the test.” This week I am going to try to refer to students by their name and not refer to the label that usually identifies them. |
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KensieWilson
March 19, 2025, 11:39 PM
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A. Rich Classroom B. Question four stood out the most to me. I try to make sure my students feel safe in my classroom. I think most of my children feel safe. I usually can tell when a student is struggling, and I am able to either help or refer them to someone who can. I fill out many guidance referrals and I try to stay on top of the issues I see. Students know I have an open door policy. If the door is open during my planning or my lunch hour, students are welcome to come in and visit. This seems to be a time when I hear about sick family members and the troubles my students are having at home. Question three made me do some thinking. I try to use real world examples and have students brainstorm how we can use the materials we study in fifth grade in their future. We have career studies and encourage students are allowed to share during discussion time. C. Question: I understand that making mistakes is a good thing, and kids will be at ease if the adult makes them as well. How do you deal with the kids who take it to a new level and bully you over making a mistake on a math problem. Insight: I enjoyed learning more about rebuilding relationships. I think it is so easy to lose a students’ trust after correcting bad behavior. They find it hard to forgive you. I am encouraged to continue relationship building even with my kids who have behavior issues and receive corrections daily. Question: How do you make a student feel like they aren’t less than if they do not get an answer as quick as someone else? I have such different ability levels in my class. Some students get it immediately, and some take multiple tier 3 intervention sessions and still struggle to get the concept. How do I encourage them to still work hard? D. I would love to start next school year off with cool rules. We have a few rules in my classroom. They are posted on my classroom’s walls, and we tried to memorize them as a class at the beginning of the year. I have noticed my kids beginning to forget these rules. I wonder if this is because the rules are just too long to remember. I think the rule make no excuses will be the most useful in my classroom. Anytime we have behavior issues, the student seems to blame it on the person next to them or the student who identifies as the class clown. I also like the rule choose well. I try to let kids take charge of their education. I provide all of the required curriculum, but I want students to want to learn it. I am not someone who gives multiple reminders on makeup work and I expect students to make good choices. I think my students this year would respond well to cool rules, but it may be hard to intact this school year. My kids are set in their ways, and we are just coping with end of year behaviors. |
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KensieWilson
March 17, 2025, 1:40 AM
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A. Graduation B. I am still fairly new to the teaching field, so I don’t have a percentage of students who go on to graduate yet. My oldest group is in 8th grade. I know for sure all of them have gone on to middle school! Question five stood out to me. I have a strong belief that teachers shouldn’t make it seem like college is the only way to make it somewhere in life. I encourage students to do research on trades and to consider CTE classes when they are in high school. I think poverty does play a large roll in a student’s ability to graduate. Kids from poorer backgrounds do have less access to things that could play a part in a student graduating. For example, some districts do not offer tutoring programs free of charge, and that could prevent many children from getting the help they need. C. Insight: I was encouraged to know that mentorships are useful even in the younger grades. At my previous school, we used twelfth graders for a reading program. They worked with 4th and 5th graders who were struggling with grade level text. This was awesome to see! I would like to see it in action in the traditional elementary school I work at now. Insight: I enjoyed learning more about how beneficial the performing arts are for students below the poverty line. I loved choir and I encourage all of my fifth graders to try out at least one type of performing arts. I just got my registration forms back, and I got very excited! Question: I noticed the book encouraging the use of learning to play musical instruments. I would love to know how schools that are title one or barely able to afford a part time music teacher would be able to provide musical instruments for a music program. D. The use of drama in the classroom stood out to me in the reading this week. Our district doesn’t have the funds to hire a theatre teacher at the middle or high school level. My students won’t be able to have that experience. This week, we used reader’s theatre to teach a life science standard. We have been covering biomes, and I found a theatre script about a marine life biome. The kids loved this! I Definity plan to try to incorporate the arts a bit more in my classroom. I am trying to figure out when I could use music lessons in class or how to do that. My husband, a high school band teacher, suggested I start by mood matching music. When I am hoping for a calm moment, using calm music could be beneficial. |
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KensieWilson
March 13, 2025, 1:46 AM
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A. Relational B. The third question made me do the most thinking. I do find pride in knowing my subject material, but I also realize that I may be the only source of emotional support for some of my students. I am willing to chat with them when they need it, but I also want to give them the academic knowledge the standardized tests require. I have seen the impact poverty has on students. They often do not have access to the same things that other students do. They don’t have the same necessary school supplies and sometimes show negative behaviors in an attempt to cope. I also noticed the impact of poverty on my classmates who were impacted by poverty. My teachers delt with that well. All of them had extra school supplies ready and treated those students like everyone else. I am inspired by their behavior. C. Insight: The statistics in the adding of a school counselor was very interesting to me. My last school had two per age group, elementary, middle, and high school. The kids loved speaking with the counselor and knew the person was concerned about them. The school I work at now only has one counselor, but that person is also our behavior specialist. Their day is often just diffusing angry children and preventing fights from accelerating. They don’t have time to connect emotionally, like a counselor should be able to do in my opinion. This statistic reinforced my opinion. Question: How do you protect yourself emotionally when you’re trying to get to know about your students’ home lives. I feel like I often channel those sad emotions and end up sad too. Insight: Cooperative learning is a big thing in my classroom already. We work in groups at least once daily. Usually, it is by table group to monitor behavior. Sometimes it’s a quick and fun pick a group type of work. The kids love this! The book mentioned using team building within those groups. Letting kids choose a name or cheer is important. I usually wouldn’t take class time for this, but I do think my students would greatly enjoy it. D. Most of my students have been extremely emotional recently and they are in a time of transition. They will be going to middle school in just a little while and their friend groups are changing. I used empathy tools in my classroom this week. I believed this would be successful because of the age group I work with. They enjoy having “big kid” conversations and are able to actually reflect on their behavior. I picked the “we were worried about you” tool. I said this to a student who was absent for multiple days in a row. The student responded with “really?” I used this as a time to express how important their presence in the classroom was. They smiled and I noticed much less behavior issues out of them. I understand that some of my students come from a tough area and live in poverty. I plan to use these tools often with these children. |
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