Picking up on yesterday’s question, which focused on how culture can support reading, I thought it important to back-up and ask what the culture can and cannot do. I’m sensitive to this because most of us have had the experience of a leader asking the group to take on a problem or a task when the issue is about one person or a small group of people. Teachers do this all the time; yapping about lateness with the kids who are all on-time? <\/p>\n
So I asked the question by having each student make a list of what’s fair and what’s unfair to ask of the whole culture. <\/p>\n
Fair to expect the whole culture to support: <\/strong> Unfair when: <\/strong> Debatable — The other piece that needs to happen with this conversation is how much of this work can fall on students (as much as possible) and where should it fall on the teacher. The fact that the students have accepted so much of the responsibility is tribute to how awesome they are but it’s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Picking up on yesterday’s question, which focused on how culture can support reading, I thought it important to back-up and ask what the culture can and cannot do. I’m sensitive to this because most of us have had the experience of a leader asking the group to take on a problem or a task when … Continue reading What can the culture do?<\/span>
\ngiving everyone a chance
\neveryone express their own opinion
\naddressing something that everybody can change (AM)
\nto call people out in fornt of class when they are slacking (AM)
\nto help one another (AM)
\nthe whole class being involved (BC)
\nto tell someone when they’re doing wrong (DD)
\nbringing important things to the bigger group to talk it out (DD)
\neveryone should crack a joke once or twice a week (SH)
\ncoming prepared to school (KH)
\nhaving people support you and your work (LS)
\nto make sure everyone is upadated on their work (MT) <\/p>\n
\ntell the class that a person is failing
\npeople get picked on when they are having a hard time (AM)
\neveryone comes at one person about something that happened (BC)
\ncalling someone out at the wrong time (BC)
\npeople give their thoughts on things that have nothing to do with you. (BC)
\nhaving important discussions without everyone
\nto have to clean up after others (DD)
\nto lose things because of others (DD)
\nsomeone has done what they’re supposed to do but have to do more because someone is absent (IP)
\nthe sins of the one fall on the many (EG) make everyone suffer for one person’s mistake (SH)
\ncalling someone out in a disrespectful way (EG)
\npeople do half a** work and expect a good grade (SH)
\ncalling someone out on a grade they wanted to keep private (KH)
\nsaying something that will make the environment feel unsafe (KH)
\nreading someone else’s work without them knowing (HG) <\/p>\n
\nGrinding people up when they leave the classroom (SH) <\/p>\n
\nWhat I’m thinking about is how I can get out of the way of some of these things. In other words, how do I help students do this culture work as much as I can, without placing them in unfair positions? There are some behaviors that I have to monitor for the sake of the school and some behaviors and work patterns that occur because of the blind spots all humans have, i.e., things take longer than you think they will. <\/p>\n