Passionate Learners: Giving Our Classrooms Back To Our Students

[00:01] SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high-performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader.

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Welcome to Principal Center Radio. I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I am thrilled to have on the show today Perneil Ripp. Perneil is a fifth grade teacher in Middleton, Wisconsin. She is co-founder of EdCamp Madwe and creator of the Global Read Aloud Project. Her new book is Passionate Learners, giving our classrooms back to our students.

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And now, our feature presentation.

[00:37] SPEAKER_01:

So Pernille, welcome to Principal Center Radio. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about who you are and what your life's work is.

[00:44] SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Thank you for having me, Justin. As you said, I'm a fifth grade teacher in the great district of Middleton, Wisconsin, and this is my sixth year teaching. I've been teaching fourth and fifth grade here. Life's work, I think it has been to make sure that the type of education we're doing to our children is the type of education that our children actually want to be a part of. I didn't start out thinking that at all.

[01:06]

I started out very traditionally and then realized after about two years that I didn't want to be a student in my own classroom. And that became my mission then, to create the type of classroom where students would actually want to come to school and to create the type of classroom that would continue to enable children to be led by their curiosity and their passion. And so when we say life work as far as our occupation, that has definitely been everything that I put into my teaching every day and the message that I try to put out into the world as well.

[01:37] SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. Well, let's talk a little bit about the book, Passionate Learners, giving our classrooms back to our students. What's the core message of that book?

[01:45] SPEAKER_00:

The core message for me has been to just involve students in their education through very simple means, because I know that there's a lot of systems out there that tell teachers how to teach. But as a teacher, I don't need a system. I need ideas and I need ideas that I can adapt. So I set out journaling my own. transformation in changing my classroom and so for me the message of the book is really just to involve your students by asking them how they want to learn and what they want to learn even though we're faced with certain standards and curriculums as dictated by the government and by our own districts there's a way to work within those systems and still bring students into their own education by simply asking students like okay how do you want to get to this endpoint you will see an increase in engagement and passion and so for me that has been a really easy fix and so this book really is a how-to book how to give your classroom back to your students and and involving them in everything from how the classroom is set up to how you teach to lesson planning and also in how they're assessed and the homework

[02:46]

and kind of the outside of school stuff that we have them involved in as well. And I really wanted people to feel like it could be an organic, natural process where they could pick and choose whichever ideas worked for them rather than a whole system where everything had to be implemented and everything had to be changed.

[03:02] SPEAKER_01:

Now, I think any teacher who's had the experience of having students do something like, say, set their own class rules has found that students generally are harder on themselves than we would have been. Have you found that academically as well?

[03:16] SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. My students self-assess and some of them are really, really hard on themselves to where I have to pull them into a conversation talking about, Not just how they've assessed themselves, but their own self-worth. And as fifth graders, they're definitely figuring out the world, but also I've had to teach them that it's okay to stand up and say, I am good at this. I still have time to grow and I have places I want to go with this, but I am good at what I'm supposed to be good at right now. And so it has led to really deep conversations about what it means to be simply a student or a child during this time in America. And I've found that my students often are very, very spot on in not only their self-assessment, but also the path and the direction that they want to choose and what they still need to work on, even more so than I am.

[04:02]

There's things sometimes that have come up in our assessment conversations or in our general conversations where I have said to them, well you fooled me you know I mean kids are very good at faking school and faking that they know what they're doing and so through these conversations I've realized that some of my students really didn't know certain things that I for sure said that they they had mastered and secured so yes I would agree with that that the students are can be very harsh on themselves but also can be very intuitive and tell us things that we're not aware of

[04:31] SPEAKER_01:

So you're saying it could actually lead to the opposite of what people might fear with this type of setup, that students are actually more aware of what they're supposed to learn, they take more ownership of that, and they have more ownership of the process of getting there, rather than just kind of throwing the standards out the window.

[04:49] SPEAKER_00:

absolutely i mean and i when i first started doing this i thought i was crazy and i thought that it would be a that's true i i thought that this would be a kick like a chaotic situation wrist some students would take so much advantage of it that there wasn't gonna be real learning and what i found instead was that even when students completely failed at something and their grand plans didn't work out, the ownership that came from the conversations that we had throughout or at the end of what they needed to do and how they would circumvent this happening in the future and just really the self-analysis of, oh, here is where I didn't step up or here's where I didn't do what I was supposed to do has been so much deeper than me saying, well, you failed. and then just leaving it at that and assigning it a grade. And so all of a sudden, when you have kids being a part of their learning journey, they take responsibility, not every time.

[05:39]

And you're going to have kids that are still going to phone it in, but it's a lot harder for them to do it when I say, well, you need to figure out how you're going to show me that you're learning this, rather than just saying, here's point A to point B. get there and hand this in and then I'll assign the grade.

[05:55] SPEAKER_01:

Fabulous. Now, when you share these ideas with other teachers, whether that's through your blog or on Twitter or in a face-to-face conversation or some sort of presentation, I would imagine that not everyone immediately accepts this idea that students can take vastly more responsibility for their learning and for how the classroom operates. What are some of the fears that you've encountered that have turned out to be unfounded? What are people afraid of that they should not be afraid of?

[06:22] SPEAKER_00:

I think, and me included, I thought when I first started giving control back to the students that it would be some sort of anarchy in my classroom. And that students who I had been punishing to behave, that they would take such advantage of it and never do anything. And it turned out that I was completely wrong, that I realized that those kids that... were not behaving and weren't invested in school, this is exactly what they needed.

[06:48]

They needed control over something. And they needed to feel like they had control when they came into our school environment. So that was one of the biggest misconceptions that I had to deal with myself, too. I think the fear is just that we won't cover what we're supposed to cover and we won't cover it in the way that we're supposed to cover it but the thing is even within the strictest curriculum we can still figure out ways of how to get there we can still figure out ways of how we're going to assess something and so i think sometimes we're so terrified of bucking the system when the system is actually asking us to change it and asking us to work around it because we all teach you know individual children that all have individual needs So I think as teachers, we're often more afraid than our students will ever be.

[07:33] SPEAKER_01:

Well said. Well said. Well, Pernille, it seems like there must be teachers who have that same mindset that you have in every school. And some of them might be afraid to actually take action, to actually put some of these ideas into practice. And I want to applaud you for giving people the courage that they need and the permission that they need to give some control of the classroom back over to students and encourage them to take on that responsibility. What can school leaders do to create that sense of safety and that permission to make these changes?

[08:09] SPEAKER_00:

I think the first step is to start an open dialogue about it. I think we're so afraid of change that we would rather hide that we're changing things than come out and say, I'm going to try this. And then start small. You don't have to throw away everything like I did that was kind of crazy, but that's how my personality works. But you can start small, and if a school leader who's not in the classroom wants to facilitate this, why don't they come in and talk one-on-one with a teacher and say, I've noticed that you are great at this. Have we thought about doing it this way?

[08:39]

Because I think that you would really benefit from this, and I think you're ready for that. sometimes all teachers need our permission and especially fits from someone who is considered a leader whether they're in an administrative position or not just for someone to come in and say you know what have you thought about doing this because it's okay if you do that can be the change that we need i was talking about planning a seat of change and so even if there are no leaders that are doing this if you're that person saying how i really want to change the way i teach i'd get permission in my book to change it and i know that sounds crazy but as a new teacher I needed someone to say, hey, it's okay that you can trust yourself. It's okay that your gut is telling you to do something. Follow your gut. And so in my book, I end up saying that to people because it's really like we just need someone to say, hey, it's okay. You can try it.

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We're not going to ruin the lives of our students by simply changing one thing. So start small, get your feet wet, get your confidence up, and then start implementing more and more change.

[09:40] SPEAKER_01:

So that permission to experiment is really critical, isn't it?

[09:43] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah.

[09:44] SPEAKER_01:

Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today. If people want to find out more about what you do, where can they find you online?

[09:51] SPEAKER_00:

I'm very easy to find online. Not a lot of people have my name, first of all. So I blog at pernilrip.com under blogging through the fourth dimension. And I blog about everything that happens in my life and within education in my life. I can be found on Twitter at pernilrip.

[10:08]

I can be found through the global read-aloud as well. And obviously through my book, I'm hoping to start a conversation with people too. I'm very visible. And because I've had such amazing people reach out to me and help me on my path to change, I'm always reaching out to other people as well. So I always encourage people to reach out and ask me questions or ask for help if they ever need it, because that's really what I'm here for and what we're all here for.

[10:33] SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. So Pernille, we'll have a link to your website and Twitter profile and the book, Passionate Learners, giving our classrooms back to our students on the episode page on our website. Pernille, it's been fabulous speaking with you today. Thank you so much for being on Principal Center Radio.

[10:49] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. And thank you for speaking to me about this. And seriously, anybody that needs help, just reach out.

[10:55] SPEAKER_01:

Terrific. Thank you so much. Fantastic.

[10:58] SPEAKER_02:

And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[11:02] SPEAKER_01:

So, high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from that interview? One thing that I hope you heard Perneil say was that sometimes all our teachers need from us is permission. Permission to experiment. Permission to move forward with something that might be a little bit different from the norm in your school. So it never hurts to be direct and be clear that you want people to innovate. You want people to try new things.

[11:29]

And I believe that part of our job as school leaders is to create a sense of safety around that experimentation and that desire to try new things. I think far too often we devote all of our attention to the other end of the spectrum, to the people who don't want to change. And as we know, that hardly ever works. So I think one thing that Perneil's interview has inspired me to focus on is permission, is how can we unleash the desire that's already there to make a positive change, to do that experimentation, and to really figure out what works for our students.

[12:05] Announcer:

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