[00:01] SPEAKER_01:
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.
[00:13] SPEAKER_00:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio. I'm your host, Justin Bader. And my guest today is my good friend, Steve Reifman. Steve is a national board certified teacher, a popular speaker and author, and his latest book is 22 Habits That Empower Students, How to Develop Habits of Mind and Habits of Character in the Elementary Classroom.
[00:35] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:38] SPEAKER_00:
Steve, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you for having me. So Steve, tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book and kind of where in your growth as an educator that this book came from.
[00:51] SPEAKER_02:
Sure. I'm excited to share this book because over the years I've developed an approach that can be described as teaching the whole child or of course we want our students to perform well academically, but it has to be more than that. I tell my students in the classroom that yes, we want to be great readers, we want to be great at math, great writers, etc. But we need to address the whole person. Because in order to be successful in life and to be well-rounded, in addition to being successful academically, you want to have strong work habits, strong social skills, certain thinking skills, and valuable character traits that will serve us well in school and beyond. So my teaching over the years has grown in the sense that it continues to to address these issues more completely, more comprehensively, teaching the whole child.
[01:44]
And at the very beginning of my career, I was fortunate to read books by many of my favorite authors who've had an amazing influence on my development. And one of them is a man named Theodore Sizer, who founded a group called the Coalition of Essential Schools. And he wrote what's called the Horace Trilogy, three books called Horace's Compromise, Horace's School, and Horace's Hope. And in the books, he describes how our schools need to improve so that the goal of education is not simply to have kids learn something, memorize it, and perform on a test. It has to be broader than that. We need to aim higher.
[02:23]
And Sizer says that the goal of schooling is to help kids learn how to use their minds well. And one of my favorite quotes by Sizer is that, Knowing stuff is nice. Being able to use it makes sense. But being predisposed to think and act in certain ways as a matter of habit is the brass ring. It's the ultimate standard. So as I would read Sizer's books, I looked for bits and pieces of of these habits that I could use in my classroom.
[02:50]
And he would give examples from different schools and from different classrooms. So from that I was able to put together a list of nine habits of mind, which are different thinking dispositions, ways that kids would think and act as a matter of habit that would set them apart academically. So they're not just memorizing information and giving it back to teachers on tests. They're learning how to use their minds well by being able to use these habits automatically. So with these nine habits, I paired them with 13 habits of character that I developed with my students over the years to create these 22 habits that empower students. Because the idea is if students have these nine habits of mind and 13 habits of character, yes, they will be successful academically, but they're also going to be great people.
[03:39]
One quote that I like to share is that, you know, All of our students may not grow up to be world-class scholars, but they can all become world-class people. They can all be polite, cooperative, honest, hardworking kids who work hard, work well with other people, and work with a sense of purpose. So these habits help kids develop that well-rounded nature as a student where they do work hard academically. They have great thinking skills, work habits, social skills. and character traits. So it really does lead to successful, well-rounded students who will do well in school and they will do well in life.
[04:19] SPEAKER_00:
So Steve, I think we've always had this idea that we need to not only teach academic content, but also set students up for success. And traditionally, I think we've tried to approach that through things like study skills. How are the habits of mind and the habits of character that you've developed and that you've worked with your students to refine throughout the years, how are those different from just something simple like study skills?
[04:44] SPEAKER_02:
I think the habits of mind and habits of character incorporate a lot of what you're talking about because there are organizational skills, different types of work habits and study skills built into it. But it's meant to be presented as two broad sets of ideas that will resonate with kids, that kids will understand. So the habits of mind include ideas such as judgment. So no matter what academic topic the kids are studying, are studying, they will be able to weigh and evaluate evidence. They'll be able to choose among alternatives so they can have that judgment when they're needing to make decisions about something they're studying in social studies or in a reading workshop, for example. Evidence is another habit of mind.
[05:28]
So when studying social studies, for example, if the kids are making an argument, they can back that up with evidence that they've learned from whatever it is they've been reading and learning about in social studies. So the habits of mind have a strong academic thinking focus. And then the habits of character do incorporate a lot of what you were talking about. One of them is responsibility. So that includes organizational skills, organization with your supplies, your desk, how your backpack looks, things like that, making sure that you always have the paper that you need when you need it. Pride, caring deeply about your work, continuously trying to improve it.
[06:11]
So not only taking pride in our work, but also taking pride in how our work looks, the neatness of it, the organization of our supplies. So by focusing on the thinking skills as habits of mind and the work habits, social skills, and character traits under Habits of Character, it creates two broad sets of ideas that have definite focuses, but also include a lot of what you're talking about. I think as teachers, we always want to have it all. If there's a positive trait we want to develop or that's possible to develop with kids, we want to do it. And the umbrella topics of habits of mind and habits of character can help us get there because I think any positive outcome we want for kids can naturally be included under one of the habits of mind or one of the habits of character.
[07:04] SPEAKER_00:
So Steve, could you talk to us a little bit about how students are involved in the process? What do they do to both internalize and use the habits that you teach in your classroom?
[07:16] SPEAKER_02:
Sure. Well, the ultimate goal, of course, is not for the kids to know the definition of the habit or be able to talk about it, but it's to be living embodiments of what these ideas are. It's for the kids to act in these ways as a matter of habit. So it starts at the very beginning of the year when I introduce the habits of character to the kids. I introduce the habits of character first because they include emphases that are so important to building a productive family. cooperative classroom environment, that I have to start with those, and then I build on the habits of character later with the habits of mind.
[07:50]
So on the day that I introduced the first habit of character, which is usually cooperation, I also introduced the rubric that we use throughout the year to assess our progress with the habits. We use a four-point rubric, and we use the same rubric with our academic work, so the consistency really helps the kids. A score of three means that you're meeting expectations, that you do things what the definition of each habit says most of the time on a consistent basis. Two is below expectation, one is significantly below expectation, and then four is exceeding the expectation. So the idea is when we introduce the habits with our students, we're also focusing right away on how we can improve them. Because many times kids show up in school thinking that it's the adults that are in charge of their behavior.
[08:41]
And the goal with these habits is completely the opposite, that the kids have to be in charge. They are the only ones who can control their behavior and their effort and their performance. So they have to be the one to evaluate it. I can give a score for each of the definitions for each habit, but it would never be as good as the definition or the score that the kids could give on their own. And as adults, if we think about this, it makes perfect sense that if I'm using a rubric to assess how responsible I am being, and then each habit in the book comes with a list of three to five descriptors so that we can make it very concrete. We can begin to describe these habits in very specific ways.
[09:24]
So if I'm giving myself a score, that score will be more accurate than any score that an outsider can give me. And it would probably make us pretty upset if somebody claimed to know our actions better than ourselves. So the kids have to take ownership of it. So with this rubric, they are assessing themselves each day with a new habit as I introduce one habit of character each day for the first few weeks of the year. And we're always focusing on next steps. What are my strengths?
[09:53]
Where do I need to focus my attention in order to grow? So as the kids are learning what the habits mean, they're already starting to assess and improve their performance with the habits. And that's built in throughout the year. The book includes a heavy emphasis on goal setting, reflection, and self-evaluation because that is the best way to improve in anything. It's not when a teacher gives us a grade. It's when we're reflecting on our own, thinking about how well we're doing, and planning for the future.
[10:23]
It's when we make a commitment to improve in these areas that their progress happens. So as teachers, we facilitate that type of progress by starting from the very beginning of the year with mostly informal, but then also formal, goal setting at several occasions. Parent conferences about one-third of the way into the school year is perhaps the best time to sit down with students and parents and create a series of goals which can include academic goals but also include goals related to the habits. Two-thirds of the year with my students I do student-led conferences where they themselves put together a portfolio of their work And then something that I've done over the past, I would say, seven or eight years is structure the student-led conferences around a selected group of habits. So the kids have a list of choices of all the work that we've done over the past few months, and they select the work
[11:18]
They select a piece of work that best represents each of the habits of character and habits of mind that are the focus of the student-led conferences. And they're reflecting on why they're choosing the work that they are, how that work brings to life that habit. and they're expressing that to their parents at the student-led conferences. So in addition to seeing the work at the student-led conferences that the kids chose, the parents are also discussing with the kids what the habits are, and it helps the kids learn them on a deeper level and continue their process of self-evaluation, reflection, and setting goals for the future. An important part of helping the kids grow with their understanding and performance with the habit of mind and habits of character is self-evaluation. At the at the parent conferences that we do about one-third of the way into the school year.
[12:13]
We will end each meeting by setting a series of goals and then I encourage the families and the kids to create a chart or spreadsheet or goal setting sheet where they write the goals at home and then they keep it somewhere accessible whether it's on a refrigerator or on a desk on a bulletin board and then each day the kids would give themselves a score about how well they did that day. And in the e-book, there's a link to a PDF that readers can download that shows many examples of self-evaluation sheets that my kids have developed over the years. Some are very simple where the kids will give themselves a one through four ranking for each goal each day. Some kids will use a series of happy face, neutral face, sad face. Some will use check, check plus, or check minus.
[13:04]
And by doing that at home at the end of each school day, It promotes valuable conversations between parents and kids to keep these ideas alive and to keep the focus on improvement over time. Because I tell the parents how unfortunate it would be if we took the time at our parent conference to set three goals and then forgot all about them. No improvement is going to happen if that's what happens with the goals. In order for progress to occur, It takes time and requires consistency, and it requires the parents and the kids to be having these conversations over time, positive ones. If things are going well, that needs to be celebrated. If the kids are not performing at the level that we would like them to, then we stay positive, we stay encouraging, and we continue to work we continue to come up with a plan to make progress more likely so that over time genuine progress will occur with these habits because of the efforts the kids are making with um reflecting on their habits of mind and habits of character evaluating their performance and setting goals for the future like that's a cycle that occurs throughout the year
[14:08] SPEAKER_00:
So Steve, if someone wants to get the book and read through it and learn about the nine habits of mind and 13 habits of character, I know they can find that book on Amazon. And for our audience of school administrators, if a school is interested in kind of adopting those 22 habits and making them a topic of discussion among staff, where can an administrator or a teacher leader get in touch with you to talk about how to make that happen and make this available to their entire staff?
[14:37] SPEAKER_02:
Sure. My website is a great place to check, steveriefman.com. I'm always available via email, sreefman at verizon.net. And I created the book originally as an 8.5 by 11-inch PDF.
[14:53]
So if... teachers are unable to access the book via Kindle because they don't have one. I believe Amazon makes the book available for other types of e-readers, or I think there are certain apps that would allow people to read the book after getting on Amazon. But I'm always happy to talk with anybody who's interested in the PDF itself.
[15:16]
I can make that available. And then one of the things that I'm very excited about with the book is that in the e-book itself, there's a link to a... free set of printable pages that teachers can use in the classroom. There's a set of signs, nine habits of mind signs and 13 habits of character signs that teachers can print out and keep in their classroom.
[15:37]
I have these signs on the front wall of my classroom so that these ideas are always visible. And by making them visible, I can refer to them easily throughout the school day. And that helps the kids keep these ideas in mind. There's also a set of habits of mind and habits of character slides that can be shown on a smart board or using a document camera when introducing the habits to kids. There's a rubric that I've mentioned that is in the printable package. There's a set of sample evaluation sheets that students can use after their parent conferences and other times during the year.
[16:14]
And then there's a full set of sheets for student-led conferences for teachers who are interested in implementing a type of student-led conferences that shines a spotlight on the habits of mind and habits of character. All the sheets that you would need are in there. And then, of course, there's a list of each set of habits along with descriptors because each one is broken down into into specific aspects of that habit because we really can't define our character in the same way that we can, or we really can't evaluate character in the same way that we can evaluate a piece of writing or a math problem-solving activity. It's almost offensive, the notion that we would evaluate character. But what we can do is break down the larger topic of character into smaller units, which would be the habits. And then with each habit, we can come up with descriptors that allow all of us in the classroom to speak the same language,
[17:08]
And we can focus on these specific actions and evaluate them on our rubric. And that goes a long way towards helping kids develop these larger habits for a lifetime.
[17:19] SPEAKER_00:
Well, Steve, I'm so glad you said that. And I agree completely that all of the attempts that I've seen to kind of grade students on character traits or social skills or things like that, they really fall flat in their purpose of helping students grow and helping students grow. make the changes that we want them to make. Because we certainly don't want to further just label students with labels that probably reflect what they've been told their whole lives. We want to help students grow. And I love the reflective process that you've built in and the tools to help students kind of set goals and figure out what they can do to actually take action, to actually develop the habits that will help them become the kind of people they want to be.
[18:01]
instead of just kind of dwelling on comparisons to other people or points for character or something like that. So I really appreciate that. Sure.
[18:09] SPEAKER_02:
And I'm glad that you made that point. I would just say in order to keep the focus on the lifelong development of the habits and not on getting a score from a teacher for the habits, the main two things that we as teachers can do is one, be very explicit in saying that this is not a school thing. This is not something you do because your teachers are telling you to do it or your parents are telling you to do it. These are character traits, work habits, social skills, thinking skills that help us have better lives. They help us be more successful in school and outside of school. So the emphasis always has to be on connecting what we're doing in the classroom to these larger purposes in school and out of school.
[18:47]
And then also making the point over and over that the student's opinion, their assessment their performance with these habits is more important than the teachers. And that's something that's going to shock them a little bit because they're used to coming into a classroom and having the teachers give grades, give scores, give opinions. And it's easy to think that the teacher's opinion matters more than their own. And that's not true, that the kids have to know that it's their judgment that matters the most. And And that's why judgment is one of the habits of mind, because it's such an important factor in the kids' development as people throughout their whole lives.
[19:24] SPEAKER_00:
Well, Steve, thanks so much for sharing your book, 22 Habits That Empower Students, How to Develop Habits of Mind and Habits of Character in the Elementary Classroom. It has been a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you, Justin. And now, Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership. So high performance instructional leaders, how can we apply some of the lessons from Steve's book that we heard in our interview today to our work as school administrators? I think the clearest and most direct lesson we can draw is that habits matter.
[19:56]
In the high performance triangle, I've identified three factors that work together to create high performance. And everything that we offer in the high performance instructional leadership network is organized around these three factors strategy which is what makes us effective that is doing the right work in the first place second tools which allow us to be efficient and third habits which allow us to be consistent so when we teach our students habits that can make them successful we're giving them a tremendous gift and if we want to give ourselves that same gift as leaders we need to give ourselves the opportunity to develop the habits that will maximize our effectiveness. So think for a moment about the habits that characterize your leadership. Are those habits helping you become the kind of leader you want to be? If they're not, take a minute to plan out a few next steps in building habits that can help you become a high performance instructional leader.
[20:49]
One of the key habits that you can start on right away is getting into classrooms and providing great feedback to your teachers. If you haven't taken the 21-Day Instructional Leadership Challenge, you can sign up for free at instructionalleadershipchallenge.com.
[21:04] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
