Teacher Talk Tuesday: Asking The Big Question

When I was a kindergarten teacher, I did a thing every morning called "The Morning Message".  It was just a short little note that I wrote to the kids on an easel about what we were going to do that day.  A lot of teachers do this- it's a powerful tool that can be used to engage students in decoding, finding sight words, using context, and conventions of writing.

The first year I did it, I would call kids up one by one to "find" things on the morning message- certain sight words or sounds, periods, rhyming words, etc.  It sounded like this:

Me: Okay!  Can any of you find our new sight word that we learned yesterday up here on the Morning Message?

I'd look out at the small sea of faces to see about 12 faces earnestly looking at the easel.  A few kids would be staring off into space, there'd be a few girls would be playing with each other's hair, a couple boys would be rolling around on their backs and shooting imaginary artillery at the Word Wall, and since this was Kindergarten, I could always count on the obligatory nose picker or masturbator to be in the audience as well.

Me:  Charlie?   Do you see our new sight word?  Can you come up and circle it for me?

Charlie ambles up and circles the word.

Me:  Do you want to call on a friend to read the word you just circled?

Charlie: Uuuuuuuuummmmmmmm.  (He labors this decision like it's some kind of career choice, then finally choses a friend in the back row.  Meanwhile I'm secretly longing for  a wall to bang my head on, since I know that Charlie's friend is not going to have a clue about this particular word.)

Do you get the idea?  At some point in the year I silently renamed the Morning Message Morning Misery because it was just painful.   I knew the way I was using it was ineffective, yet I didn't want to give it up because I knew Morning Message carried some really good teaching potential.

What to do? What to do?

I honestly can't tell you how I figured this one out- if I learned it in my credential program, if it was advice from a colleague, if I figured it out myself (doubtful, since I'm not usually that clever)- but I did figure it out.  And what I learned remains to this day, the single most important piece of teaching advice that I could give someone:

The next year, I put up a Morning Message on my easel.  I would open the doors, my class would come in, and sit down on the rug.  Then I'd ask them this question:

Me:  Good morning guys!  Tell me, what do you notice about the morning message today?

20 hands would shoot up into the air.

Henry:  I see the letter A.

Me:  A?  Excellent.  Let me circle that letter there.  That is indeed an A!

Lucy:  I see the word "in" inside that big word there.

Me: Wow!  You spied a word inside a word!  Good work!

James:  You used a red marker for the date and a yellow marker for the words.

Me:  Yes, I did James.  Good observation.

See?  That made all the difference.   As soon as I wasn't looking for specifics anymore, the whole thing opened up and became much more powerful and interactive.  The students were engaged, and I could mentally assess where each child was along the curriculum and form ideas about where they needed to be pushed.  Plus, through their answers, my students were teaching each other.  Kids tend to listen better to other kids, especially if the other kid is receiving positive feedback from the teacher.  So if Suzy raised her hand and said "I see that you forgot to capitalize the beginning of the sentence.", I'd act real impressed that she was smart enough to catch that.  Next day I'd "forget" to capitalize a sentence, and half my class would be waving their hands around, just dying to inform me of my mistake.

Little boogers.

Anyway, I continued using this little trick of asking What do you notice? through the rest of my teaching career.  It's come in handy as a parent too, which is why I'm sharing it with you here tonight.

It's easy to tune kids out when their constantly demanding your attention.  Half the time when my kids say "Mom! Look!", I answer them with a spacey "Mmmhmm.  Yeah, I see."  And then I go back to whatever thought was occupying my brain at the moment.  But sometimes, just for kicks, I'll snap to and respond with "Oh yeah!  What do you notice about that?"  Their answers can surprise me.   A lot of the time what is most obvious to me is not at all what they see.  Or smell.  Or feel.  Or taste (which can be sometimes scary).

When you ask a kid "What do you notice?" what you're really asking is "How do you see the world?", which is why kids respond so well to it.  Most of the time, adults are telling kids what to think.  Asking them for their perspective makes them feel connected and important.  And who doesn't want to feel that?

Good night!