Responsibility

Kids need to take on their own problems and claim their responsibility for themselves. I learn about this conference tool from Four Rivers Charter School. Instead of parent-teacher conferences, the parents meet with the teacher and their child. The child does the presentation on how they are doing and why they got certain bad grades and what needs to happen to improve their grades. It puts the responsibility on the child and it teaches them self-reflection, which is crucial to every aspect of life. Growing means growing in understand of one's self too. I would like to try this concept in my classroom next year.


One idea I have is to have students fill out a conversation form every Friday. On this would be fun questions I want to know, questions to get them thinking baout themselves, and questions about what they are going to do to succeed (or something like that). It would be fun and then my job would be to give them back the next Tuesday with written comments. My second grade teacher did something similar to this, but without the idea of students taking ownership for their success. As much as possible I want to integrate the idea defining success and setting them on the right path in thinking about their futures.