Toning Down Tattling

Eighteen kindergarteners are bouncing and spinning to a fast, rhythmic song. Smiles are plentiful. I am reminding children that we are dancing, not running. We have practiced asking, “Are you okay?” so when one child falls, three others rush to check on him. Then Malak approaches me, pouting, tearful. I ask, “What happened, Malak?”

She responds emphatically, “Hamdi!” Just a name, no explanation.

I talk to her more and understand that Hamdi bumped into her while they were dancing. I have kept an eye on Hamdi because he is not the most careful of movers. He has been dancing joyfully, skipping and jumping. It is possible that he bumped into her, but he surely did not hurt Malak intentionally. And of course, with 18 children dancing in a small classroom, many children are bumping or brushing against each other, but nobody else is complaining. I remember that Malak also refused to hold Hamdi's hand when we made a circle.

I call Hamdi over. I tell him Malak needs to talk to him and I wait. Malak says, “You pushed me.” Hamdi denies it.

I say, “Hamdi, maybe you bumped into her by accident while you were dancing.”

He nods, smiles and says, “Sorry, Malak!” and hurries off to continue leaping and spinning and skipping. I tell Malak it’s finished and she should go back to dancing.

But I worry. Nobody else is tattled on as frequently as Hamdi. Every time I see this class, someone is telling on Hamdi. Hamdi wasn’t walking in the line. Hamdi touched me. Hamdi isn’t sitting properly. Hamdi is holding his stick wrong. Hamdi is talking. Hamdi wasn’t singing. Hamdi, Hamdi, Hamdi. Even teachers often roll their eyes and sigh and complain when talking about Hamdi.

And I know Hamdi is not easy in his classroom setting. He is an immature, wiggly, barely five-year-old who is not ready for the heavily academic kindergarten class he attends. He is not ready for worksheets and spelling tests and sitting in a chair for extended periods of time. Hamdi is almost always late for my Music lessons because, as the other children are eager to tell me, he didn’t finish his work, he was punished, and he wasn’t listening.

Perhaps this is why I like Hamdi so much. I feel the need to balance out the negative attention he seems to get so often. I want to help the other children see him as an upstanding, helpful, kind member of the classroom community – which he is. Hamdi hands out rhythm sticks. He demonstrates partner work. He offers frequent smiles to his classmates and invites them to join him when he's dancing.

In the first grade class, it is Hamdi’s big sister, Amna who is the primary target of a constant stream of tattling. In many classes, there is a child who is tattled on more than any other. 

I often tell children that there is no tattling allowed in my classroom.  That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, because tattling is a part of classroom and school cultures and it takes work, across the school, to diminish it. But I want children to know that tattling for the sake of getting someone “in trouble” will not be tolerated. I tell them I will help them solve problems. I will mediate conversations if they need me to. But I will not scold a child because another child tattled on him.

Why is it important to limit tattling?

We want to avoid situations were one child or a few children are constantly reaffirmed as the “bad kids.” When we entertain children telling us all the bad things they saw a child do, this can confirm for the tattler and for the subject of the tattling that the child being tattled on is not as good as other children.

We want to empower children to solve problems on their own. If they  come to an adult for every little issue that arises, they don’t learn that they are capable of effectively addressing problems independently. (Tangentially, I don't spell for children for the same reason.)

We want to help children differentiate between issues that require adult intervention, issues that can be solved independently, and non-issues.

  

What can we do to help children move away from tattling as a strategy?

Encourage children to try to solve small social issues before coming to you.

When a child approaches you and begins telling on another child, ask, “Have you spoken to him/her about it?” If the tattler says she hasn’t spoken to the other child, send her off to try. If you think it would be helpful, call the other child over and be an observer while they discuss the problem.

Encourage the upset child to be specific about the problem. Often children will say things like, “He was bothering me,” or, “They kept annoying me.” These vague statements do little to help solve a problem.

Always follow up. Ask later, “Were you able to solve the problem?” and possibly, “How did you solve it?” Compliment the child(ren) for a job well done! 

Employ the help of a fair-minded peer.

Some children are really great problem solvers. They are diplomatic and fair and can be excellent listeners. You can ask children like this to talk with two children in conflict and see if they’re able to help mediate a solution. If this doesn’t work, offer your assistance or the assistance of another adult to mediate.

Focus on solutions.

When you’re mediating, after briefly establishing what the problem is from both perspectives, try focusing the complaining child on what they need to feel better. Do they need an apology? A hug/handshake? The other child to be more careful? A new place to sit? Focus on solutions rather than rehashing the problem over and over again.

The Problem Notebook and Problem-Solving Meeting

I’ve used this strategy successfully in upper elementary classrooms. We kept a class notebook called the problem notebook. It was always available for children to write down a problem they were having with a classmate. When children came to tattle, I referred them to the Problem Notebook. If the problem was solved prior to any adult intervention, the children involved marked the problem “SOLVED” in the notebook. 

At the end of the week, at a designated time, we had a problem-solving meeting. We looked through the notebook and spent time discussing any unresolved problems as a class. Peers offered solutions to the children involved and those children agreed to try one of the solutions. After using this method for several weeks, we rarely had any unsolved problems left to address by the end of the week. Sometimes, children shared how they were able to solve a problem they’d written down earlier in the week.

This strategy should only be used if there’s already a well-established, kind, collaborative community in your classroom. Otherwise, the Problem Notebook can become a collection of mean comments and no solutions.

Of course, like anything else that happens in a classroom, you should teach children strategies for solving social problems early in the year. And children should know you'll be there to help them if they need it and that serious problems should be brought to an adult. But constant tattling doesn't help you or your students. Do your best to decrease the need for your assistance by empowering the children to do their own problem solving.

PS - As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, all children are different and have different needs. This blog post was written with most children I've taught in mind. But there are exceptional children for whom this kind of independent problem solving isn't always possible. Some children will need assistance in working out social issues for an extended period of time, well into upper elementary school, and even beyond. And some children are vulnerable, for various reasons, to being targeted and picked on. I don't wait for these particular kids to tattle or ask for assistance. I'm always watching to see if I need to step in. I check in frequently to ensure partner work and group work are going smoothly and offer frequent tips to the child and to other children about successful cooperation. While I don't like tattling, I don't tolerate bullying. But often kids who are being bullied don't tell, so our eyes have to be open all the time. We don't have to wait for them to tell.

Baltimore and Brown Boys

All week, I have been trying to decide what to write. 

Thousands fleeing unspeakable violence and the unbearable weight of poverty have been sinking, in broken boats, into watery graves in the Mediterranean. A volcano erupted in Chile, burying farms and livelihoods under deep layers of rock and ash. Nepal trembled and shook and structures tumbled and thousands died (and are dying still). And I was really struggling to choose a blog topic.

Then Baltimore riots began to dominate media coverage after police killed another young Black man. And then all I could think about how the media chose to show those few hours of lawlessness over and over, while the many days of peaceful demonstrations that preceded and followed were largely ignored. And how people like Wolf Blitzer, interviewing community activist DeRay Mckesson, demanded, "I just want to hear you say there should be peaceful protests, not violent protests, in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King." I believe in nonviolence, but as DeRay Mckesson so appropriately responded, "I don't have to condone it to understand it." 

I found myself thinking about how brown children are seen by so many adults in our schools. I remember a New York City assistant principal, who I'll be kind enough not to name, saying to two African American boys, "You two are going to make great cell mates!" Comments like this are common. In that same school, teachers got children's attention in the cafeteria by using the siren function on a megaphone. Whooop! Whoooop! Sometimes they slammed yardsticks down onto the cafeteria tables, startling children and narrowly missing their fingers. 

When you teach, you do your best to create a safe space for learning and growing in your classroom. You give your children tools you hope they can use to survive the many obstacles to their success, and even to their very existence, obstacles built into a system that is inherently unjust and racist. You cringe each week when the science teacher declares the one white child in the class is "the smartest" and you try to stem the flow of tears that follows when "the smartest" is given a pencil or a cookie and the rest are left feeling less than worthy. 

In our classrooms, we must examine our own biases, so that we do not perpetuate the racism, sexism and classism that surround us. We do not generally like to think of ourselves as biased, but it would be impossible to come of age in this world without internalizing some of what we are bombarded with. So we must begin having tough conversations with and amongst ourselves, as educators and parents. We must ask ourselves questions about gender and race and class and culture and how these pieces of our students' backgrounds play out in our interactions with them. Because they do.

I have tried on occasion, unsuccessfully, to raise issues of racial bias with administrators. I have questioned why some children (brown boys, generally) receive such harsh punishments for behaviors we laughingly overlook or call "feisty" and "spirited" when exhibited by white girls. I have pondered why some (brown) teachers are seen as less competent than other (white) teachers, despite evidence to the contrary. Often the response from the people I raise these issues with is that they don't even see color, that there is no bias. I am imagining it (along with all of the other staff and students who experience it on a regular basis). These conversations make people uncomfortable, but they are necessary if we are to make changes.

None of us are colorblind. (Feigned) Colorblindness, someone said, is the new racism. (See an article from Teaching Tolerance on this topic, here.)

Usually this is where I create a list of things you can do in your classroom, but this week I'm tired and I don't have answers. I just hope you will think critically about your own practice, as I do constantly, and ask yourself where your own biases lie, and how you can confront them. Ask yourself if your school is doing everything it can to make sure brown boys, and all of your students, recognize their own value and humanity. And if your school isn't, ask yourself how you can begin the conversation. This article provides a good starting point.

The poem I'm including below is one I wrote for my son some years ago, and updated again last year. It was my hope that it would help people to see the complexity and humanity contained within each and every child, and in particular within brown boys who sometimes aren't seen that way.

During his Harry Potter obsession/phase, with his wand. In school that week, he was written up for brandishing a ruler at someone, threateningly. When I asked what happened, he said, "Me and my friend were just having a spell battle."

For Jibreel/Superhero

When you were five

You wrapped a brass paper fastener around your chubby finger

Look, Mommy! 

you said,

I’m the Brown Human! I’m a superhero!

After we read about Trayvon you said,

It must be scary for a 17 year old to have a man with a gun following him

People listening all around while he screamed for help

no one

helped him

If I was standing behind the guy with the gun

I would go up and take the gun from him

quietly

like I come down from handstands

You know?

And I thought,

Stay a superhero

Survive.

You will need all of your powers to stay alive

Because

When you bounce down the block

No one imagines you are adding

28 and 82 which make 110

and then adding 110 and 011

Which make 121

And that’s a palindrome

And also

You are wondering how the combination of

1 brown boy wearing 1 hoodie with 1 crazy man and 1 gun

In certain places

Makes a terrible feeling of sorrow and bubbling of fear

that pushes tears from your eyes

When you stroll along uptown streets

No one sees the detailed maps of the world and select cities you carry in your head

or the blood of three continents flowing through your veins

No one knows that at ten, you planned out where you would live

by where you might not get racially profiled

If everyone is brown, Mommy, they won’t think brown people are bad

Passers by would never suppose that now, 

at twelve,

You are pondering theories of the universe and planets being named

Wondering whether new thoughts add a little blob to space

Yesterday you told me,

The more people discover, the more space goes on

and so

space may be infinite

Infinite

Like my fear for you

When I am afraid,

I want to say,

after pressing my lips against the sharpening angles of your soft brown cheek,

Keep your hands out of your pockets, my love,

Don’t travel with 3 Musketeers bars or Skittles or cans of iced tea

Don’t wear hoodies or carry a wallet

Or drive a car or walk these streets

While wearing your brownness

Someone may feel threatened

Shuffle, my son,

Cower,

Speak softly and with great restraint

Liberty and justice for all?

They’re not talking about you

Your very humanity is tenuous

Suspended by fragile threads

But I tell you instead,

Trayvon did nothing wrong.

Being brown is not wrong.

Wearing a hoodie is not wrong.

You have my permission to wear a hoodie every day if you like

Some will fear you for your brown skin and your brilliance and your boldness

But stand for what’s right

If you are afraid,

Speak anyway

And if there comes a time when

You need to hide the fire inside you

Suppress your screams of “It’s not fair!”

To keep yourself safe

That’s all right, too.

And then, SPEAK UP AGAIN.

A wise man once said,

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

So do something

Speak truth

Sing justice

Walk proud

Be free

And love fiercely

For your love

is your greatest superpower

And as you once said,

my wise child,

Love is the strongest thing because nothing can break it

And you

are

love.

Giving Children What They Need (is not the same as spoiling them)

The Pre-K classes were in the midst of a study of materials. I'm the kind of music teacher who likes to collaborate, so when the Pre-K kids came to my Music class, I had them search the room for metal instruments. They found triangles, glockenspiels, bells, and cymbals. I don't particularly like the clamor of lots of little ones playing metallic instruments, but it was an important exploration to build their understanding of the properties of metal. 

Toward the end of the lesson, I pulled out the big metal instruments - a collection of three gongs; one small, one medium and one large. Each child had a chance to play each gong. About halfway through the line of children, I noticed one little boy who usually loves Music class looking very upset. He had tears in his eyes and was covering his ears saying, "Noisy! Noisy!" I immediately tried to check in with him, but he wasn't able to engage with me. I asked the rest of the children to hit the gongs very softly. The little boy slowly calmed down. 

When the children were done playing the gongs and ready to head back to their class, I told the little boy, "I know those gongs were really loud. Don't worry. We're all done. No more gongs." I said to the teaching assistant, "He's really sensitive to noise. That really upset him. I have to keep that in mind."

The teaching assistant replied that he would just have to get used to it, that he can't pick and choose when other people make noise, that he makes plenty of noise and is never bothered by it, and implied that he was just spoiled. Now, (regardless of whether I think this kid has special needs or not), the noise was obviously stressful and overwhelming for him. 

I told the teaching assistant that he clearly wasn't in control of whether the noise bothered him, that it might not bother him when he was creating it, but that, even so, we should be aware and work to avoid putting him in such a stressful situation again. I further explained that at 39 years old, I'm still stressed and overwhelmed by ongoing loud noises, like really stressed out. (Don't get me started on fire drills!) And, though I can tolerate loud noises, just barely, the stress they induce in me hasn't changed. And it likely won't change for him anytime soon.

Now, she didn't agree with me, and that's fine. But I want to put this out there: 

My mother, principal and educator for thirty plus years, articulated this after hearing about the gongs. And she's absolutely right. Also, allowing certain accommodations to be selected by students means that the child you think really needs the accommodation doesn't feel singled out. Even better, children learn that different children need different kinds of support to learn, and that every child deserves what she needs.

Accommodations are often described as changes made to support children with disabilities, but I beg to differ. Every child benefits from being taught in the way he learns best. Children don't have to be diagnosed with special needs in order to be helped by changes in their classroom environment and/or routines.

So in honor of that idea, I'm sharing some accommodations I've made for individual children that ended up benefitting many more:

• Turning Down the Volume - As a music teacher, I play music over speakers in almost every lesson. I try to keep the volume at a reasonable level, but on occasion, I notice a child wincing at the sound of the music. I turn the music down, always, and check in with the child to see if the new volume is comfortable. Frequently, other children will note that they also thought it was loud.

• Standing Table - I got tired of telling a couple of children to sit down while they were working, lesson after lesson. I noticed that those particular children simply couldn't keep their bottoms in their chairs. So I searched out a table that was a good height for standing, and that table became an optional work area. Children who were more comfortable standing chose to work there. And that table was always used. Always. Many students, at various times, found that working while standing was more comfortable and productive. Since then, I've tried to make sure there's a space for working where children can comfortably stand.

• Flutter Free - I noticed some children (and I, myself) were frequently distracted by fluttering papers strung on clotheslines or not attached well to walls. So I got rid of them. Anything hanging was attached well by all corners, and anything unnecessary wasn't left hanging. Less distraction, more focus.

• Fidget Objects - Some kids move - a lot. Some of those very same kids can move less if they can fidget with their fingers - much less distracting than a whole kid wiggling. Aside from making sure we never ask children to sit for periods of time longer than is age-appropriate, my co-teacher and I introduced a box of fidget toys to our Year 5 class. Children were allowed to select one on their way to the meeting area. Many children picked up fidget objects on the way to meetings. Fidgeting fingers allowed for calmer bodies and more focused meetings. Small bits of Blu-Tack (that stuff you use to hang things on walls) and Silly Putty were absolute favorites and are also super quiet.

• Holding Hands - I was teaching at a school that usually had students walk in single file lines. (I don't know why, they just did!) One year I had a kid who frequently walked away from the line. Initially, I just held his hand, but I didn't want him to continue to be singled out at times he didn't need to be. So we switched to a double line with partners holding hands. Simple switch, and he no longer stood out as needing something different during those transitions when children were lined up.

• Little Jack Horner - A desk in a corner. I despise the idea of punishing children by making them work in a corner, or facing the wall. But when a corner or wall-facing seat is an option that children can choose if they feel more comfortable working there, it becomes an appropriate accommodation. One of my most social students often chose this seat because he felt it helped him to be more productive during certain lessons. I created this spot with another child in mind, but it ended up being the perfect spot for him.

• Spacers - Sometimes little ones (and some older kids) forget to leave spaces between their words. I'm sure this isn't my idea, but I've employed it with great success. I cut little cardboard or card stock strips, the appropriate size to make a space between words, and told the children they were "spacers." I made them for a couple of kids to help them remember their spaces, and suddenly every child wanted one. Why not?

• Guidelines - When children work to create posters or publish pieces, they sometimes want to work on unlined paper. As you know, some kids really need lines to help guide their writing. We photocopied dark lines and laminated these plain sheets. Children used them by placing them under their unlined paper and using the lines to guide them. Though they were created for a few children who really needed them, many children enjoyed using them.

• Dry Erase Scrap - Inserting a piece of plain card stock into a glossy plastic pocket makes re-useable scrap paper for trying out different spellings of words or performing math calculations. They fit right into folders. Again, created for a few children, but many children found them useful.

Use your imagination! As teachers (and anyone else who works with kids!) we should be doing our best to make sure children feel supported and competent so they can do their best work. Our goal shouldn't be making sure every child works in the same way! Our goal should be making sure every child can participate!

Do you have other ideas for accommodations to try out in the classroom? Share in comments below!