Friends! I have been thinking a lot about positive reinforcement. While my brain is still (sort of) fresh and I'm (mostly) rejuvenated after a long weekend, I am making a commitment to focus on affirmation and praise in the week ahead. Whenever I see a good thing, hear a kind word, or notice an exceptional contribution, I want to praise and celebrate the individual responsible for it. Let's be real — this can get harder to do as the school year wears on, when our patience runs thin, and our minds are bogged down. So, I plan to revisit this topic regularly because I believe it's the key to a positive, joyful learning environment.
Below you can read an excerpt from The Write Structure (Chapter 6: Celebrate It) which details my experience with praise and celebration in action.
Joy & cheer,
Lindsay
Chapter 6: Celebrate It
"I can live for two months on a good compliment."
Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine,
Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)
Think about the last time someone complimented you. Didn’t it feel nice? I found a little “you’re a good teacher” note on the bottom of a student’s assessment today. They were just a few words, but they packed a positive punch. Kind words are a big deal to me, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. Who doesn’t love a compliment? Whose heart doesn’t burst a little when they’re told, “Good job.” Affirmation makes us want to do more of the thing we were complimented on. If someone tells me they like a particular hairdo, I am tempted to wear my hair that way every day for at least a week.
I was invited to be part of a Learning Lab several years ago. I was super excited about the opportunity. Then, I found out the Lab was located in a kindergarten classroom. What can I possibly learn in such a setting? I skeptically wondered. Teaching five- and six-year-olds was entirely foreign, and I couldn’t imagine there was anything for me to learn. How would I transfer anything from the Lab into my eighth grade classroom? I was in for a positively pleasant surprise.
The host teacher, Renee, blew me away from the second she started her lesson. As she taught, she seamlessly noted every positive behavior she saw. As the kids paired up to work on a task, she glided around the room complimenting, affirming, celebrating. I started tallying the number of times I heard her do this. I lost count at thirty. In those sixty minutes, I realized how contagious her positivity was. With every compliment, the productivity in her classroom increased. With every kind affirmation kids sat up a little straighter. She directed a table group to notice the quality work of one of their peers. The girl they were told to notice had a smile so big it overtook her whole face. Her table partner giggled and said, “Good job,” when Renee walked away. I didn’t want the lesson to end. I could have sat there and watched this go on for hours. During the post-lesson reflection time, I was compelled to think of a way I could bring this culture of affirmation and kindness into my own classroom.
Capturing Kids Hearts Training also opened my eyes to the power of affirmation, compliments, and kind words in the classroom (Flippen Group, 2017). In this training, I learned that our kids are hungry to be affirmed. They hope to be noticed, especially for good things they’ve done instead of the incorrect or bad things we so often notice and correct. I saw the positive effects of Capturing Kids Hearts strategies on the culture of my classroom almost immediately. This philosophy and practice further spurred my thinking: how can I transfer the ideas of positivity, affirmation, and celebration into educational tasks? Specifically, tasks that sometimes bring out the chorus of moans and disgruntled sighs. What is a task that usually draws out the negativity in my kids, and many times {sadly} me? A one word answer came to me: writing.
I set out to mirror Renee’s tactics and transfer my Capturing Kids Hearts philosophy into purely academic tasks, such as the teaching of writing.
I began with my Language Arts classes, starting small and simple, such as wandering around the room while students worked, intentionally pointing out quality work, proper formatting, good word choice. Then I started asking individual students if I could put their amazing work under the document camera for everyone to see. As kids prepared for an argumentative essay, I strategically eavesdropped on impromptu debates — when I heard something great, I halted the class, put the two stellar debaters on stools, and created a “fishbowl” where everyone gathered around to hear the thoughtful, rich debate of their peers. The positivity was infectious. Most kids responded very well to these methods.
I kicked it up a notch by asking volunteers to put their writing under the document camera, and the student walked us through their Identify It, Prove It, and Bring it Back Around. Eventually, students were asked to open up and give peer feedback as they stood their classmate in front of everyone. If the feedback is weak or overly-critical, I always make sure to point out something that was very well done, such as, “I love how you introduced this quote — you really provide your reader with context and it helps the quote make so much more sense!”
There will always be kids who are embarrassed. Some who would rather not be celebrated — especially in the middle and high school level. It doesn’t matter if you discretely compliment them one-on-one or in front of the whole class — they don’t want the spotlight. Don’t let this stop you. Just bear in mind the kids who are shy and keep their celebration low-key.
Reinforce and revisit The Write Structure by celebrating when you see it being used properly — when you find a paragraph that is enriched by a thoughtful quote and thorough explanation, when you see a student turn a blank piece of paper into an outline using Identify It! Prove it! Bring it Back Around! as a guide, when you see someone boxing keywords from within their Prove It! and again in their Bring it Back Around! They will want to do more of the same, I assure you. Students will be overjoyed to hear what they are doing right instead of feeling sheepish about what they’ve done wrong. Whenever possible, stop everything and highlight the good. Affirm the well done. Shower your students with praise and kind words. It will sustain them for a least two months, according to Mark Twain, that is.