However, I do have these two displayed at the front of the room:
For me, effort is everything. I'm an inclusion teacher and I know my students have a wide variety of current levels. I also know that it doesn't matter where they start, but where they finish with me. Because we are standards-based with the Common Core (although I'm supposed to call them the Nevada Academic Content Standards, or NACS for short...I'm still getting used to the new acronym), my students have through June to master concepts. This means a lot of spiraled reteaching and frequent opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery of concepts.
I would rather a student try a math worksheet, miss every problem and learn from those mistakes than simply write "IDK" or leave the sheet blank. Not trying isn't cool! At least that's the focus of our life skill this week.
Second, I really like our THINK poster. We are a be kind school and I think it's important that students realize not every thought in their brains needs to be verbalized. Not that their thoughts aren't important, but sometimes they don't say the nicest things to one another and that's simply not okay in my classroom. I do my best to create an educational environment where students feel supported, encouraged and safe. Negative words take away from our community.
I think we all, kiddos and adults included, need to pause to THINK before speaking some times. The world just might be a slightly brighter place for it!
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