On Effort

“Beep beep, beep beep!” Time’s up. Special is over. Time to get the kids. I set aside the work I was doing and strode over to my classroom door. I met Lisa in the hallway and we walked to the gym together.

“I began using some of my Mr. Rogers ‘isms’,” she said. “It went really well, I’m excited,” Lisa and I had been discussing the movie, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and how we could bring some of Fred Rogers wonderful ideas to our classrooms. We rounded the corner and walked into the gym.

Chris, the gym teacher, came walking over to us shaking his head. “Uh oh,” I thought to myself, “they got in trouble again.” My class is, how can I put this, high maintenance. We have worked together all year to bring about more leadership, some integrity, a bit of self control. Some days it’s good, some days it goes downhill fast. But one fact remains, they go a little out of their minds at specials and get in trouble. They are ‘that class’.

“We had a talk with them today about all the talking they do,” Chris explained. “We tried to get them to understand how the talking affects the fun and learning in PE.” I could see and feel how frustrated he was, I’ve been there myself this year with these little people.

“Thank you, we appreciate what you are trying to do. We will be sure to remind them of their promise to demonstrate better listening skills tomorrow.” Both Lisa and I knew what the PE teachers were going through. And we knew we couldn’t give up on trying with these kids!

On my way back to the room I was pondering where to go. How to reach out yet again. What angle to take today. There has been a lot of progress since the beginning of the year but obviously the work was not over. As we walked in the room an idea occurred to me.

“Boys and girls,” I said once they were settled down, “It is really hard for me to hear complaints about you when I pick you up at specials. Imagine if you dropped your little pet off at doggy day care every day. (They all have their adopted pets on their desks.) And imagine that every day the doggy day care workers complained to you about your pets! How would you feel?” I asked.

Silence. Sad faces. Shoulders drooped. Then, “Bad, I’d feel bad.”

“You would feel bad, of course you would! And why would you feel bad?”

“Because I love my pet.”

“So that is how I feel, I feel badly when I get complaints about you.”

A hand went up. “Yes, Amy, what are you thinking?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “I’m thinking that it’s not me, I’m trying to be good and listen. Well, no, that’s not exactly what I mean. But it’s not everyone,” she ended.

“You are probably right, it’s not everyone all the time, but it is a problem and it is not getting better,” I continued. Heads were nodding. “So I think our problem is that we aren’t really trying.” Shocked faces were raised. “Now, I know you are used to me saying that I know you are trying. But, if you were trying, what would be happening?”

Silence. Then, “We would be getting better.”

“Exactly!” I said. “So here is what I think.” I went to the board and wrote, EFFORT. “Effort,” I said, “It’s hard.” I added that to the board. “It takes thinking.” Added that. “And, it produces results.” Added that.

I pointed to the board. “This is what it is going to take. Hard work and thinking to put in the kind of effort that produces results.” Heads were nodding.

“It’s like integrity,” a voice said. Integrity is a big word in our classroom. We are always striving for it.

“It IS like integrity!” I said with a big smile on my face. “It’s hard work and it takes a lot of thinking but it produces big results. So, I’m going to make a big EFFORT chart and this will be what we focus on. OK?”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was that! It was a Tuesday, it started out good, went a little downhill but got resurrected with a little (or maybe a big) EFFORT!