A school plays a crucial guiding role in building a student’s agency and identity. This place is where a student should be going to get support that will build these two crucial things. “Identity is the development of a unique personality, with individual beliefs and values that are formed by the interactions we have with others.” (location 1272,Fisher et. al) Then there is the process of building agency, which refers to “an individual that understands that their actions and resulting accomplishments are linked.” (location 1300, Fisher et. al) A student can leave a school feeling like they can do anything and have control over their lives or they can leave school feeling like they are complete failures, with no control. The school has the power to instill this in all of its students, and should find the common language, and shared strategies that will make it happen. The school’s role is to educate and prepare students so they can function efficiently in the outside world aka the real world. This place is the stepping stone for a student to begin their development of agency and identity which will push them to be valued citizens.
I believe that most of my colleagues and I are aware of the impact our words have on developing students’ agencies and identities. We understand the importance of creating a place that supports students in being understanding and supportive of each other through two school wide programs: Peace Builders and the 7 habits. All of our teachers have had some sort of training that focuses on creating an environment that is conducive of growth, understanding, innovation, collaboration and individualism. We have learned through these trainings how to use appropriate language to help find solutions to student problems, that might have otherwise escalated. We are also given opportunities to collaborate and plan activities that support being encouraging of our student population using the common language provided by these two programs. I don’t believe we have had training that dealt directly with choice words and building students’ agency and identity, but I see that the programs we currently have in place to be very similar to it.
Furthermore, I believe that it is important to create a common language, and get buy in from all stakeholders before implementing anything for it to function properly. Therefore, I would collaborate with a group of teachers who have show exemplary knowledge of choice words and their implementation. Then I would create weekly trainings, with the support of that group of teachers, to show sample lessons and/or examples of how we can all implement choice words on our campus. I would call it “10 minutes of Choosing Choice Words”. I would stick to a short but useful format, so that I can get more teacher buyin and showing them that it doesn’t take too much effort to implement the use of choice words. I would then have the teachers try these ideas with their students. Then in our next “10 minutes of Choosing Choice Words” session I would ask for volunteers, to share out their successes and/or their questions/comments/concerns of choice words. I believe that by involving a few teachers and then having these same teachers show their colleagues how they are implementing in their own classrooms, it creates a stronger support for a system that will benefit students. When all teachers speak the same language they can take that language and teach it to their students who will use it with other students and teachers.
“Practice makes perfect”,so in order for me to be more conscious of the power of my words and how it builds my students’ agency and identity I would infuse current lessons with choice words. This way I can experience first hand how this change effectively supports my students and it lets me perfect it, so that I can talk about it to my other colleagues. I believe that it is more powerful to lead by example, therefore I would do this until I felt I saw results. Then I would showcase my students success and share out with colleagues via email, or our Learning Management System. I would note the improvements and how I accomplished them. I would then offer teachers to visit my classroom, so that I could show them the things that I have seen working for my students.
Five things I can will commit to this semester:
- Create a group via our Schoology site that gives teachers basic information and resources on how to choose words wisely and share it with my other colleagues.
- Send out a weekly Choose words email with a sample scenario that shows effective ways of using them.
- Have my students record 2-3 simple skits in which they are using choice words and share out with our school.
- Create a Padlet board where teachers and students can share ways they felt they were using choice words to support someone.
- Create a day called Choose words Fridays, in which my student are asked to write a nice note to someone they don’t know and deliver it during lunch or recess.
Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Pumpian, I. (2012). How to create a culture of achievement in your school and classroom. ASCD. (Kindle edition)