home-school connection

My Name Matters: A Challenge for All

July 18, 2017 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 11 Comments

Each year, usually in the back-to-school season, I see a trend on social media. I’ve heard it in conversations in the teacher’s lounge and even in the Dollar Spot aisles at Target. I’d wager a guess that you’ve heard it too at some point.

It’s name-shaming.

I’ve written about it before (The Top 3 Reasons Name Shaming Harms Students) and spoken about it on my social media accounts (such as this video). I’m not satisfied, though, with just talking about it… I want to DO something about it. I decided that this back-to-school season is a perfect time to launch a simple, yet important challenge that absolutely anyone – in anyone school! – can do.

Meet the My Name Matters challenge.

Our challenge goal? To end name-shaming in any of our spaces – whether it’s in our schools, homes, or on social media.

The challenge has two steps:

Honor your students’ names by learning to pronounce and spell them correctly.
Take steps to eliminate name shaming in your own communities by speaking out.

I, of course, want to provide you with tools to be successful in this challenge! I have some suggestions and thoughts about how to work through each of the two steps below.

Honor your students’ names.

It is so important that we honor our students’ names by pronouncing and spelling them correctly. There is an article published by NEAToday that discusses the lasting impact of mispronouncing students’ names, as well as this must-read from Cult of Pedagogy.

It’s important… we want to do it… but how?

You’ll want to begin by getting your class lists and identifying any names that you’re not certain of pronunciation. This may be names that have multiple pronunciations, or names that you are not at all familiar with. Next you can:

Make contact with the students’ family, introducing yourself, welcoming them to the classroom community, and inquiring as to how they pronounce the student’s name at home. You may want to explain that the purpose of your phone call is to make sure your student feels welcome and valued by you pronouncing their name correctly.
If you’re not comfortable with asking a students’ family how to pronounce their name ahead of time, be sure and ask the student how to pronounce their name upon meeting them. Be sure and repeat the name back, checking it against their own pronunciation – you may not get it right the first time, but you will get it right with practice!
Contact previous teachers and ask how they pronounced the students’ name and compare notes – this is a good stop-gap measure if you’re unable to contact the family and want to try to pronounce the students’ name correctly prior to meeting them. Err on the side of caution, though, as your colleagues may not necessarily be pronouncing it correctly themselves!

Remember: keep at it until you get it right, and if you make a mistake – apologize! Make sure your students know that it is important to you to honor their names and that you’ll keep at it until you do.

Don’t be a bystander.

The saying goes: when we know better, we do better. We know name shaming is wrong, so we’re going to stop doing it ourselves. But… can’t we strive for more? I think we can, and I want to end name shaming TOGETHER.

So don’t be a bystander! If you hear or read someone that’s participating in name shaming, say something.

Confrontation and disagreement can be difficult and certainly uncomfortable, but we can’t accomplish our goal of ending name shaming without doing the difficult work. Here are some suggestions for conversation starters/responses when you encounter name shaming:

“I know ________ may not be a name you’re familiar with or would name your own child, but I bet ________’s family really like that name. I know I would feel hurt if someone criticized my name or my child’s.”
“I don’t think it’s right to judge ________’s name. Names are personal…. ________’s name means something to him/her and their family. When we make fun of it, we make fun of them. That’s not something we should do.”
“It might be difficult to pronounce ________’s name, but I can’t imagine what it must feel like to constantly be called by a nickname you didn’t choose or have your name mispronounced. Have you thought about writing down the phonetic spelling and practicing it?”

It begins with us.

Name shaming is one of many issue facing our students today. Ending it begins with you (and I!) deciding not to accept it in our spaces. It’s one small, necessary step we can all take to dismantle inequities facing our most vulnerable student populations; each step we take propels us forward with increasing momentum.

The Top 3 Reasons Name Shaming Harms Students

August 10, 2016 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 4 Comments

You’ve seen the memes. The late night comedy bits. Maybe you’ve even been a part of a conversation or laughs in the teacher’s lounge. Odds are, if you’re a teacher, you’ve encountered name shaming. You know – “Did you SEE my class list? How do I even pronounce half these names? What were their parents thinking?!” or “You’ll never believe it. Another Neveah.“

I’m here to tell you that name shaming needs to stop.

A fleeting giggle or likes on a meme are not worth the consequences of shaming children (who become adults) about their names.

Here are my top 3 reasons name shaming harms students and must end.

1. Name shaming sets you up for a failed home-school relationship.

You can’t laugh about, joke about, or roll your eyes at a student’s name without passing judgement on their family. (And that judgement? It can impact their educational attainment. Here’s another source if you don’t like the first one.) They did not choose their own name – their parents or guardians did. Odds are, if you’re comfortable enough to laugh about a student’s name, you’re going to begin to make other judgments about that family. Think about it: if you’re making fun of someone, do you have a lot of respect for them? Empathy? No, you do not. Respect and empathy are two keys to successful home-school relationships. Without them, you’re facing an uphill battle.

2. Name shaming impacts student outcomes.

Students with uncommon names are more likely to be bullied, more likely to be suspended, and less likely to be found to be trustworthy. These things are not because of a student’s name – it’s because of our response to their name. We – the adults, the teachers, the other parents, other students – create situations in which students can develop low self-esteem, want to distance themselves from their culture, etc. all because of how we respond to their name. When we name shame, we demoralize – and we all know as educators that if there isn’t mutual respect and a relationship, student outcomes suffer.

3. Name shaming is entrenched in ethnocentrism and contributes to institutionalized racism.

Yes, I went there. I went there because the research goes there. If we, as teachers, feel free enough to name shame (whether it’s in the teacher’s lounge, on social media, or just in our own heads) – what do we think goes on behind closed doors in human resources? The more acceptable a practice name shaming is, the longer we perpetuate hiring Emily over Lakisha despite the fact both are equally qualified. We cannot participate in perpetuating the practice of determining the worth of someone based upon our own notions of what is an “acceptable” name. Picture a student you’ve had with a unique name. Do you want them to be passed over for a job that they are qualified for?

If you find Reagan or Kerrington an acceptable name – one you wouldn’t make fun of in the teachers lounge or giggle about on an Instagram meme – but you would roll your eyes, laugh, giggle, or give a passing glance to names like Neveah, Princess, or Chiquita, ask yourself why. Why are those names unusual to you? Why are those names less deserving of respect? We tend to “default” to names like Sarah (mine!), John, etc. because we accept white culture as the default. We view, analyze, and judge cultures through that lens and tend to assign judgments – in this instance, negative ones – because of what we consider our “default.” We must get away from this because…

There’s no place for this in our profession.

This is not “all in good fun.” We are not just “making an observation.” We are actively ‘other’-izing our students, demoralizing them, and disrespecting them. We are disrespecting their families. We are devaluing our profession by stooping to the low of a school-yard bully or crass comedian. We should be striving to be better than that – we must.

Why I’ll NEVER Get Rid of My Clip Chart

August 2, 2015 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 18 Comments

I will never get rid of my clip chart. Ever.

I’ve read so many thought-out, well-meaning posts on clip charts — on both sides of the spectrum. I don’t know what’s right for you or your classroom… no one knows that but you. This post isn’t about what YOU should do. It’s about what I’ve done and will continue to do until I pack-up my classroom for the final time. Should you get inspired, invigorated, and motivated to do the same? Well, that’s just a bonus.

My clip chart helps to shape my classroom — and my beautiful students — into a caring community of productive citizens. Without it, I have no doubt that counselor and office referrals would rise, I’d spend a greater portion of my time on the phone telling parents negative things about their children, and the teacher-student relationship would suffer miserably.

I teach in a school of children in transition. Children that come from low socio-economic status households, many with both limited English language skills and limited educational attainment. Children that may change phone numbers, homes, and/or caregivers multiple times during the school year. We are a PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) school, which means we spend a lot of time front-loading expectations and use a tiered system of interventions. For many of my students, the only constant is me and my classroom.

I’m sure many of you reading this can relate.

It can be hard. Emotionally draining. Mentally exhausting.

It has been for me. It was almost too much.

Until my clip chart saved me.

Saved my classroom. Saved my kids.

Last year I spent the first month of school tying my clip chart into each and every language arts lesson. Every read aloud. Every writing assignment. We spent hours discussing our clip chart.

Caring, Fairness, Respect, Responsibility, Trustworthiness, and Citizenship are big words for children. For any children, but especially children whose primary concern is where their next meal is coming from, whom they are going home to, and where they’ll sleep that night.

They’re big, important, tough words.

But my kids? My kids lived them.

I have to tell you that as a teacher, no moment will ever be as important to me as the moment last Fall when one of my kiddos was having a hard time. He felt inadequate. Nervous. He felt stupid because he wasn’t sure he could finish an assignment.

One of my sweet little girls leaned over to him and said, “Remember that learning is a great responsibility, like Mrs. Plum says. Part of being responsible is trying. Just try. Put your heart into it and try. You’re going to do it — just believe in yourself. I believe in you and so does Mrs. Plum.“

Cue. the. tears.

As I (tried to) cry quietly in the darkness of the back of the room, I watched my sweet little boy try his hardest. And though he didn’t get it all right, he did his best. He was proud of himself. And I was too.

He came up to me later and said, “She really made me feel good about myself. She made me feel cared about. Can I put her clip on the chart and give her a tag for her necklace?“

Yes. Of course you can.

That was just one of dozens upon dozens of moments last year when my kids recognized each other’s character on our clip chart. There were many more moments when I did too. Small moments — helping someone up when they fell, sharing a piece of technology when their friend missed out the day before, turning their full attention to the speaker — and bigger moments, too.

Moments like the one when we had a few rough days. When we just weren’t in sync. When we sat down on the carpet, talked about what we wanted to do with our lives and then figured out a plan to get there. A plan that involved six little traits hanging on our wall, put into action.

Moments like that, that seemed almost too big for an eight year old to grasp… and yet, they did.

This isn’t your average clip chart, by any means. Students don’t start on the chart each day — they earn their way on. Each day is a new day, and not every day will end with a student’s clip on the chart. There were, of course, moments where we used our clip chart as a reference to talk about something they did that didn’t meet their expectations, their classmate’s expectations, or mine.

But it wasn’t about clipping up or down — there wasn’t any of that.

In particular, there was a time last year when one of my girls lied to me — as kids are sometimes prone to do. Instead of clipping down, or calling home, or sending her to talk to the counselor, we talked privately during recess.

She and I had a conversation — not a lecture — about why we value trustworthiness. She understood what it meant and we it’s so important to our classroom family. She was sorry. She apologized to me. She apologized to herself. We hugged. She ran off to play with her friends who gave her hugs too.

And that was that.

She didn’t take her clip off the chart (she had earned her way on earlier that day for demonstrating caring with our part-time inclusion students).

Taking her clip off the chart would send a message to her I didn’t want to send: you’re only as good as your last mistake.

Her breach of trust in lying to me did not erase her actions earlier in the day. It just showed us both that it’s an area we need to work on… together.

Mistake Quote - Facebook & Featured Image

The culture that our clip chart developed in our classroom is one that I will always look back to for the rest of my teaching career. We are a family because we have a core set of values that we think about as we interact with each other day after day. I can hold myself to those same values and reflect on whether or not I’ve met my obligation too.

I am immeasurably blessed to get to spend another year with my kids, this time in third grade. I’d spend the rest of their days in school with them if I could — we’re that bonded.

I know I owe so much of it to our clip chart.

I’ll never get rid of it.

{You can read more about the components of my clip chart alternative here and purchase it here. If you have any questions about it, please leave a comment and I will answer it.}

The Key To Communication: A Link-Up

August 2, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 3 Comments

Communication. It’s an obvious focus for teachers and administrators, but it’s not an easy focus. There are many barriers to communication, including, but not limited to: time, money, language, and energy. Despite these barriers, however, it’s critical to student and teacher success to establish open lines of communication between home and school.

The district in which I teach is very diverse. There are DOZENS upon DOZENS of languages spoken. In my classroom alone last year there were six different languages represented. Unfortunately, I only speak two: English and Spanish. Luckily, my district provides translation services of both print materials and in-person or on-the-phone communication. Many districts across the United States offer similar resources — you just need to know where to look and how to access it.

But even within your own classroom, there are several things you can do to start the year off right with strong communication. Here are a few that I use myself:

Before the year even starts, and before “Meet the Teacher,” I send home postcards to my students. I write a short, personalized message to them and their families, and include the date/time of our Open House event. Whenever possible, I write in the language noted on their emergency card — even if it means planning ahead and enlisting the help of colleagues that speak another language. {You can head over to my FB fan page to grab these as your August freebie!} These postcards set the tone for communication between parents/students and you; they are friendly, inviting, and put families at ease. It’s a small way to show you care.

If money is a barrier and stamps aren’t something you’re able to come by before school starts, have these ready to hand students at your “Meet the Teacher” event. The sentiment remains the same, and you can add a smile-bonus as you hand it to them! {Tip: place a fun sticker over the “Place Postage Here” spot!}

When you first meet families — at “Meet the Teacher” — or have your first opportunity to send home communication, send home a business card. I made this simple business card in PowerPoint — and you can too! I made a text box 2.5″ wide by 1.5″ tall, added a graphic, and typed in my information. I then grouped it all together {CTRL+A and then “group” in the “arrange” menu}, and copied them several times on the page.

When I handed them out I gave families two copies: one laminated with a small magnet on the back (for quick fridge reference!), and one unlaminated for their wallet. All of my parents LOVED receiving this and several remarked throughout the year how easy it was to contact me because they had my information on-hand. If you make it easy for parents to contact you, they will. Establish open lines of communication with a single card!

The last thing I do at the beginning of the year is have parents fill out an information form to establish a contact log. This form isn’t intended as an emergency contact form, but rather as a tool for me to hear what *they* want me to know about their child and what they, as a parent, expect this year. Expectations are SUCH an important, and in my opinion, overlooked piece of the puzzle when it comes to communication. I urge you to try something new this year and ask for parent’s expectations — I think you will find it gives you a great foundation from which to build key communication.

This form then goes into my teacher binder where I house student information pages, data, etc., and I use it nearly-daily. When I make contact with a parent, I log it. Documentation of parent contact can be important when issues arise, but it’s also important for you, the teacher.

Are you making contact with parents regularly? Are you sharing a child’s successes, not just instances of misbehavior or academic deficits? Regular positive communication is critical. I’ve linked a free copy of this form for you to use — keep the lines of communication open, and free of cobwebs!

Three simple, low-to-no cost ways to establish communication from the start of the school year and keep it going all year long: send home a postcard, send home a business card, and establish a contact log.

I would love for you to link up below and share what your “Key to Communication” is for the beginning of the year! Grab the graphic at the top of the post {right-click, “Save As”}, link back here, and join the linky below. I look forward to hearing from you and reading your tips & tricks!

An InLinkz Link-up