One of my goals, as a teacher, is to provide students with tools that will help them be successful in and out of school. One of the tools that my students have been working on this school year with me (I teach them about the things that I am working on too), is the tool of leaning into things they don't feel confident in. I can think of many times throughout my life where I have avoided things because I didn't have confidence in myself. They have, of course, changed as time has gone by, but there continues to be things in my life that I am presented with where I actively get to remind myself to "lean in", as opposed to, avoid and run away. Many things can appear to be scary (i.e. asking for what you want or speaking your true intentions) and avoiding them appears to be the easiest thing to do.
Last week, one of my students learned about the true meaning of leaning into something, and she got to witness its positive results. Here is her story (I'll call her "Star"):
Star is a student I work with in reading and writing. Last week, Star, and the other fives students in her group, were working on writing sentences with their high-frequency words, which is what we always do on Monday's and Tuesday's. One of my rules for this activity is that the students must write the sentence they tell me. They begin by thinking about their high-frequency word and then tell me a sentence using the word. Next, they write the sentence they told me using the exact same words.
About a month ago, I noticed that Star was using a blends poster that I have in my classroom to find the correct spelling for words. For example, for the word "grow", she looked at the blends poster (thinking I wasn't watching her), saw a word and picture that worked for "grow" and used it in a sentence (she used the "fl" blend; flower). She only used words in the sentence that she told me that she knew how to spell. Last Monday, I removed the blends poster before Star and the rest of her group came in to our classroom. When I asked Star to give me a sentence that used the word "sharp" in it, she told me, "I have a sharp crayon." I watched her eyes and saw that she was looking at the Crayola box of crayons in front of her...that's where she found her sentence idea and correct spelling of "crayon".
I nonchalantly removed the crayon box and encouraged her to write the sentence she had just given me. When she saw me move the box, she stared up at me like a deer caught in headlights. I could just picture her thinking, "Oh no! What am I going to do now?" I reminded her of our strategy for spelling words we don't know (be brave...write the word the way you think it's spelled, write "sp" above it telling me you are being brave and writing a word that you don't know how to spell, and then we'll correct it together). She wrote, "I have a sharp pencil." She knew how to spell "pencil". I asked her if that was the sentence she told me, and she said it wasn't, but that she meant to say pencil instead of crayon. I reminded her that we write the sentence we say. Then, I went and helped other students. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Star erased the word "pencil" and then just sat there staring at her paper. I encouraged her to sound out the word "crayon" and to write all the letter sounds she heard. I told her to be brave. She wrote "c" and then "r", but that was it. Then, her eyes filled with tears. I looked away and let her lean into her feelings at that moment.
Star silently shed a few tears. I calmly sounded out the next letter with Star, but she had reached her frustration level and would not write anything else. I handed her a tissue, dismissed the rest of the students, and then talked to Star about how I knew she felt scared and upset because I took the crayon box away that had the word crayon on it, but I did that because I wanted her to see that she could write the word on her own. I wanted to show her that she was brave and didn't need a poster or box, or anything else for that matter, all she needed was herself to figure out how to spell the word. After I talked and she listened, I sounded out the next letter with her again. She wrote "a", but I could tell she was ready for a break. I wrote the word "crayon" on the board, and she copied it on her paper. Then, I dismissed her.
Later on in the day, she came back to me for a review class that I'm teaching this month. I thought she would be upset with me, but she walked in with a smile on her face and said hi to me. It just so happened, that we were working on writing in the review class, where she was asked to look at a picture and write a sentence to match it. As soon as Star saw the picture, she started writing a sentence, and boy, oh boy, what a sentence it was! She wrote three unfamiliar words in her sentence and had no hesitations about writing them. She even wrote "sp" above the words. When she told me she was done, I looked at the three misspelled, difficult words, and asked how she was able to write words that she didn't know how to spell, and guess what she said...."I am brave!" I told her that I was soooooooo proud of her for being brave and that she earned the "Brave" award for the day. The smile that followed on her face will be with me forever. I taught her the correct spellings for the words, and again, congratulated her for being brave.
The next day, we continued our high-frequency words sentences, and Star wrote the best sentences! There were many misspelled words, which made my heart swell! She learned how to spell many new words last week, but the thing that I’m the proudest of her for learning was how she learned to lean into something that she didn't have any confidence in and that once she did lean into it, it turned out to be okay. Isn't that how life is? Lean in...
