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I became a teacher to change
the world.
When I started teaching I thought that I would have
lots of meaningful learning going on in the classroom and I thought that since I was
so ready for it, that
the kids would be ready for it too.
And
that's not how it worked out.
Once I got into teaching, um, I found
it was nothing like the books
and I realized I had to be a counselor,
um, a social worker,
a teacher, an educator,
so it was really hard.
I was
especially frustrated with behavior
issues, and
I felt that
I was doing everything that I had been taught to do. And it was not
working.
My name is Kimberly Whitney and I've been the principal at Fern Creek Elementary
School for the past seven years.
Some of the immediate problems that I faced at Fern Creek when I first started
was an accountability issue,
the state grade was a D school but the bigger problems were fighting,
defiant behavior to teachers, insubordination, not following directions.
It's time for us to leave the room.
No. Our kids come from
very rough neighborhoods and survival in those neighborhoods means I'd better be
pretty tough, I'd better have
very thick skin, um, just to survive. So when they come here they bring that with them.
I have children who are homeless,
I have children whose parents are addicted to drugs, whose parents are in prison.
A little kindergartener my first year, um,
hit a student in the hallway and I was working with this student, okay what can you do
differently next time?
And she looked at me with these big eyes,
truly thinking she had the right answer and she said,
"I could kick 'em."
And right then I thought, "Ok there
needs to be something else in place here."
Traditionally,
I was taught, and so are many teachers, that to manage
children you must control them from outside forces through coercion, bribing, rewards
punishment and
for some children, none of that worked.
I wanted to come up
with a system whereby teachers could perceive conflict differently
and use it as teaching moments for children.
The early process was sitting down with Becky and truly making the commitment. There was
a huge risk factor in it.
Kim is a new principal, she's been here a couple
years. Here's Holly, she's come in and she's been here a year, and here are these two
women who are going to lead us down this road and
the resistance really was, "What if our grade goes down? We can't, our school grade
can't drop." Kim, you're familiar with Conscious Discipline
so you know that this commitment's going to take
a lot of inner resources from your teachers. The biggest risk that we took as teachers, as
administrators
was that idea that we have to be responsible for ourselves and that
letting go of some of that "I have to control everything that happens in this
classroom or in this school." That shift had to happen for us to allow
Conscious Discipline into Fern Creek.
When I first started learning about Conscious Discipline, I
knew it was what I wanted to do and I knew that that's the kind of
teacher I wanted to be, and that's the kind of parent that I wanted to be.
But knowing that and doing it were two different things. At the time my perception of
the problem was "Yes, if the students would change, if they would just do it my way,
then the class would run smoothly." I began to understand
that
the only way to change
the way things were going in your classroom was to change the way you are
inside. And I also was given tools then to help me get out of that emotional state.
After about three years, I really did change the climate. We
really started to see
the children having different
options besides kicking and hitting and hurting others.
I don't like it when you call me fat. Can you please call me by my name, Ashley, next time.
Please next time do it softer.
Can we practice?
Ok, show me.
Emily was in my class two years ago. She was new to Fern Creek that year
and she had a lot of struggles going on at home in her life and they were living
at the coalition. She was with her brothers and sisters. Leave me alone. I can do it at
my own time.
That's what something I would say because I was thinking about what was going to happen when I went to the shelter
later on. I was uncomfortable,
I'm usually, like worked up, trying to fight or something, and I got referrals every day.
Some days I would notice that Emily just needed to go right to the Safe Place.
It was a place where she could go when she felt angry, and do different types of breathing
techniques to help herself calm down and relax.
Now I see her composed and teaching other students to how to use those
Conscious Discipline strategies.
If Emily had gone to another school, I don't think she would be as successful
as she is here at Fern Creek. So we saw less bullying
because we've taught our children to use language to tell how they feel.
We saw
more impulse control because we were giving
connections to the students and we were teaching expectations of
how to be successful in
each area of our school. As those behaviors decreased, we also saw an increase in helpful behaviors.
Children who were able to connect with each other and connect with their
classroom teacher.
Fern Creek was using rules and consequences; it wasn't working.
And they shifted to a school based on safety
and connection built on healthy relationships, and the academics soared.
Fern Creek is an example of a school that made a commitment to children,
a commitment to each other and a commitment to ourselves
and it worked.
When we look at ourselves and we say the only person that we can change
is ourselves and
to see that success in ourselves then kind of radiates from us to other
teachers, to parents, to other schools we hope.
Conscious Discipline gives us that awareness
so that we can choose to do it differently than was done to us, and
most people want to do it differently, they just don't know how.