Join us on an enlightening journey as we host the Extraordinary Educator, Dr. Janie Brown. Dr. Brown imparts her valuable wisdom on nurturing a sense of community in the classroom. Get insights on how to truly connect with your students, foster an environment of inclusivity, and tailor your instruction to what truly motivates your class. Dr. Brown enlightens us on the importance of transparency and understanding the unique backgrounds of students.
As the year winds down and holidays approach, we also delve into the delicate act of balancing schoolwork and relaxation. Learn how not to inundate your students with work, while simultaneously encouraging their pursuit of knowledge during the holiday season. In addition, hear our thoughts on post-assessment reflection and the importance of taking time off for yourself.
Visit the Blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog
Follow us on Twitter: @CurriculumAssoc
Follow us on Instagram: @MyiReady
Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Join us on an enlightening journey as we host the Extraordinary Educator, Dr. Janie Brown. Dr. Brown imparts her valuable wisdom on nurturing a sense of community in the classroom. Get insights on how to truly connect with your students, foster an environment of inclusivity, and tailor your instruction to what truly motivates your class. Dr. Brown enlightens us on the importance of transparency and understanding the unique backgrounds of students.
As the year winds down and holidays approach, we also delve into the delicate act of balancing schoolwork and relaxation. Learn how not to inundate your students with work, while simultaneously encouraging their pursuit of knowledge during the holiday season. In addition, hear our thoughts on post-assessment reflection and the importance of taking time off for yourself.
Visit the Blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog
Follow us on Twitter: @CurriculumAssoc
Follow us on Instagram: @MyiReady
Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Curriculum Associates presents the Extraordinary Educators podcast, with hosts Danielle Sullivan and Sarah Leveris here tips, best practices and successes to improve your teaching and leadership and drive student growth and learning. We're here for you. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Extraordinary Educators podcast. This is Sarah, and this week I am joined by Dr Janie Brown, who is an extraordinary educator in Mississippi. Every time we talk to Janie, we just learn so much about her and the amazing work she does every single day.
Speaker 1:Our conversation this time focused on building community in the classroom and the steps that you can take to get to know your students on a deep personal level and then also figure out how to address the community as a whole and really strengthen the relationships that you not only have with them, but that they have with each other. So hope you enjoy listening. Here is my conversation with Janie. Welcome, dr Janie Brown. We are so excited to talk to you today. Hi, I'm glad to be here. Awesome. Well, really just going to dive right in Talk to me about what building community means to you as it pertains to you and your students in your classroom.
Speaker 2:Building a community to me, when it comes to my students and myself, for what it means a lot.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like going into a relationship and not knowing who you're going into the relationship with. But in order to make the relationship successful you have to get to know each other, and when you build a community, that's what you do. You find out the things that the community likes, the things that make the community thrive, and that's the way I look at my students. I talk to each one of them and I get a better understanding of where they came from or they're coming from and what they want to do in life. And I kind of open up myself to my students because I feel like if we're transparent with them, then they will know upfront that I'm an honest person. So I would always expect them to be honest and respectful to me and it usually does work because they see me for who I am. They don't see me as just another teacher, they see me as their community. So building a community is the most important thing to me from day one.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you're also modeling to them what it is like to be role in role, be your true self, right, so they're seeing that first hand and then can replicate it. I'm curious for the teachers listening just how do you find the time to do that? Like, when exactly are you having, logistically speaking? Like, if I'm a teacher listening and I want to do that with my students, how do you find the time to get to know them on a personal level? How do you have conversations with especially if you're a middle school teacher, you're talking, you know three groups of students. How do you do that?
Speaker 2:Now I don't want to sound repetitive, but I like to open up to my students and when I open up to them, that allows them to see the human in me, that allows them to understand that their teacher came from kind of like the same background that they came from. And when they get to know me on a different level, they realize that I'm not the person that they thought I was. So I like to sit down with them and I do. I don't like doing interest inventories. I know best practices show that doing interest inventories work. Now it does work, especially for elementary, since I came from an elementary background. But in middle school I usually don't do the interest inventory. I like doing the why, like what is your purpose, what is your why? And once I tell them my why, they open up to tell me their why. Well, I do pay close attention to all my students and I get to kind of read their expressions and their expression tells me if they're shy, if they're outgoing, if they're open, if they don't mind talking about whatever. And I go from there and, like I said, I do it from day one because I don't want to wait till the end of the year or the middle of a school year and I'm expecting these kids to excel on a state test or any kind of test and I don't know who they are. I don't know how to grasp their attention. So I take and sit down and, yes, I have three different blocks and I have about 30-year students and I sit down and I talk with each one of my students.
Speaker 2:I get to know each individual student. I like to read their story. I want to know who they are. I want to know where their parents are from, if their parents went to college or if some of their parents are my age, younger than I am, and they are very much open to tell me that, because I never just tell them my age right out. I always ask them how old do I look? And once they realize that I'm older than their parents, but I look just as young as many of the other parents in their home community, they look like, oh, but she's not as intimidating. And then they open up, they just pour out information like it's a fountain just flowing with water. So it's real easy. It's just I have to be truthful with them, I have to be respectful with them, to them, and I just have to be open with them and remember that they too are people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And once you are doing that on an ongoing basis, what else do you do? You talked a bit before if we can double click on it a bit about finding out what makes the community tick or what the community likes. So are you essentially finding trends within your students and then either tailoring your instruction or what incentives you're doing with them? Like, how do you read the room? In that sense that unrelated to academics, OK.
Speaker 2:So I noticed I like to keep my nails done. So I'm going to use this one for you. For example, I love my fingernails done and as I'm walking around the room I look at my girls for one and I look to see who has their nails done, if they're pressed on nails or if they went to the shop to get them done. And then I'll strike up a conversation with the students about the nails. Well, I like your nails. What did you do that done? How did you get there? And once I ask a simple question like that, they jump into oh, girl, I go to this place and I like this color. So that allows me to connect with my girls, my boys.
Speaker 2:I like to pay attention to them and see what they're doing, and I noticed that a lot of my boys either are in sports or they talk about sports. So then I go directly to talk about my son, who also plays football and is in show choir itself. So they look like you got a son in high school. He plays football. And then I may say something crazy like, oh, he's a fullback or he's a running back. And then I'll say something like well, I don't know really what a year. That's no, he runs the ball. Then all my boys, whether they play basketball or football, they begin to tell me no, that's not this position. It's this position, but does he do this? Or what's his jersey number? So I try to make myself relatable. I find things that I can relate with the girls, with, and then something about the boys, and every single time that gives us a door to open and we just talk more and more about it and then I jump off of the outside conversation and we jump into the curriculum part of it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Thanks for sharing. I remember as a teacher. Obviously you love the moments, the aha moments with your students, when they understand something.
Speaker 1:At the same time I remember those personal connections, feeling that same satisfaction for those of you who are listening. Janie is nodding her head because you realize the moment your students realize you care about that Right, Like she is a person, not just this teacher who lives at school. You know, like she's a person that has interests just like me, or not like me, and it's so fulfilling. So thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 2:And I'd like to add also that whenever the girls realize that I like nails just like they do the first thing that always comes to my mind is you know what, if you guys can score such such or you can do this in class, my reward to you guys would be a gift certificate. So, just to throw this in, one of my favorite things to do is our students do already and they have to get 45 minutes a week at least 45 minutes a week on our ready and we we measure them by the nine weeks. So my thing is, for all three blocks, for every nine weeks, the top student. For all three blocks. They have the highest accuracy and the highest amount of minutes on already. They get a 10 to 20 gift cards. Wherever they want to go, they love it, and that really drives them and drives them and reels them into doing whatever I need them to do.
Speaker 1:Well, before we sign off for today's episode, are there any last parting advice? As we kind of head into the holidays and winter break, as teachers are thinking about starting the new calendar year, any advice for teachers who are working on building a stronger community in the classroom?
Speaker 2:Yes, don't just want to pile them up with so much work or so much over the break. Remind them that you two are human and you want to relax as well and you want to be able to spend time with your friends and family, as they will and their parents will. So just kind of encourage them to search the internet for other things to increase their knowledge while they're out and think about the test that they've just they may have just taken because it's winter, so, if it wants, taken like a diagnostic or some type of benchmark assessment, so kind of like just remind them of what they've done and to free their mind of what they're about to do when they get back.
Speaker 1:I love that Well. Thank you so much for sharing all of your insights and expertise. I always love learning from you and chatting with you, so appreciate you being here. Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts on Twitter, at curriculumassoch, and on Instagram, at myirety. If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest or want to be a guest, email extraordinaryeducators at cainccom. Subscribe where you listen to podcasts and if you'd like to help more educators like you join the conversation, please leave a review.
Speaker 3:And remember, be you be true, be extraordinary. The Extraordinary Educators podcast is produced by Curriculum Associates. Editing by Whiteboard Geeks, social media by Atstie Hannan, guest booking by Sarri Laveris, production by Hailey Browning. This podcast is copyright, material and intellectual property of Curriculum Associates.