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PBIS Journey to Genius
Are you in the process of developing your PBIS Framework? Are you wondering where to start? You are in the right place. Join Dianne Ferrell and Diane Ruff as they share the ups and downs of creating and implementing a top-notch PBIS framework that has empowered their school to achieve Ohio recognition as a PBIS Gold School for 4 years. They will also share current issues in behavior management and how PBIS can help with those ongoing struggles. We would love to hear from you! Email us
@ pbisjourneytogenius@gmail.com
PBIS Journey to Genius
Episode 5 A Voice With Choice
What does it take to become a teacher and navigate the complexities of different school environments? Kendra Peterson, a seasoned educator who's journeyed with us from the start of the PBIS system, joins us to shed light on her path to teaching and the significant role educators play in shaping future teachers. Kendra's personal experience, from her childhood fascination with school to a high school teacher's words of encouragement, inspired her to step into the world of teaching. In this episode, she opens up about her 'aha moment' during her first year of teaching, and the overwhelming sense of responsibility that came with it.
Transitioning from a small school to a large one brought about unique challenges, and Kendra guides us through her experience of this shift. Find out about the disciplinary systems in both settings, the differences, and how they were unified into one large system. Kendra's insights on the impact of this transition on discipline and student expectations are bound to intrigue you.
Brace yourself for a thought-provoking conversation on discipline and classroom expectations. Kendra underlines the necessity of a shared philosophy amongst teachers, but also highlights the challenges arising from differing expectations. Listen in as we unravel how PBIS and Love and Logic have helped establish a guiding framework for teachers to better handle classroom discipline and the tough decisions of when to send a student to the office. Wrapping up, Kendra shares invaluable advice for fostering positive behaviour and creating an environment conducive to learning and growth. If you're an educator looking for inspiration and tips on navigating the teaching landscape, this episode is for you.
Welcome to PBIS. Journey to Genius. Are you in the process of implementing PBIS? Are you wondering where to start? You are in the right place. We are here to support you. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Welcome back. My name is Diane Farrell and I'm here with Diane Ruff and we are doing a podcast. Diane and I have been educators for many, many years. We've worked together she as a principal system principal, me as a guidance counselor. Together we have put a PBIS system together Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports and we've helped our school receive many awards and recognitions. We are putting a podcast together about the beginnings of that and how we have come along to this day. So, hey, Diane, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:Well, today is our fifth episode, which is hard to believe Because I know two months ago we had the idea to do this.
Speaker 2:We Diane with the one in had the idea and she calls me up and she says will you do this? With me.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2:No, we've come a long way in our learning curve. We have.
Speaker 1:So I need to explain about last week's episode. If you actually listened to last week's episode, I apologize for the audio. The audio was not the best. We know that we had some reverb in there some echo, we had some echo, echo, echo and we tried really hard to get that out, but at the end of the day At the end of the day. We decided to just go for it because I felt the message was still good.
Speaker 2:It was still good, and if you do listen to it, you start to tune it out after a while.
Speaker 2:So I said to Diane, let's go ahead and post it because it was really good. It was about the nuts and bolts of PBIS, if you've been listening to us. And we kind of got it from another teacher we were talking to who said what is in this for me, like what's a recap, what's a, before you get into all the nitty gritty. So we decided to do a little podcast about that. So it is really good in a short summary. So I that's what I told Diane. I said let's just do it.
Speaker 1:So we did. So. I apologize for the audio, but it is one of these things where we're learning as we go, and so I challenge all of you to always try to learn something new, because as you're learning something new, you're going to make mistakes, but that's all right because that's how we learned, right. So I want to bring on Kendra Peterson. She's been a veteran teacher with us for a lot of years. Hello there. So welcome, kendra we're. We know that you were here at the start of PBIS.
Speaker 2:We can talk about how long Kendra's been here, because Kendra and I were on the first bus together. So we we entered this district together 36 years ago now and, yes, we were first year teachers together at the same time. So Kendra has been around a very long time and we are doing this podcast where two buildings come together and form a behavior system. So that's why this has happened. So Kendra was at the large building and then she was there in the trenches when we brought those those buildings together. So that's why we're bringing her expertise today. But with every podcast, we've been doing something called your why and your aha. And if you go back to the very beginning, diane and I did that. We were asking each guest to do that. Why did you get into education? What is your why and why did you stay? So we're because it's a long time to stay in one career. So we're asking Kendra today why did you become a teacher?
Speaker 3:Well, it goes back to when I was, probably when I was in grade school and all through the school years. I love school. I loved everything about it my teachers, the learning, the social part of it. I'd go home after school and play school, my friends and I. And then, like I told them, I kind of got away from a little bit when I went more towards high school and was looking at the business end of things. And then, probably my senior year of high school, I had a teacher that said you know, you'd make a great teacher, that's great. And so, you know, I kind of went back to her Telling her telling me.
Speaker 3:So I kind of went back on that and thought, you know what I think I could do this? So I ended up going to college and in my summer job I worked with kids during the summer and so I was kind of like, oh yeah, I've got that experience. So that was kind of the beginning of officially becoming a teacher and have loved it ever since. Well, that's great.
Speaker 1:And you know, teachers out there do inspire People to become teachers, and it sounds like you were also born to be a teacher because you loved it when you're a little girl.
Speaker 3:So that's a date in it and stayed in it. Yep, I loved all my teachers and having teachers tell me that I could be a teacher. You know that that really boosts your self-esteem and thinking, hey, I could do this and we've loved working together all these years, so you know that's a thing too, you know, staying together as friends, staying at Kendra.
Speaker 2:We raised our kids together and play groups and stuff, so being friends too.
Speaker 3:So like having a second family.
Speaker 1:Absolutely that's what I've always said. So what is your aha? What is that aha moment in your teaching career?
Speaker 3:actually my, my, probably my first big aha actually came my first year of teaching. I Was teaching first grade. And you kind of walk in there and you're just starting out and you have an empty room and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I'm in charge of this whole room and little ones and the whole thing. Can I do it or not?
Speaker 3:and there were some days I wondered can I do this or not? And it was probably about January and they were. I look around and we're all sitting there and they've got their little readers and I listened to everybody and they're actually they're reading, wow, and it was kind of like that. Oh, my goodness, I helped them do that and it was kind of like that big aha, like I do make a difference and how rewarding it was and they do rely on me.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah so that was kind of like my big aha moment that, wow, I've got a big responsibility. But what an accomplishment I had felt for them and for myself. That's great, I love that.
Speaker 2:I know that is great and first grade is so important. I mean, back in the day you didn't really start to read like you do now in kindergarten, so first grade was that our first grade kindergarten's kind of our first grade, now the first grade, you know.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, when that I just I was just such an accomplishment. I thought for them and for me and I thought, wow.
Speaker 1:So that's that is it is amazing to see that reading process, just you know, happen and again, like all the work you put in that, sounding out the phonics, the all the stories read to them and teaching them all the letters and sounds, and they put it together and then each grade level that I've taught, because it seems like I keep moving up.
Speaker 3:I'm now up to fourth grade, so I made it, I got, I got promoted and. But at each different grade level is just you have more aha moments about just how much more they can do and what you know it's just. I've liked that change too, to have those different areas to work in well, now we're gonna go back a little bit in time.
Speaker 2:So Kendra was with us when we took a large building in a small building and brought them together into one larger building and Last two weeks ago then and the week before that we talked with Michelle Nervo, who was the principal at that time, and what it was like to be an administrator. But we want to talk to Kendra a little bit about what it was like to be a teacher. So now remember, she was the teacher at the larger building and we had a smaller building. So the larger building had about 800 and some Student students in it, and then the smaller building had about 250. So you're talking about two to three times more teachers in the larger building that she was used to working with and large amount of kids, and then the smaller building had, you know, a third of the amount of kids and a third of the amount of teachers. So what was that like, working with teachers and personalities and getting together that you hadn't really worked with before?
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm gonna go start back maybe a little bit first, with us just being in a big building, in the building, big building you know whatimy With when we were teaching within that building. Of course, we're all having different discipline management systems. At that time we're kind of it was left up to each individual classroom.
Speaker 3:Yes, how you wanted to manage that classroom, you might have your, you know your basic rules that you know should be followed. But within that system, even within a grade level, we would have at least six teachers per grade level. So even at a grade level we might have a different system and then throughout the building. So we all kind of did what we thought you know we would do, or one year might change, or I might try this kind of thing, depending on the group. But again it was kind of all over the place.
Speaker 3:I mean it worked for her how it wanted to work in your room, but as a consistency across the building. You know how I might think something might be a disciplinary issue for the office or for the principals might be considered different for another person.
Speaker 3:Yes so that was even within our own district or in our big building. And then, especially coming in as a new teacher, you're coming in and it's like, oh my goodness, I'm in charge of, I got to set up my room, I've got to get some kind of organization in a management system, so that's going on. But we all kind of had but we had that flow and what our feel of our building was and how we would do things. And Then when we came together with our two schools, now we're bringing in two different groups of big building. When you start to look at a small building, you're go oh wow, I didn't know that could work because they had different systems set up that they used, yes, but it was different than what we had. And then of course, they it was trying to mesh those two together About how can we get on a consistent plan for that, because some things they were doing like, oh my gosh, that would be a great idea. How would we do it at our big level?
Speaker 3:You know, so we kind of bring it, brought in those two different ideas. The other part is, though we're also the inconsistency of that, because we had we had students Then mixed from both buildings in your room and they might be Used to one system and our group that might have been used to a different system.
Speaker 2:So they had different language even because they would have different languages, violations, and they did fun Fridays and we up at the big building.
Speaker 3:We hadn't done that type of no, we did not have that, so we did so, even the students not only for expectations expectations and how you know. I guess the thing was how do we get you know us on the same page and our students and To have that run smoothly?
Speaker 1:so it you know, it's a big difference between you know the sizes of our buildings, I think it was, and so, yeah, there was some frustration there it may be even coming out of the big building because we were all kind of doing our own thing and we didn't have a system of building system. And then we bring in this other building and they did have a little bit of a system, or Actually a system they did have it.
Speaker 2:There was only about 12 teachers and they had put a system together right and we're kind of looking at, thinking, wow, that's great.
Speaker 1:How can that happen? How can?
Speaker 3:that work here. How can we embrace that too?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:I really liked a lot of the things that they were doing.
Speaker 1:We were, we just had never done, you know do you remember specific changes that you wanted to make? Maybe once we were all together in this building you know, as you're seeing some of Feeling some of the frustration and then also hearing about their system Did you see things that you maybe wanted to change?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, like especially with us, and we know we would meet in our, you know, tbt's as a grade level, which was very beneficial, with us coming together as a staff because we'd worked separately. Now we're going to be, you know, joining as a team, so it's very Informative and very good to talk and see what, you know, what systems they had, and it's like oh yeah, we would like to come up with some kind of reward system that all of our students you could earn. You know we would like. Okay, so what are the steps for earning that reward system? You?
Speaker 3:know, a nice systematic approach and I think that's kind of where we started talking, at least at our grade level, to, you know, come up with trying to be on the same page. So all of our fourth graders had the same expectations. All of them were being rewarded, you know, or having consequences that were the same. It wasn't like, well, they do this, they do that. So it was more trying to build them as a team and a family really.
Speaker 2:But as you're saying that, and I understand that and that's where all of that came from, but not every teacher in the building felt the way you did. No, so not everybody was all on board with someone else telling them how to do the discipline and what discipline, like you know, we had a lot, since people hadn't put all their input into it. It wasn't, you know you, I could see you saying, well, I kind of liked some of the things that they were doing and I'd like to, but not everybody was saying that.
Speaker 3:Well, and you, if you think about it, wasn't a whole building.
Speaker 1:Right, this is just us At the grade level.
Speaker 2:It's just us six teachers at the grade level talking about these, but we're talking about the whole building, which is like four teachers. That's a whole other issue. That's a whole different issue.
Speaker 3:You know, for us it's like, but it's still, it's still give and take. You know, because you, because you know we have that ownership of our classroom and we run it the way you know you can, that you want to run your classroom and the management. So it's that give and take. And I think that conversation got started some, you know, but again it was initiated within us.
Speaker 2:You know, nobody is telling us you know, kind of to do that. So we have some teachers cause that did happen that are jumping on with some of these new things. Some teachers are just some people started fun Friday. Some people start, you know, but not everybody did so. Then we've got some doing that, some doing that, and then some people had different expectations as to what should go to the office. Some people did not, you know, so they kept it more in their classroom. So what, what did you think about that whenever, cause I remember you were more of a person that tried to handle a law in your classroom, but then was it like when should I send them to the like where?
Speaker 3:oh, that was, that was, that was a big, that's a big thing, cause I guess I came under. Uh, how I came about and how I am, I'm usually I'm, I'll take care of the things or my issues, or you know the problems. I don't want to bother anybody else you know kind of.
Speaker 3:You know I don't want to make that someone else's problem. You know I can handle this, but there is that fine line of when do you, you know, make that an issue? That is this a major discipline? Is it something bigger than I am, kind of thing. And again, then there's a you know other people had different personalities or different styles. So that was kind of hard for me, cause I kind of took it as I need to keep it and solve it in my classroom, because if I'm not solving it in my classroom maybe they think I can't handle it.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of teachers. You know what I mean. You know if you were drowning.
Speaker 3:Even if you're drowning, you don't want them to know you're drowning.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:You know, because you just had that, I should be able to handle this. That was you know back then where you know, back on it too.
Speaker 2:But then Diana and I always say this, these one words you don't know what you don't know. I didn't realize what it would be like to share that.
Speaker 2:I'm struggling with this student. How can we get help for that? I had the same feelings when I was a teacher. Like you, if I'm not dealing with this, the administration is going to look at me as someone who can't handle this. My other teachers are even going to look at me as someone who can't handle this, and you know that's a feeling that you have as a teacher. And then you're just like what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do when? How we've come so far in getting that help and feeling that way, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. This is how do we make that happen? And so you're telling us there was frustrations on what should we go to the office about? What shouldn't we go to the office about? He's sending him to the office for this. I don't know whether I should. I don't want the office to be mad at me. There wasn't any like set plans on that yet.
Speaker 1:And you know you were part of the RTI process with us.
Speaker 3:Yes, from the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we were beginning to hear about some, you know, some things that we could maybe do with with behavior, but one of the things Diane and I were also hearing about was love and logic at that time.
Speaker 1:And you know. So we're starting at the RTI, we're starting to hear about PBIS a little bit and we're realizing here in the office with Michelle Nervo and Diane and myself that we needed a common philosophy in the building. And so we found love and logic. So we just thought it was a wonderful thing and we bought the books for everyone.
Speaker 2:We bought all the books, every book we could find.
Speaker 1:We thought, you know, if the entire staff reads it, they'll love it. And Diane and I will do the legwork on it and we'll be.
Speaker 2:They won't have to, so we'll just give it to them.
Speaker 1:So what were your thoughts whenever?
Speaker 2:When you were handed that book that summer when, when Diane and I had done all this and yeah, and it's okay, you're not going to hurt our feelings we said because just a little caveat on that, PBIS doesn't give you a manual.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you want a manual because you think that's the easiest thing, but at that time we didn't even know about PBIS really.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you want something, and so we thought this love and logic would be something that we could build it all on. So we just said here you go, read this book this summer, and this is what we're gonna do next year. When do you think about that?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm gonna go two ways on that. One I'm a rule follower, so I will read the book, and you did.
Speaker 2:And I did read the book. How many people do you think? What's the percentage?
Speaker 3:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:How many?
Speaker 3:teachers come on you, they talk. I know my team partner and I did because that's how we roll and I will come back to that because I found there was some good things in that.
Speaker 2:We're not bashing love and logic. No, because we're bashing, or we're telling what it's like, to just put it out there.
Speaker 3:Oh no, not the system, cause actually there was very good things. That I guess it's when anytime you have something just shoved at you and says, read this, we're gonna do it. It's kind of like where's my input? What about? How do you know it's gonna work? How do you know it's gonna work for me? Why are you making decisions for my classroom?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Cause. Still, it's. That's where you're at, you know, with it. I did read it. There was some good things in it with the language and things I could use, but to me it again it was gonna be. Am I using it? But is someone else gonna use it? You know it still wasn't that? Hey, we're all on board with this. Because sometimes as soon as you give something to somebody, it's like not gonna do it, you know, because you don't have that ownership.
Speaker 2:You have to have ownership. Let's take a minute and talk about that, Kendra. So you? So we, Diane and I have talked about this before. Good teachers have a with it-ness about them. They make decisions all day long. What kind of teacher personality did you think you are?
Speaker 3:I think I, I said I think I am the one that has the with it-ness, because I mean you have and I agree with that. Because, you have to have. You have to have good, strong management, you have to have control, you have to be able to solve problems quickly All day long, all day long. Cause every day, every minute is you never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:But you have to be able to deal with each thing as it comes along and you have to have a good background of that and be able to be flexible. So with and you have to anticipate incidents or problems you do.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of anticipation. Oh, you make a good, good point there and make that decision.
Speaker 3:I mean? I mean you're making split decisions, as I'm thinking about, you know, simple as how am I going to pass out my science materials, or whatever? I'm already thinking you know three steps ahead, if I don't do this, I can see this going to happen. So you kind of got to have that anticipation of what could work and what can go wrong within that second. And good teachers have that.
Speaker 2:So I guess our message to all of us because we've learned we learned the hard way that if we want a teacher which we do we want a whole staff of them that does that all day long.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Then we can't turn around and take that trait away from them and not have them make decisions and input on our strategies and what we're going to do with behavior management and what we're going to do in the classroom. We can't do that because that's not the personality they have, that's not the personality we want, so we don't want to turn it around. And then, because it's not going to go over, and it didn't Right right.
Speaker 1:So yeah it, love and logic. It's actually a really good philosophy.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of good things and you can use it within the framework of your discipline playing, of how you deal with situations with students when they arise, but again, it's not like an actual framework or a discipline.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to say like a program.
Speaker 3:It's how to deal with situations, how to prevent situations, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:It's actually very complimentary to PBIS.
Speaker 3:Oh, I still use a lot of the techniques in that, but it still wasn't bringing us all on the same page. And again there's going to be that pushback too, and I kind of felt too like okay, so now I have to do this, I think I'm doing okay right as I'm doing it, you know. So it's kind of that you got to have that ownership.
Speaker 2:So when I kind of failed and fizzled a little bit and we decided to call everybody to that June meeting, why did you come Cause I wanted to be a part of it and have my voice in it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I wanted my voice in there. I want to be part of it, voice with a choice. Yes, I wanted.
Speaker 3:I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted my opinion heard. You know, I wanted to hear other people's opinion. And can we find that common ground that we could all work with? I love what she just said there because she didn't come with.
Speaker 2:This is going to be my stuff, Like I want to do what I want to do and I want to come here because I don't want you to make me do anything different. That's not why she came. She came because she wanted to be a part of making the whole program. That would be common and that is so important. Being a part of it, not running it.
Speaker 1:Being a part of it and then so important your voice having a voice in the whole process. And I think all 25 other teachers that came felt the same way. You know they wanted, they were very interested in what we were going to do. They wanted their voice heard, they wanted to hear other ideas and that particular day was, I thought, just one of the most productive days, most productive days of anything my whole career.
Speaker 3:Right, and you also have to think too. When we're a building, you know, when our preschool through five, you know yes you know we have there's it's a primary and intermediate. There's a big difference a lot of times too, and how things there is a lot of good point, kendra. It's a big one.
Speaker 2:It's a big one because it's it really is.
Speaker 3:I mean, we know there's some school buildings that are strictly intermediate buildings and some are, you know, pre or, you know, primary buildings. We got a building that spans from preschool to fifth grade. How are we going to make this work across the grade levels? So, you know you have to have that, you know input from every member of the grade level and sometimes we have to.
Speaker 3:You know well, this could work at the primary, but how are we going to tweak it a little bit better here at the intermediate, or vice versa kind of thing?
Speaker 2:So we had. We had to have all those great, however many people came, which we were lucky enough, we had representation from everyone. But we made sure and we're going to continue to talk about this and go on with our next guest next week how we chose, out of those people and all those thoughts and feelings, that core group that then went on to make this with representation kindergarten all the way up, like everybody had to have a voice, everybody, every grade level, and then they were in charge of going back and helping their grade level understand what was going on. So that was so important.
Speaker 3:Kendra's last comment, and even some of our I know even a little bit with RTI, when we did a little bit of it we even had our art teacher, our music teacher in our gym because you know they have. They handle our children outside of our classroom but they still have. You know our part of the system and the discipline, so that was important.
Speaker 2:And that's a great thing to say too, because this system goes into the, those specials.
Speaker 1:Into the specials. Cafeteria cafeteria, yes our educational aides everyone.
Speaker 2:Well, I think yes. Thank you so much, kendra, for coming. You've been a great guest.
Speaker 1:You have. I mean, we loved hearing from you, and from you, kendra, and also we would love to hear from our listeners. So if you have any comments, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at PBIS, journey to genius, at gmailcom, and you can also find us on our school website, minerva elementary, so just look for us. We are a different platform.
Speaker 2:So we're on Spotify, we're on Apple, we're on different, but if you just want to go to Minerva elementary website, you can click on us right there and listen to our episodes. So thank you so much for staying with us. On episode five voice with the choice, I'm Diane Farrell and I'm Diane rough. Join us next week on our PBIS journey to genius, when our episode will be the beginnings, creating the why, thank, you, thank you, bye.
