Three before me

What could you get out of #langchat? You never know!  No matter how many years you’ve been teaching, everyone’s bound to come away with some treasurable, profitable nuggets from #langchat.

I’m not even sure which recent #langchat this came from.  It could have been when we were discussing grit, how we could help learners persevere when things get tough.  Anyway, it caught my eye right away.  So I had to make a poster.  And you can bet this’ll be on my wall in my next classroom.

I think we were talking about how to wean kids off of thinking we’d always just provide them with the answers they need/want.  Then Stephanie Carbonneau (@mmecarbonneau) tweeted:

“Three Before ME” is a BIG rule in my class. 1. Show I tried 2. Consult resources 3. ask 3 others

BRILLIANT! Teachers love pithy lines we can say to remind students of our routines and environment rules, and learners do too, even if they won’t admit it, because they thrive on clarity.  And this one does something I always want to be trying to do: foster independent (lifelong?) learning.

So I wrote a poem of it in Spanish:

Si me lo pides,

te digo que antes,

mejor lo intentes

los otros tres:

1) tu propio esfuerzo

2) tus recursos

3) tus compañeros

If you ask me for it,

I tell you that before,

you’d better try

the other three:

1) your own effort

2) your resources

3) your companions

Should you want to put this to work in your classroom, here’s the poster.  I’m working on also getting it in French and German.

Let’s tell them what Daniel Tiger sings to my kids: “Solve the problem yourself, and you’ll feel prou-ou-ou-oud!”