So you spend your teaching training year learning about subjects, lesson plans, meeting lesson objectives, catering to all learners and of course all the safeguarding that comes with it. And then you enter a classroom, look at how you spend your days, and realise that the majority of your teaching time is not spent on all that you have trained to do.
This is because, in reality, you are not teaching a subject, you are teaching a child. And that child is made up of so many complexities and layers, that pastoral has become the forefront of every teacher, every minute of the day.
The constant battle of how to keep this in mind, whilst also trying to teach, mark and ensure you are meeting your Learning Objectives is an ongoing struggle.
Many years ago, Educator Rick Lavoie came up with the analogy of using Poker Chips within a classroom to enhance learning. Now before you lambast with this blatant encouragement of gambling within a school, allow me to explain.
Imagine each child in your class has a bowl in front of them. When they are woken up gently in their warm bed by a parent or caregiver – in goes a poker chip. Their freshly laundered clothing laid out on the end of their bed – another poker chip. A warm breakfast, lovingly prepared- in goes the next poker chip. Dropped off at school by a relative – the poker chip bowl is slowly getting fuller.
Let’s look at our other student. The one who crawls out of bed on their own, rummages through a pile of not-quite clean clothing to find something to put on – out goes a poker chip they had from the previous day. They open the bare-shelved cupboard and grab a couple of dry crackers – another poker chip gone and they then have to dress some siblings in a similar vein, before trudging to school. By the time they arrive at their classroom, their bowl is very much empty.
When our former mentioned student walks into the classroom and realises that the teacher is starting the lesson with a test he hasn’t learnt for, his heart may sink and he may lose a poker chip, but the reserves are there already, and he is able to use his already earned poker chips to get him through that dreaded lesson.
The latter student has nothing. He has nothing to fall back on, no poker chip and not even one on the horizon. His extreme reaction of perhaps lashing out at a student, or being rude is not about the test in front of him, it is about the lack of poker chips in his bowl for him to get through the day.
This is where the teacher’s Poker Chip role comes in. When he or she greets that student with a smile, a question pertaining to the specific student, a compliment or even a small acknowledgement, that small action has a snowball effect on the bowl. The student feels noticed, and therefore puts their hand up. They get the answer correct- poker chip. Their classmate gives them a thumbs up – poker chip. As the bowl fills up, with seemingly small actions, the more impetus they have to work hard to gain more.
As teachers, we think that our goal is to give over knowledge and skills to prepare our students for the future. In reality, our goal is to constantly give out genuine poker chips to the humans in front of us, and even more importantly, to empower them to spread poker chips to each other, because without them, learning falls on deaf ears to so many.
So to all my fellow teachers out, I challenge you to spend one day consciously thinking about your poker chip giving and I implore you to give them out as generously as you possibly can, because it will be that generosity that will create that ever increasingly necessary bond between you and your students and will allow them to flourish and thrive in your care.
Rachelli Lerner is Deputy Headteacher at Pardes House Primary School as well as a Year 4 teacher, with over 22 years of experience teaching across both the private and state sectors. Currently, Rachelli is proud to be a Fellow on the Lira Winston Fellowship Program, where she continues to deepen her practice and leadership in education.
