Explaining The Warrior Way



Throughout your years of school, teachers will try to teach you facts, strategies, formulas, dates, names, skills, and a bunch of other content related ideas.  To be completely honest, I have forgotten most of what my high school teachers taught me.  But, those were formative years when I learned a lot of really important things that will stay with me forever.

That was when I developed my character and work ethic.  I learned how to learn.  I learned how to analyze situations and weigh my options.  I learned how to interact with my peers.  I learned how to foster positive relationships.  These are lessons I will never forget.

The Warrior Way is our chance to help our students learn these lessons.  It consists of 5 characteristics that we try to foster in our Warriors!

1)  Look for the best in others, and be your best self.
  • This type of optimism can open your world to new friendships and experiences.
2)  Dream big, set goals, and write them down.
  • Too often, our dreams and goals become memories rather than realities.  Focusing on your goals, writing them down, and reflecting on your progress can help keep these goals in the forefront.
3)  Speak with kindness...to everyone.
  • Teenagers and children struggle with this (especially with their families).  Why do we tend to treat our loved ones the worst??  Maybe because we know we will be forgiven.
4)  Choose positive influences.
  • This can be very difficult for children and teenagers.  It takes a lot of courage to stand up to friends who are encouraging you to make poor choices.  It is not until adulthood that we can truly control our sphere of influence.
5)  Start our own chain reaction of kindness.
  • The more kindness we witness, the more we are likely to act.  Modeling kindness for others can create a chain reaction in the lives of the people around us.
Each day in class we will spend 5-10 minutes engaging in activities or discussions to foster these characteristics.  This is the WARRIOR WAY!!

Recap

In my work as a high school math teacher I have found that every minute that I invest in getting to know my students, allowing them to get to know one another, discussing important and emotional topics and postponing the math lesson has been paid back in full.
The more my students know and trust me, the more that they believe that I care about them, the harder they are willing to work, the more risks they are willing to take, and the more engaged they are in my lessons.
For the past two years I have begun most class periods with what we call The Warrior Way Warm-Up.  (Our mascot is the Warrior) I will be cataloging those activities here.  However I will frequently recycle topics from the past.  If you get into the habit of using this blog to create classroom culture...be sure to check out the archives for activities if I haven't posted anything new...

I wish you all the best in your upcoming school year!!

Welcome Back

WELCOME BACK TO ANOTHER EXCITING SCHOOL YEAR!!

We will start the year with a round of GET TO KNOW YOU BINGO...



1) You must introduce yourselves and write your classmates names yourself
2) You cannot use anyone's name more than once
3) You cannot use your own name

Teacher participation on this one really increases student involvement.  Be sure to have prizes handy...