Blogs on Student Engagement

When I started playing blues songs for my first grade students, I never imagined I was introducing a fantastic launching point for thematic, standards-based teaching. We soon formed The Kids Like Blues Band, and since last March we've used blues songs as a springboard for teaching academic content standards in reading, writing, listening, speech, social studies, technology, and the visual and performing arts. So far we've played at a street fair, for staff and students at the Cal State San Marcos College of Education, and even live on local TV news and KPBS TV. We're a real band, and the students are fully engaged, learning and rocking!

I'm a literature addict. And as a teacher, my mission is to spread this addiction to my own students. But I have a greater, more sinister, goal than that this year. I want to spread it to my entire school. And to do that, I have to allow literature to leak out of my classroom and into my school at large.

In this nine-part series, we will look at important factors that influence the happiness and social and emotional learning of elementary school age children. These factors are very useful in helping students learn, manage emotions and increase empathy. Each blog features one letter of the acronym HAPPINESS:

H = Happiness
A = Appreciation
P = Passions and Strengths
P = Perspective
I = Inner Meanie, Inner Friend
N = Ninja Mastery
E = Empathy
S = So Similar
S = Share Your Gifts

Act One, Scene One

It's the first day of the sophomore World History class. The teacher is standing in the front of the class and has just gotten their attention. A short squat man with a nylon stocking over his face, a dark fedora on his head and wearing a dark trench coat, rushes through the door, screams "Sic semper tyrannis," and "stabs" the teacher twice. The teacher crumples to the ground while some students shriek, and the "assassin" rushes back out the door.