West District Teachers' Initiative Helps Kids Develop Confidence

Children in Farmington schools grow up learning to communicate their ideas, work together and become active members of their school communites. Only, sometimes they don’t.

So West District School’s specials teachers formed a plan to reach those children who might otherwise sit quietly and reluctantly in their classes, not learning to their full potential.

West District physical education teacher Joel Ziff and art teacherNicole Bastiaanse-Fritch wanted to find a way to reach those children who don’t develop confidence or motivation because, the teachers discovered, the two are tied not only to each other but to academic success.

“We discovered that confidence and motivation couldn't be separated because as children's confidence grew, their motivation grew, too, and as they became more confident and motivated, their academic ability grew,” Ziff told the Board of Education in December.

“If a child doesn’t enjoy coming to school, they’re going to be less engaged,” Ziff said, and less-engaged students don’t learn as well.

Ziff and Bastiaanse-Fitch developed a plan to foster confidence in their most challenging learners by making them leaders and brought it to West District Principal Sharon Lowery.

The result was the Tiger Leaders Initiative, named after the school mascot. The program brings third- and fourth-graders together and puts them in first-grade classrooms in the role of teacher’s assistant.

Students identified for the program are enrolled for one month. Veteran students in fourth grade train those entering the program in third grade. This connection forms an alliance and they can support each other throughout the school year.

“First-graders will address them as mister or miss and they’re so proud when they’re addressed that way because they’re just a little bit more important,” Bastiannse-Fitch said. In her art classes, tiger leaders arrive a little early for class, helping to set out materials and sometimes reading a story to the younger kids.

“Initially they stick close to the teacher they’re familiar with but as the weeks progress, they start going out on their own,” she said. “It can be as simple as helping to open a glue bottle but it lets third-graders shine and maybe they would have been looked over before, they may not have felt like they belong to the school community, but now they do.”

The teachers have seen enormous success within the program and are developing a rubric to evaluate results.

“Bit by bit we kind of work on having them become more self-directed,” Ziff said. “It goes from them not saying a word, to teaching a group of 15 students a skill they’re very comfortable with. It's great anecdotally. We had great success last year and we're trying to put some hard data with how it translates in class.” 

West District music teacher Gina Raczkowski created Tiger Radio, a broadcast station for the entire school to hear during lunchtime. Previous radio announcers are paired with incoming students to develop scripts to share the weather and school news from behind the curtain in the cafeteria. The students take charge of the project, using a planning guide to set goals and later assessing how they did.

“They've got the microphone and their scripts they’ve written themselves and they’re so focused and serious about what they've done,” Raczkowski. “It bridges that gap with kids who just don’t want to be a part of other things we do, like assemblies.”

The teachers have seen students come out of their shells, glowing with pride as they succeed and are cheered by younger students.

“Students who were once too frightened to even raise their hand and speak in class now, through structured support, are speaking in front of a whole grade level,” Ziff explained.