The Fish philosophy in Mrs. Corder’s class

Fish was developed based on the 4 characteristics of fish mongers.  As you can imagine, these people do not have a pleasant job: 12 hour shifts packing, stocking, and selling fish.  However, those who have watched them can see they have a great time with their work.  Based on what they saw, the creators of Fish came up with 4 ideas for business, school, and life.

1.  Be There – this means being mentally and physically involved in what you are doing.  It also means being there for classmates, family, and coworkers, whether in the day to day things of life, or in times of crisis.
2.  Play – those who watch the fish mongers will see that they have fun.  They make their work a game by singing and having a good time.  However, play does not mean putting others down (teasing, sarcasm, etc,) or goofing off instead of getting your work done – it means having fun while also being productive.
3.  Make Their Day – this means thinking about others before yourself.  Making someone’s day can be as simple as holding open a door, erasing a chalk board, or even just smiling at someone new.  When we make someone’s day, we make them feel valued.
4.  Choose Your Attitude – in life, we all chose our attitude.  The fish mongers could choose to be unhappy and depressed, but instead they choose to have fun and enjoy a job that is not always pleasant.  We can all choose how we react in school and work.

The creators of the Fish philosophy wrote a book just for teachers called “Schools of Fish”.  Based on this book, I have created ways to apply the Fish idea to my class.  I think this idea can make our classroom a pleasant, fun place.  Here are the things we are going to do this year:

1.  To start the year off, we are going to talk about “stinky fish” – that is, the things that can make our classroom unpleasant.  We will focus on the work, things students do, and things the teacher does.  We will write these all down and post our fish in the classroom to refer back to, and from this list, we will create class rules together.  I hope this will allow students to feel like they are part of the process of deciding how our class will be.
2.  I’m trying hard to incorporate more “play” into our class.  This year, this will include things like a joke or funny video of the day, two green plastic fish as our symbols, a funny button that sings “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, and Geometry games.  Remember, play does not mean we won’t get our work done, it just means we’ll try to have some fun while we do.
3.  Every class period, we will discuss what students have done since the last time to Make Their Day.  Remember, this can be simple.  What I am going to do is try to make students’ day.  Every class period, I’ll randomly pick one person’s name and write it on a piece of paper.  At the end of class, if that person has gotten their work done and followed Fish ideas, he or she will get to choose a prize for the whole class.  This can be a piece of candy, stickers, pencils, or putting points towards a reward listed below.
     Party/food day – 20 points
     Game time (30 minutes) – 7 points
     Hat day - 10 points
     Sodas - 10 points
     Free time (30 minutes) - 10 points
4.  I’m going to try hard to increase the praise I give students and decrease negative comments.  I also want to write a personal progress report for each student every 3 weeks.  If you would like me to email these to you, please let me know.
5.  Finally, we will focus daily on Choose Your Attitude.  This goes for me as well as students!  I know that some days I get down and negative, as do students, and I hope we can work on this together.  We will talk about attitudes during our daily mood survey, and also as needed during class.  If someone is having a consistent attitude problem, we will complete goals sheets to address those issues, but I plan to start off just by discussing those issues as a class when they come up.

As you can see, the Fish philosophy is really about how we treat others and how we decide to act – these are life skills and choices that I believe will help students have better relationships.  Off hand, it may not sound like it has anything to do with Geometry, but by working on how we act and react, we can improve our classroom, and I believe we will all have a more productive year.

This is all an experiment, and I would love to hear your feedback now or at any time during the year.  You can email me at [email protected] or call at (540) 896-7081.  If you want more information about the Fish philosophy, you can go to www.fishforschools.com.

I’m looking forward to a great year!

Kate Corder
 

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