Our school for the last several years has adopted the C.L.A.S.S. Model for our instructional model.  One of the tools C.L.A.S.S. shared with us is the idea of a hallway greeting.  You’ll find things like this outside every learning space in our building.  The idea is to provide a variety of opportunities for students to read text no matter where they are in the building.

My hallway greeting this week comes from a poster I got at ALA this summer.  I grabbed it the minute I saw it because it went with a book by author Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrator Tom Lichtenheld.  Separately they have done some amazing books, but together they do some unbelievable work.  There latest book, Duck! Rabbit! is perfect for using with students and teachers.  It is all about perspective and how everyone may look at the same thing and see something completely different.  Being able to step back and see something from another perspective can be an invaluable skill to learn when working with people.  Sometimes we get so focused on how we see things that we don’t take a minute to consider there might be another way to look at it.

There are lots of ways to use this book, but two ideas that quickly came to my mind:

Consider sharing this book with teachers at a staff meeting before discussing a heated topic.  Starting the conversation by thinking about looking at the issue from all perspectives could lead to solution that works for all.

Consider sharing this with students when you need to help them resolve a conflict.  Letting students see there are different ways to look at the issue may help them start to understand how each other are feeling.

Rosenthal and Lichtenheld’s book is certainly one I’m glad to add to my collection.  It will be right there next to The OK Book which I loved as well.  I can’t wait to see what new books we’ll see from them next.