True Colors - Getting to Know Your Students

I am so excited to tell you all about my first days of school activities & how I learned so much about my kiddos FAST.

But unfortunately, my activities were based on a book that was required reading for a class I took a few years ago, and I can’t find it anywhere. Not even on the author’s website. (I swear it wasn’t a dream)

The book is called The Color Guide To Life: Know and Live Your True Self  by Erica Echols Lowry. If you ever see it anywhere – buy it! You won’t be disappointed. I found the content to be life–changing. My understanding of myself and all the people around me increased dramatically after reading this book. 

Essentially, this book is a personality test, based on the very famous Myer-Briggs personality type theory, but a bit easier to digest and implement in real life, especially for middle schoolers.  It’s called the “True Colors” personality test. The first two days of school, I always do the complete color spectrum test with my 7^th graders. We take another day to graph and discuss the results and add a foldable resource to their interactive notebooks.  My 8^th graders re-take the color spectrum test on the first day of school, to see if they’ve changed at all. (Most of them do!) Here's my True Color Spectrum: 

I know what you’re thinking. Three days – possibly four (we all know the first few times you do foldables are time-consuming and an exercise in patience) is a long time to spend on non-content, but the insight you gain into each student is invaluable.

Students also learn valuable information about themselves. Every year I have students write what they’ve learned on an exit ticket. Here are a few responses:

“I learned that I do get upset when someone else is. At first I thought I would be green, but then I realized I am more blue. The results said the same thing.”

“I learned why my jokes only make myself laugh.” [Side note: that’s hilarious]

“I learned it’s hard for me to go with the flow. I’m not adventurous.”

“I think this is really accurate to my personality. At school I love it when the teachers tell me exactly what to do so there’s no chance I can mess up. Also, I like to plan what I’m going to do ahead of time.”

“I never realized how sensitive I was. It finally hit me when I was reading my results.”

At back to school night I always share the results and their explanation with the parents in a very simple handout.  I always have a few parents that tell me that information was very helpful in improving their own relationship with their children or that their child has been talking about the personality test non-stop.

I extend this idea into the content by making posters that show the traits of each color.  (My posters clearly aren’t Pinterest worthy. Sometimes done is better than perfect.) I tried to display characteristics that are cognates, so students could understand and use them in French.  While it’s still relatively early in the school year, I have noticed students using the characteristics in these posters in their speaking and writing.  (Hooray!)

Even though I can’t direct you to a place to buy the exact book I used, I decided it was still worth telling you about. I found some resources you can reference:

There are quite a few True Colors books available to purchase. I can’t personally review any of these books, since the only one I own is the one mentioned above. However, Let Your True Colors Shine(Guide to Personal Success) and True Parenting sound really interesting.

Here’s an article from Education World about the benefits of using the True Colors Personality test in the classroom. 

Let me know if you’ve used or heard of True Colors, or use anything similar in your classroom.