Creating Lifelong Learners

When we recorded our voice overs for our movie projects last year, I’d call “Quiet on the Set” and it would need to be totally quiet. I knew that my class would do a good job of this but there was one student, “Tommy,” who wasn’t going to be quiet and he would probably get two or three other students talking at the same time. Tommy became our engineer. Tommy shouted “Quiet on the Set” and he pushed the record button in iMovie. No one talked, Tommy was a productive member of our classroom, and I wasn’t aggravated.

Have a student who has a problem with wandering around the classroom? How about making them a paper monitor this week?

Problems with excess socializing? How about sitting students in groups and employing collaborative work?

Elementary students don’t do homework? How about meeting with those students to make sure they’re able to complete the work without parent help?

Give your students a chance and sometimes they’ll rise to the challenge. Also note that your own frustration is less when students are productive and things work as they should.

Related Posts:

Classroom Management: The Teacher’s Voice
Classroom Management: Appropriate Consequences
Classroom Management: Good Morning

The way that students enter the classroom determines almost everything else that happens after.

It Starts on the Yard–Pick Them Up On Time

For elementary teachers who pick up their students up from the yard, it’s important that teachers arrive immediately or soon after the bell rings. In between yard supervision and the teacher’s arrival, it’s the wild wild west out there. Students are no longer involved in a structured activity and many problems occur in those three minutes that teachers are late. If Tommy punches Jimmy in the line before you get there, then Jimmy is not going to be in the mood to comprehend the math lesson that’s happening first thing when you return to classroom.

I Walk the Line

It’s important to me that my class walks in a line.

I do spend time practicing how to do this at the beginning of the year and at other times when the class seems to have forgotten. It’s very important to me that the class doesn’t leave big spaces in between students in our line and that students face forward as we walk. However, I stopped requiring that students walk exactly one behind the other when the line is in motion once I realized how uncomfortable it is to do. The next time you’re in line at the movie theater, notice whether you walk exactly behind the person in front of you or whether you move slightly to one side.

I stopped requiring that students be absolutely silent on the way to the room but do ask that once we reach the steps their conversation stops and they be ready to listen to my directions. Similarly, on the way to the library, students can talk to each other on the yard but once we reach the library building, it needs to be quiet. If you’re at the movies, notice that you talk to the people you’re with while you walk in a line but once you reach the usher, you’ll stop talking and listen to his directions.

If students are not quiet when they’re entering the room or are not in a line as they enter the room the same behavior will continue through the lesson i.e. there will be talking and disorder.

Good Morning, Shalom, Aloha

I used to think that saying good morning was silly and a waste of time. Then I read somewhere that saying good morning may be the only time a child talks to an adult all day. For students who are behavior problems, our “good morning” may be our only positive interaction all day. It’s also like the reset button on a computer, letting students know that even if they had a bad day yesterday, today is a new ballgame.

I usually say something to students as they enter the room in addition to “Good Morning” like “Nice shirt.” or “Did you see the Dodger game?” By standing at the door and noticing who has Spongebob on their back pack, I learn about what interests the students and sometimes take their ten seconds in the spotlight at the door to tell me something about themselves like “my cousin is visiting” or “I saw a good movie.” When do we ever get a chance to just talk to our students like they’re people?

I also teach my students, who are second graders, not to rush past me but to slow down for just a second and look me in the eye and say good morning back. So that I don’t get bored, I also tend to mix it up and use “Good morning” and “Hello” in different languages. Students pick these up too. It’s amusing to hear them say shalom or kanichiwa and keeps us smiling.

Have Something For Them To Do

In my room students come in, take out their homework and get started on their daily language practice. The daily language practice reviews some important skills that students need. However, I would say that what students do when they come into the room isn’t as important as the fact that they have something to do when they come in so that they get right to work. While students do their work I spot check the homework on their desks and it shows me quickly who is still having trouble with a concept. We then review the daily language practice. Not all students finish the daily practice at the beginning of the year but they get faster as the year goes on. Other teachers use a daily journal prompt or a word problem if it’s about to be math time.

The whole thing takes no more than about fifteen minutes at the end of which all class business is done for the day and we’re ready to start full-steam ahead with the core curriculum curriculum. By the time students come to the carpet, every student has already been acknowledged by their teacher, they’re focused, and they’ve completed some review of important grammar skills.

This is a follow-up to my previous post on the Teacher’s Voice and its impact on classroom management.

They’re Not Bored, You’re Boring

A lot of teachers feel that it’s not their job to entertain students, and it’s not—but it is your job to be interesting and if you can entertain them, that’s a bonus. I’m supported here by the California Standards for the Teaching Profession which make engaging students one of their requirements.

I’d estimate that 90% of student misbehavior can be stopped by increasing student engagement and participation. Frequently students are acting up because they’re bored.

Clear Expectations

In the same way that it’s better to pre-teach a concept to students who are going to have a hard time comprehending it rather than constantly reteaching it, it’s better to talk about expected behavior before that behavior is needed.

If you’re going to an assembly, talk about appropriate auditorium behavior before getting to the auditorium. If you haven’t had that conversation, once you’re in the auditorium and students are acting up, it’s too late…it’s not their fault, it’s yours. Your post-assembly discussion should focus on debriefing how students did in regards to living up to the expectations you set. If you set no expectations, then your conversation is just going to be you complaining to students about their awful behavior and they’re going to start tuning you out quickly (reread the part about engaging students).

Understand that just because you’ve set up clear expectations for the classroom, every new situation needs a new set of expectations and a quick refresher course never does harm. If students have already internalized the expectations, then they can tell you what appropriate auditorium behavior is.

Have Clear Boundaries

Students need to know exactly where you draw the line.

I worked with a teacher at a school with many trees. She had a rule, “No tree climbing.” But there was a student who liked to climb trees. For him, the rule was “No tree climbing…but if you climb, don’t go past the third branch.” But once he had climbed to the fifth branch, she changed the rule. Once he reached the top, the rule became, “No jumping off the top of trees.” Once he jumped off the tree and landed with a thud on the ground, she changed the rule back to “No tree climbing” but it was too late. If you bend the boundaries you can’t get them back. Students learn that they make the rules, not you.

So in my classroom, I do allows students to talk while they write. I do allow them to get up when they need a pencil or a Kleenex. But I do insist that when another student or I are addressing the whole class, they do not talk or get up and move around. That’s my boundary. It should not be crossed.

Be Proactive

Finding a way to channel student misbehavior into something productive is your first line of attack.

Students who misbehave have talents that school does little to bring out. Students who are ringleaders have leadership qualities that we’d be wise to nurture rather than stigmatize. We want them to use their talents for good instead of evil but what do we do to give them that opportunity? Sitting and being quiet is not appealing to a leader.

When we were filming our class movies, every twenty minutes or so we’d need it to be “quiet on the set” so that groups of students could record their voiceovers. I had one student who I knew was going to have a hard time being quiet. So I made him the engineer. He was the one who called for “quiet on the set” and he was the one who pushed the button to start the recording. It was totally quiet in my room. Instead of allowing James to be the guy who ruined our class projects by yapping, he became our trusted engineer. He felt good about it and the class appreciated him for it.

Teachers who have students who have trouble wandering around the room might make those kids the paper or door monitors so they have a reason to wander and wander with a purpose that’s productive for the classroom. If students have a problem with talking in the classroom, you might arrange your seats in groups rather than isolated tables so that learning can be more social and project based.

But What Then?

No matter how clear your expectations, no matter how firm your boundaries, some students will test those boundaries. Don’t be surprised by this; expect it. Plan for it.

The consequence of breaking a boundary should logically follow the offense. If the ball monitor doesn’t hold the ball, they get a warning. But if they do it again, they’re fired from that job and I choose a new ball monitor. I don’t mess around with changing cards or handing out money all year. Not all parents care if their child had a red day or a fuscia one and kids who misbehave don’t care either. I need for students to feel the disappointment of their actions immediately with something that seems reasonable to them and to me. Missing a field trip because a ball monitor couldn’t hold the ball is silly because it’s out of whack and it doesn’t make sense given the offense.

The student understands when they’ve made a mistake and it’s easier for you to follow through when your consequence is reasonable. The most appropriate consequence should always be missing out on the activity that the rest of the class is doing for an amount of time equal to their age.

I Don’t Care

What about those students who say they don’t care about missing out. If they say they don’t care, it’s usually because they really do care (see Aesop’s Fox and the Grapes origin of “sour grapes”). If they really don’t care then reread the part about student engagement. If it doesn’t bother students to miss out on your activities then your activities aren’t that interesting.

Your Own Dirty Laundry

Don’t send students out of the room. The office hates you when you send them your bad kids, but that’s not why I say don’t do it. A student often misbehaves because he’s bored…he then misbehaves…you send him to the office. Sounds like a lot of fun for someone who thought your classroom was really boring in the first place. Don’t reward bad behavior in this way. It diminishes your own power and gives another incentive to misbehave.

What Do You Think?

Please leave your thoughts, exceptions, disagreements. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Related Posts:

Classroom Management: The Teacher’s Voice
Classroom Management: Good Morning
Classroom Management:  Do Something Proactive Today

My readers, I’m sure, have excellent classroom management. However, you may be called upon to help out a brand-new colleague or an overwhelmed veteran next door. I have a theory that much of a classroom’s success all depends on the teacher’s voice.

Pitch

Think low.

Student teachers I’ve worked with who have poor classroom management often speak in a very high voice. While you can’t change the voice you’ve been given, having taken singing lessons I know that we all have a register which spans from our chest to the top of our head. When managing a classroom, speak from the chest. It gives you power, it’s believable, and it’s not straining. My acting coaches would say, “think low.”
If your voice is too high pitched, it can sometimes sound desperate, apologetic, and it seems as if you are asking students for permission when you are giving directions.

Tone

Be calm.

It is no wonder that the teacher having a nervous breakdown in the teacher’s lounge has a classroom full of students having nervous breakdowns. Students tend to take on their teacher’s personality. Even an emergency like a fire, an earthquake, or a first grader wetting his pants requires the teacher to remain calm. If you’re not relaxed in tone then hyper students are more hyper, distracted students are more distracted, and it’s also a lot less fun.

Don’t yell at students. Okay, you might lose it now and then, but don’t be one of those teachers who barks at students on a daily basis. Barking teachers breed barking students. Don’t confuse meanness with firmness.

Intent

Mean what you say.

Prepare consequences in advance. Don’t start doling them out as an afterthought. Students don’t believe you when you do that. In every class, there will always be at least one student who tries your rules.

When administering consequences like missing recess or missing out on activity, be prepared to follow through with that consequence. If you make your consequences less severe it’s easier to follow through with them. Five minutes away from the group are going to make a student feel the consequences of his actions but not so much as to punish me or be unreasonable to administer. If it comes out of your mouth, you have to follow through with it. So don’t say you’ll go to the office or you’ll call him unless you’re prepared to it (and again, I suggest having a more reasonable plan in effect to deal with offenses which will most likely be minor.)

I get asked all the time how I fit in anything “extra” into the Open Court program. I don’t think I’m doing anything “extra.” I just make sure I have time for writing and independent work time/workshop each day. Your writing and IWT times are when you differentiate your instruction in ways which you can’t when teaching the whole group.

This is how I do it.

Here’s our weekly schedule. Our schedule will not work for you exactly but I share it in the hopes that it’s helpful in you developing your own schedule for use with the Open Court Reading Program. You may need to adjust it for your library or computer lab time or change it for your grade level or Open Court edition.

Here’s what this is. My second grade team at Saturn Street School and I developed a template for how our week would run where we knew every Monday at such and such a time we were doing blending. Every Wednesday we were doing a workbook page after recess. Every Friday, a spelling test.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the many program components (or want a shortcut to planning) then I think you need a schedule like this.

Weekly Schedule