Classroom Management – Helping Teachers Grow

I have the hardest time getting things graded.  I understand the value of prompt feedback, and I work that into my routine by letting students check their own paper (Gasp!) before turning it in.  They don’t grade those papers.  They simply check to see how they did.  So they get their immediate feedback.

But turning these papers into grades in the gradebook- ugh!  That takes me forever!  There are always a dozen other more pressing things that need to be done first.  Then, when I finally get to the papers, I always run across one or two that have no name on them.

Typically, I’m organized enough to know from which class the offending paper came, but even then, that paper might go several more weeks without being claimed.  That paper might just end up tossed aside with no student claiming it!

This ever happen to you?

Here’s a little trick that prevents this from happening every time.  Solid gold this tip is!  Gold, I tell ya!

When students are to turn in anything, have them give it directly to you.  Have them put it in your hands, no matter where you are in the room.  Then, when you get a paper, make sure it has a name.  If it doesn’t, tell that student before they even sit back down.

Gold.  Prevents 100% of the “no name” paper problem  100% every time!

Isn’t that what we’re looking for here?  Solutions to those common problems that keep us from being as efficient and effective in the classroom?

Gold.  Try it next time!

You’ll see.

Darren B.

I often have new teachers or college students come to my classroom to observe. These observations have never unnerved me. In fact, I like them! I like showing others how I run my class and how my students respond to my methods.

Very often, at the end of class as the students are shuffling out, the observer comes to me and makes some comment like, “You sure have some great students.” or “What well-behaved kids!” or something along those lines.

What these observers often fail to realize is that unless they are the lucky ones who get to observe my class at the beginning of the year, they don’t see 90% of what made that class a good class. So much has happened from the very first day of school that has made that classroom setting possible.

Strong veteran teachers know this and have built their systems to reinforce these expectations from the start.

So what can a new teacher do?

Build trust. Simply stated, building trust between you and your students will take you and your class far closer to your goals than almost any other element.

How do you build this trust?

It’s so simple, you’ll kick yourself if you’ve not got this in your growing bag of tricks already! Here’s the short list:

• Ask a student who he or she lives with, remember this, and frequently ask them how their [mother, father, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc] is.
• Shake hands, slap “fives” or bump fists. This simple act of connection goes a long way to telling a student you care about him or her. You sometimes have to teach the student how to complete these acts. I had a young girl who wanted to treat the fist bump as a chance for playing bloody knuckles. I told her gently, “Hey, this isn’t boxing. This is a chance to connect.” Teach the limp fish hand-shaker how to shake hands firmly. Come up with a special high five for different students.
• Post yourself at your door between classes and ask different students, “What’s new?” And then listen to what they say. File away their responses into your working memory. Draw upon that information for future interactions.
• Utilize the “soft moments” to ask individual students questions about who they are and what they’re thinking. These soft moments happen in many different situations and will be the subject of an entire post all by itself. Simply stated, a soft moment is any time that you are not directly delivering instruction. Students might be changing classes, moving between exercises, coming back from lunch, headed to a bathroom break. These moments let you connect in a public setting but still on an individual basis.
• Ask a student about their pets. If they’ve got a pet, you’ve just been delivered an easy way to connect!

The more you remember about a student and the more you ask a student about these facts you remember, the more your students will trust you. A classroom built on trust and maintained throughout the year will perform far greater than a classroom built on threats and consequences.

Darren B.

You’re waiting to go to lunch, and your students are just bonkers.  They are excited to get out of class, even if it’s only for a moment, but you can’t let them just dash out the door and run down the hall to the cafeteria.  What do you do?

You can always raise your voice and try to be louder than the students.  But who really likes that?  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to quiet the class without yelling?

Try these tips:

• Leverage something you want with something they want.  For example, if they want to go to lunch, tell them they can’t go until everyone is seated and quiet.  Just watch them help each other get quiet.
• Create a class reward and work towards it as students remember appropriate behavior.  Jars that get filled with marbles work great- when the jar is full, the class gets a reward.
• Explain that the longer it takes to work through a lesson, the more likely it is that the lesson will be homework.
• Explain that class can’t be dismissed until all information is covered.  “We can’t leave until we’ve answered all our questions…”
• Sit quietly and tell the students closest to you a funny personal story.  As they begin to enjoy your story, other students will become interested.  Before you know it, the whole class will be listening!

Whatever you do, try you best not to get into the raising-your-voice trap.  It only leads to louder and louder classes.  Become the voice of calm and quite respect in your classroom, and watch your students begin to reinforce your expectations.

DarrenB

I’ve been busy all weekend working on a couple hub pages designed to provide a bit of help for teachers who struggle with motivating students and managing the classroom. Go check out my latest page at Help-for-Teachers: How to Manage Your Students.

I provide an outline for developing a respectful and painless way to manage your students while motivating students to work to their potential. The system is so simple and straightforward that any teacher at any level can implement it no matter where they are in their year. Yes, you could start school on Monday, teach your students this simple system, and by Friday, you’d have an entirely different class full of students.

Imagine students who consistently say they like your class best. Imagine students being self-motivated to work, even on standardized tests! Imagine students behaving because they want to behave, not because you are forcing or threatening them to behave.

Imagine finishing your day feeling more energized and excited about teaching than you have in years!

It can happen. And the changes required are subtle, simple, and free!

Check out my hub page at Help-for-Teachers: How to Manage Your Students and start your week off right!

Darren B.

Do you ever feel like you’re constantly playing good cop, bad cop with your students.  Just like those Law and Order shows where one of the cops yells and threatens and harasses a suspect, and then the other cop makes friendly and seems helpful and connects with the suspect.

Both approaches are designed to connect with the suspect.  One works through fear of consequences while the other tries to build a sense of shared connection.  Both work for different reasons for different people and situations.

Kinda like teaching.  Some students respond better to the fear of consequences while others respond best to that shared connection between the teacher and the student.  And some students respond to both at different times.

Are you able to play the good cop, bad cop role in your classroom?  I don’t mean you should yell, threaten, or harass your students.  In fact, I feel that a teacher should never ever need to yell or threaten his or her students.  But sometimes interacting with a student requires a stronger, firmer energetic response than trying to personally connect.

Experienced teachers often understand these different situations and are able to adjust smoothly.  New teachers will need to develop these skills…

…and soon.

Darren B.

I am always amazed at how these students we work with every day reach out to us in such a special way.

I have two daughters, 9 and 5 years old.  They are extraordinary and supremely special creatures, and the connection I feel with them is unlike anything else.  I also have nearly 100 12 and 13 year olds in my classes, each one a special, unique individual full of promise and surprise.  The connections generated between my students and myself are unlike anything else.

I hope you also feel a strong connection to your students.  I’ve occasionally met the teacher who had shut themselves off from this connection.  I always was left wondering how they managed to finish each day without that connection.  I get so much just hearing the kids say goodbye at the end of a day or laughing at a joke or telling me that I am the weirdest teacher they’ve ever had- a supreme compliment!

Not connecting with your students is like not tasting your food or like just watching the snow fall and never playing in it.

Or like hearing music but never feeling it.

Get out there.  Make some real connections with your students.  They are hungry for that connection.  And when you find yourself most tired and frustrated, they will fill you up.

DarrenB

My principal just today had my teammates and me interview the two final candidates for our Social Studies vacancy. Both the guys interviewing were fresh out of student teaching and both seemed qualified (but so young! I must be getting old…), but one seemed a bit more excited and motivated about the job. He had that spark of motivation and inspiration about him that spoke to me.

I guess when looking for a new hire into my school and onto my team, I wanted someone who wouldn’t be afraid to throw themselves completely into the job, someone who would love to come to work and connect with the students and be a part of our team.

I hope we found that person.

It will be exciting to help the new guy get his feet wet with his first classroom experience. You only get to be a new teacher once, and for me, that was a long time ago.

I just hope I can help his first days be empowering and productive.

I’ll keep you posted!

DarrenB

Every day we are faced with a multitude of challenges. Challenging students, challenging parents, challenging schools, challenging financial constraints, challenging personal issues, and on and on.

I’d be interested to know, what do you find most challenging on a daily basis? What consistently keeps you from teaching to your potential? What is holding you back from meeting your students’ needs?

Leave me a comment and let me know what challenges you face. I’d be very interested to know. I have my own set of challenges, and I’ll post of them soon. But for now, I want to hear from you.

You didn’t really think teaching would be easy, did you?

Darren B.

Once upon a time there was a teacher who wanted to change the world.

Sound familiar? Many of us who entered the teaching profession truly felt like we could change the world.

And some of us do!  Every day in a thousand tiny ways, each of us working with the young people in our schools changes the world.  We give a smile where few had been given.  We reassure at just the right moments.  We help guide and grow our students, hopefully empowering them to be better, smarter, stronger, more capable than they were when they first walked through our doors.

But this doesn’t always happen, does it?

Little things get in the way of teaching.  Sometimes big things get in the way of teaching.  Sometimes these “things” create such obstacles to good teaching that good people are driven out of the profession.  I think all of us who have been teaching for any period of time know of someone who has left teaching because the reality of the job wasn’t what they’d been expecting.

Remember your first days in the classroom?  The nervousness, the anxiety, the outright fear that enveloped many of us thinking about those first moments facing a classroom full of young people for the first time.  My heart starts racing just thinking of those days.

Luckily those days are far behind me now.  I was able to somehow make it through those difficult early years of teaching and slide somewhat gracefully into the status of a veteran teacher.  Before I knew it, principals were sending me new teachers to mentor, drawing on my years of experience in order to help grow the next generation of teachers.

Just recently my school has been hit with a couple of scandals.  Two recently hired teachers ended up being entirely unworthy to serve in our fine profession.  Luckily their less than appropriate nature was uncovered before any damage had been done to our students.  But it got me thinking.  Why are these individuals getting hired?  And then I realized.  Both of these people were last minute hires- hired either a day before the school year started or hired well-into the school year.   These people were something of a last minute vacancy filling hire.

For the first time in my career, I understand the grave effects of our teacher shortage.  As fewer and fewer of our young people enter the teaching profession, schools are forced to accept less than ideal candidates.  This isn’t to say that every new hire is less valuable than those who were hired before.  But it does say something about the talent pool out there hoping to get into teaching.

It is clear to me that more needs to be done to nurture and retain those teachers who are already in this great profession.  Each of us needs to step up and share what we know will help other teachers, struggling teachers, in order to ease their burdens and elevate our profession.

Working together we can all help those teachers who are strong candidates but who might be missing one element of effective teaching, might be missing that one tool in their toolbox that would enable them to be a great teacher rather than a struggling teacher.

Can you envision a school of empowered and powerful teachers, working to their ability and helping all our students grow?

I know I can.  And I’m going to do my part to help.

Won’t you?

DarrenB