The education in the k-12 system is a vastly diverse field, full of people from all ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnicities. Teachers teach a lot of different things subject-wise and wear a lot of different hats. Not only are we teachers, we are the adults, sometimes the pillar that a child needs that they may not get at home. We are social workers, counselors. We are their advocates. Many times, we are the people that SEE you for who you are.
But that all doesn’t matter if you are unable to control your class. If you can’t control your class, you are none of those things; you are just a person under siege by 30 to 35 ten year olds.
That loss of control is the nightmare of every teacher and teacher-to-be. That is my nightmare. In my years of education, I had the unique and blessed experience to be able to see 12 teachers set up, maintain (or be under siege), and close down their classes for the year. I got to observe them each and every day of the school year and they were diverse in their personalities and experiences. But the successful teachers had 5 major things in common. These are five things that every teacher who is starting out, or who need to make a shift in strategy need to know: Have a refocus technique, have 100%, think about logistics, practice dumb things, and reflect and know tomorrow is a new day and another chance.
The first thing a teacher needs is a refocus technique. A refocus technique is basically an action by the teacher to get the class to focus on them once again when the class is either in a good chaos or bad chaos (either their being productive and busy, or just plain talking and doing nothing). This refocus technique needs to be strong. Don’t get it mixed up with loud. There are many teachers who can refocus their class at a mid range voice level, and there are teachers who like to do it with a loud and booming voice (because I like to hear myself bring down the level of noise). But one can tell the difference from when one is just shrieking or yelling at the kids and when one is bringing their focus back to them. Make this technique age appropriate (you can’t use 123 eyes on me with middle or high schoolers). Make it short and sweet. And make sure to have at least 2 techniques that you can use depending on the situation of the class or the ebb and flow.
For middle school, I use “if you can hear me clap once” technique and the count down with a short explanation of what “ready to go” looks like (you are ready when you stop talking in three. You are ready when you are in your seats in 2. You are ready when you have a piece of paper and pencil out in 1). Why is the refocus technique important? Because you need to stop the flow. You need to stop the vehicle and actually move it into the direction you want. It’s not like a regular car; moving people is a terrible machine that can go horribly wrong if you try to change direction specifically when half your kids are going the opposite direction.
Which leads me into my second point. You need to have 100%. 100% of what? 100% of their attention. Two reasons for this. One, it’s super distracting having a couple of kids in the back talking while you’re giving directions to shift. Two, it erodes your authority as the kids’ leader. If you can’t keep control of your class, the kids feel like they can’t trust in you to invest their time and expect to get something meaningful from it. I see a bunch of teachers who begin giving directions to students after refocusing the attention but not having 100% of the class on board and quiet. When this happens, it’s usually maybe 2 or three kids talking still, and it’s glaringly obvious because it’s in a quiet room. When this happens, if you look out and read the room, you begin to see eyes turning away from the teacher. Those eyes don’t just go to the talkers, they look at other places. Their eyes go either down or away, or eventually, to the person next to them that they want to talk to. Why should I listen to you if the people in the back aren’t doing it? It must not be important enough. YOU must not be important enough to warrant our time. For the kids who are actually listening to you, it’s a huge distraction and waste of time, because you’re going to have to, as the teacher, repeat yourself instead of clarifying yourself. All the teachers that I watched that didn’t get 100% before shifting direction slowly had the percentage of students who paid attention to them decrease. A 2% leakage becomes 4% and then becomes 10% and then becomes 20%, 40% and just gets worse from there. Eventually I see these teachers just talking at and giving directions at a talking crowd of kids who aren’t paying attention to them. It’s not the kids fault and it’s not reasonable to just give this crowd directions and let them fail because it’s “their choice.” You failed as a teacher to stop the leak. You need a 100% with you before you shift direction.
Ok, so you started out with 100% and you started giving directions, but in the middle of giving directions, some kids start talking. Perfect. That’s where proximity techniques, using their names in the directions, or planning to move these kids to different places or going up the progressive punishment ladder comes into play.
The third thing we need to know as teachers is the logistics of a lesson. I say logistics, but it’s not only logistics. It also can be seen as choreography. Why? Because you need to map out how your lessons are going to go to the very point where you know how the students are going to get their pencils out. You need to map out how you’re going to say your directions, where the pauses are, and when you want to emphasize or point out specific information. Why is this important? If you go into a lesson without having an idea of how it’s going to look you will easily lose control of your class as you fumble. Of course, situations change and plans don’t fit all contexts and people, but it’s better to fix something rather than build it while doing it. This piece is important because it gives you a chance to think about your ELD students and Students with IEP’s and how they will interact with the lesson. This is the biggest benefit because you are able to cover the students who need the greatest amount of help. This step is important because it shows you took into account where each of your kids are at academic-level-wise and shows respect to them as people.
The fourth thing we need to know is to practice dumb things. This is especially important in the first two weeks of school. Now, you may be wondering, what the hell are dumb things? I say this because I didnt have a better word or phrase, but dumb things include practicing your routines down to the very refocus techniques, how the kids should enter the class, how the kids should obtain your materials, how they should interact with each other and you, and how they should exit your class. Dumb things are the weird and awkward ice breakers. Dumb things are also the activities you do to assess your kids for all kinds of things. These could be small opportunities like writing a sentence about your favorite person or thing to do. They could be small read-aloud pieces to gauge the reading levels. They could be a paragraph that they have to read and answer a comprehension question to determine what grade of reading comprehension they’re at. I personally like to ask them to write a paragraph about who they would choose to be on their survival team if the world was hit with a zombie apocalypse. Practicing dumb things helps you to establish your authority by getting small wins. The more the kids follow your directions, the more automatic it is to pretty much listen to whatever you say or do and whatever you direct them to do. The more small things you get them to do in the beginning, the harder it is for the kids to balk at later bigger directions. You’ve established trust in them as their leader. They get into the habit of following your directions and it becomes automatic. It’s a subtle way to establish your influence into their lives. And it’s a way to get to know the kids and the kids to get to know you. I use dumb things to get the kids excited to be with me. They don’t know that I’m seeing how many can write full sentences and paragraphs. They don’t know that I’m having them slowly lock themselves into automatically following my directions and coming into my class how I want them to do it. They don’t know that I’m gauging not only their reading comprehension, but also their listening comprehension. They think I’m just a fun and random teacher, but everything I do has a purpose.
The fifth thing we need to know is that every day is a new day and that we need to reflect. No matter how experienced or good we are, we will always have new situations, new students. We can’t build class structures that always work for everyone. We will have our bad days and that “one” student. So when you have that bad day, or you feel like it didn’t go so well, always look back and see where the breakdown was. There is always something that could have been done differently. There is also always something you can do to approach a challenging student. Remember, one size doesn’t fit all, and everyone is different. That means that sometimes we have to approach kids at different angles and damn “equal treatment.” We need to meet kids where they’re at. We can’t order a fish to climb a tree and punish them because the other animals (who are land animals with climbing capabilities) can but the fish can’t. And no matter how bad a day you have, there is always a new day. That’s what makes reflection important, because you get another chance to approach your class a different way.
