Started off in da school
Dets my only education
Listen to my teacher
Dets my only motivation
Man Da world go around
In a whole rotation
I got four teachers witd me
I call em the temptation
I had to raise my head up
Just to get my life rite
Aint Nobody gone stop me
Man I see none of em in sight
Gotta meal up on my plate
So I had to take a bite
Man I aint even trippin
Cause my shoes really tight
Man I had me a dream
Just like Martin Luther King
Heard da clouds they really open
Man I think da wings
See me riding away in my zone
In a six door limousine
Man we in this junk together
Hold our hands just like a team
Lord knows I'm really blessed
From my feet up to my chest
Life is really hard
Like a nine week test
I cant let myself down
So I'm still gone do my best
I ain't got time for da jokin
Im finna run me up a check
Cleveland is where i live
Ima always keep it real
Mr Burgoon he got my back
Like a blue and white peal
I don't care about a deal
Cause I'm out chasing a meal
Man life is really crazy
All these peoples getting killed
I got my hands up cause
I'm in my zone
I had more problems that
it made me stand strong
If you hate me then you
can go home
Cause im harder than a stone
If I eva become rich ima
put the school on
Im catching chills up in my bone
But rite now im finna be gone
Friday, July 10, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Classroom Management: 5 Tips for Survival Mode
As my month of teaching summer school in the Mississippi Delta draws to a close, I feel like I am finally getting the hang of it and coming out of survival mode. My class has good days and bad days, but everything I have heard about your first year of teaching is absolutely true: nothing will prepare you for this experience.
With that thought in mind, I have five management tips for first-year teachers who are in their first month of school. These ideas and strategies have been keeping my class afloat, and while I am not an expert, and my class is a thousand miles away from perfect, I think these are some awesome starting points for anyone who's terrified of their first day or really struggling through the first week or month. Hope it's helpful!
1. Make your rules, expectations, and procedures crystal clear.
For a lot of new teachers, and especially those of us who teach high school, we expect certain standards of behavior to be a given. We expect our students not to shout in the hallway. We expect our students not to interrupt us when we're talking. We expect our students not to push each other or put their hands on each other. The first thing I learned last week is that I need to act like none of my students have ever sat in a classroom, even though this is of course, not true. Teachers have different expectations. Additionally, your students may try to test you to see how strict you are, and then claim that they did not understand the rule or procedure. It will take several weeks to teach your students each procedure, but I would start with the rules and the basics on Day 1. Here are our rules. Here is how we enter the classroom. Here is how we show our teacher that we're paying attention. Here is how we ask a question. Here is what we do if we need to get up for something.
This process continues into the next few weeks of school when you do new things. I taught my students the expectations for group work the first time we actually did group work, not on the first day. Do whatever you can to set your students up for success by making sure that they understand your expectations. Keep your rules and consequences system posted somewhere visible in the classroom (yes, even if you teach high school). Do not give students any excuses when they misbehave. Let them take ownership of their behavior by being clear on what you want.
2. Make conscious efforts to show love to your students.
This is probably the single most important thing you can do for your students, but I'm putting it second since you will probably never reach this point until you master #1. However, they work in tandem, because students who believe that you love them (and students who love you) will do most anything to meet your expectations. Praise students for excellence. Offer incentives for good behavior and rewards for excellent work. LISTEN to your students, and respond to their thoughts, ideas, fears, and dreams thoughtfully and genuinely. I am baking my kids brownies every week. That might not be for every teacher, but I think it's really important. Not only does it show my students love, but it also puts me in the right frame-of-mind midweek (they get brownies on Wednesday). Something about the process of going to buy the ingredients and spending about 45 minutes doing the baking gives me time to reflect on how the week has been going and what I want to accomplish for the rest of the week. Another way that I show love to my students is writing them each a personalized note every week. I might tell them how proud I am of their work on a specific assignment, or let them know that I enjoyed a particular comment they made. I tell them to keep up the good work. You have to take special care to show love to your "problem students" because it's likely they need your love the most. Though I do not want to make assumptions, I get the distinct feeling that some of my kids have never been told by a teacher that she enjoys their presence in class, or that she looks forwards to seeing them every day. If you have a child in your class that you feel you cannot show love to, get out of the profession. This profession isn't for you.
3. Do not be afraid to put the hammer down.
I am not hard on my kids in spite of loving them, I am hard on my kids because I love them. Get a feel early on for how you will manage your classroom, and stick to your guns. Usually, students will respond well to a casual warning. Trust your instincts about whether you can casually redirect behavior or whether you need to start a student on formal consequences. I really do not like formal consequences. I don't like the valuable class time that it takes, and I don't like the way it can damage my relationship with the student if not handled correctly. I have to really push myself to stick to my system and give formal consequences, but if I fail to do this, class will go to hell in a hand basket it .07 seconds. STICK TO YOUR GUNS!
4. Treat your "worst" students like your best students.
Even new teachers can usually identify their "troublemakers" from the very first day. Find your troublemakers. Write down their names. Remember who they are. Then spend every day treating these students like your best-behaved, best-grades, always-sweet students. Even if your stomach sinks every time they walk in the door and you think "oh God, he's back," make your student feel as though he is your favorite student in the world. This helps build a relationship with students who might otherwise cause problems, but also makes it easier to redirect behavior. If they know that you like them, and know that you expect excellence from them, they will eventually be tricked into wanting to give you excellence everyday to keep you from being disappointed. If a kid gives you problems in the first week, you need to sit down and come up with a game plan for how you're going to reach that student. Which brings me to...
5. Don't hold grudges.
This is huge. Stop taking student behavior, student apathy, and student failures personally. Just like you, they're not perfect people. And unlike you, they do not have the maturity, selflessness, and foresight to understand how their behavior makes you feel or affects their future goals. In fact, your feelings are the very last thing on their minds. Teenagers are fundamentally selfish creatures. That's not to say they're bad people. They just have not grown up enough yet to see much besides their own emotions, wants, and needs. I am still young enough to remember being a teenager, and I definitely did not appreciate what the people around me were trying to do for me. Understand this about your students, and remember that they are usually not Out To Get You.
Keeping that in mind, find ways to start the next day fresh if you had a bad day with a student. Something that works well for me and helps me reflect on the situation is writing letters to my student if we have a particularly rough day. I will acknowledge why the student got upset, take responsibility for anything I did wrong, express my appreciation for the student, and make suggestions about what we can do better today. I also include a slip at the bottom of the letter for students to fill out and return to me.
I include the bottom part, because for my students, there are often things going on outside of school that are very difficult to deal with. These issues can end up affecting them in class, so if I know that they are having a hard time dealing with something, I can refrain from cold calling them or forcing them to do group work or whatever.
I hope that you found some of my ideas helpful! I am struggling through this first year of teaching, and these are the strategies I'm using to keep my classroom semi-sane. At the end of the day, even if I'm not teaching perfect lessons or managing my classroom perfectly, I think I am at least making sure that my students know they are safe, cared for, and respected. If you can establish this foundation early on, I feel like the rest will come. Hang in there!
With that thought in mind, I have five management tips for first-year teachers who are in their first month of school. These ideas and strategies have been keeping my class afloat, and while I am not an expert, and my class is a thousand miles away from perfect, I think these are some awesome starting points for anyone who's terrified of their first day or really struggling through the first week or month. Hope it's helpful!
1. Make your rules, expectations, and procedures crystal clear.
For a lot of new teachers, and especially those of us who teach high school, we expect certain standards of behavior to be a given. We expect our students not to shout in the hallway. We expect our students not to interrupt us when we're talking. We expect our students not to push each other or put their hands on each other. The first thing I learned last week is that I need to act like none of my students have ever sat in a classroom, even though this is of course, not true. Teachers have different expectations. Additionally, your students may try to test you to see how strict you are, and then claim that they did not understand the rule or procedure. It will take several weeks to teach your students each procedure, but I would start with the rules and the basics on Day 1. Here are our rules. Here is how we enter the classroom. Here is how we show our teacher that we're paying attention. Here is how we ask a question. Here is what we do if we need to get up for something.
This process continues into the next few weeks of school when you do new things. I taught my students the expectations for group work the first time we actually did group work, not on the first day. Do whatever you can to set your students up for success by making sure that they understand your expectations. Keep your rules and consequences system posted somewhere visible in the classroom (yes, even if you teach high school). Do not give students any excuses when they misbehave. Let them take ownership of their behavior by being clear on what you want.
2. Make conscious efforts to show love to your students.
This is probably the single most important thing you can do for your students, but I'm putting it second since you will probably never reach this point until you master #1. However, they work in tandem, because students who believe that you love them (and students who love you) will do most anything to meet your expectations. Praise students for excellence. Offer incentives for good behavior and rewards for excellent work. LISTEN to your students, and respond to their thoughts, ideas, fears, and dreams thoughtfully and genuinely. I am baking my kids brownies every week. That might not be for every teacher, but I think it's really important. Not only does it show my students love, but it also puts me in the right frame-of-mind midweek (they get brownies on Wednesday). Something about the process of going to buy the ingredients and spending about 45 minutes doing the baking gives me time to reflect on how the week has been going and what I want to accomplish for the rest of the week. Another way that I show love to my students is writing them each a personalized note every week. I might tell them how proud I am of their work on a specific assignment, or let them know that I enjoyed a particular comment they made. I tell them to keep up the good work. You have to take special care to show love to your "problem students" because it's likely they need your love the most. Though I do not want to make assumptions, I get the distinct feeling that some of my kids have never been told by a teacher that she enjoys their presence in class, or that she looks forwards to seeing them every day. If you have a child in your class that you feel you cannot show love to, get out of the profession. This profession isn't for you.
3. Do not be afraid to put the hammer down.
I am not hard on my kids in spite of loving them, I am hard on my kids because I love them. Get a feel early on for how you will manage your classroom, and stick to your guns. Usually, students will respond well to a casual warning. Trust your instincts about whether you can casually redirect behavior or whether you need to start a student on formal consequences. I really do not like formal consequences. I don't like the valuable class time that it takes, and I don't like the way it can damage my relationship with the student if not handled correctly. I have to really push myself to stick to my system and give formal consequences, but if I fail to do this, class will go to hell in a hand basket it .07 seconds. STICK TO YOUR GUNS!
4. Treat your "worst" students like your best students.
Even new teachers can usually identify their "troublemakers" from the very first day. Find your troublemakers. Write down their names. Remember who they are. Then spend every day treating these students like your best-behaved, best-grades, always-sweet students. Even if your stomach sinks every time they walk in the door and you think "oh God, he's back," make your student feel as though he is your favorite student in the world. This helps build a relationship with students who might otherwise cause problems, but also makes it easier to redirect behavior. If they know that you like them, and know that you expect excellence from them, they will eventually be tricked into wanting to give you excellence everyday to keep you from being disappointed. If a kid gives you problems in the first week, you need to sit down and come up with a game plan for how you're going to reach that student. Which brings me to...
5. Don't hold grudges.
This is huge. Stop taking student behavior, student apathy, and student failures personally. Just like you, they're not perfect people. And unlike you, they do not have the maturity, selflessness, and foresight to understand how their behavior makes you feel or affects their future goals. In fact, your feelings are the very last thing on their minds. Teenagers are fundamentally selfish creatures. That's not to say they're bad people. They just have not grown up enough yet to see much besides their own emotions, wants, and needs. I am still young enough to remember being a teenager, and I definitely did not appreciate what the people around me were trying to do for me. Understand this about your students, and remember that they are usually not Out To Get You.
Keeping that in mind, find ways to start the next day fresh if you had a bad day with a student. Something that works well for me and helps me reflect on the situation is writing letters to my student if we have a particularly rough day. I will acknowledge why the student got upset, take responsibility for anything I did wrong, express my appreciation for the student, and make suggestions about what we can do better today. I also include a slip at the bottom of the letter for students to fill out and return to me.
I hope that you found some of my ideas helpful! I am struggling through this first year of teaching, and these are the strategies I'm using to keep my classroom semi-sane. At the end of the day, even if I'm not teaching perfect lessons or managing my classroom perfectly, I think I am at least making sure that my students know they are safe, cared for, and respected. If you can establish this foundation early on, I feel like the rest will come. Hang in there!
-Love, Linds
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