Outsourcing Discipline

We’ve all taught that kid that knows how to push your buttons and that, after the first few days of school, is on strike two before ever entering the room. This is the kid who makes your stomach get a little queasy each day before class starts, the one who haunts your dreams at night and turns your days into living nightmares. The one who makes you pray, “Please, please, please, please let him be sick today,” as you are driving to school in the morning. 

For me, that student was Horton (For the sake of anonymity, I’m using a name of no student I ever actually taught). Horton was in my English class, and he was trouble from day one. As soon as I had an inkling he was going to be difficult (probably day two), I promptly called home to establish a relationship with his parent early on. The next day Horton showed up in class more unpleasant than ever and announced belligerently, “You called my mom last night.” He then proceeded to make my day even more miserable. Frustratedly, I pulled Horton into the hall and, in the heat of anger, gave him a big ol’ adult lecture, which made absolutely no difference when we re-entered the classroom and he had to save face in front of his peers. I gave him a warning, followed by a second warning, followed by a detention. 

He failed to show up for the detention, much to my delight, because that meant a double detention, which I immediately issued, and which was also unserved. Good, I thought to myself. This is out of my hands now. I get to send him to Saturday School and make this kid someone else’s problem.  Before the first month of school had ended, Horton had been assigned two Saturday Schools and had received three or four office referrals. He even got to spend a few days out of my class in in-school suspension, but the ISS only served to give me a day or two of rest and to make sure Horton fell impossibly behind, which made him even more of a problem when he returned to class. 

I wish I could tell you that I executed some phenomenal teacher move that got Horton back on my side and that he ended up being my star student by the end of the year. Unfortunately, Horton and I spent an entire semester antagonizing one another, his mom and I became BFFs over the phone, and I finally convinced the counselor to move Horton to another teacher at the semester so “he could get a fresh start.” I passed him off to a colleague and then commiserated with her from time to time about the challenges of dealing with this unruly miscreant, all the while thinking to myself, “Better you than me!”  In hindsight, I was the worst in so many ways. 

For some reason, I had forgotten something taught to me by a very wise Assistant Principal my first year of teaching, Scott Potter. Mr. Potter insisted that we not outsource our discipline, not send our students away to detention halls, not assign Saturday School sessions, and not write stacks of office referrals. When a student was having a problem in our class, it was our responsibility to schedule a detention with that student. The detention wasn’t meant to be a punishment—no scraping gum off desks or pounding erasers. Instead, we were supposed to spend some quality time, one on one, with the student, talking about the problem and thinking together about ways to remedy it.  

As a young teacher, I thought this was a ridiculous torture designed to make me have to spend an agonizing 30 extra minutes with someone I didn’t even want to see during the time I had to see him in class each day. Now that I’m older and perhaps a little wiser, I see the brilliance in this approach. 

Teaching is all about relationships. So is discipline. If a student doesn’t have a relationship with the teacher and feels antagonized, adversarial, or unsafe, the student has little incentive to cooperate in class. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to sit down with a teenager who dislikes you and your class and try to break the ice, but over time, when you put down the authority persona and adopt the ally stance instead, the student eventually learns that you’re on the same side and that you want him or her to succeed. Punishment does little to improve behaviors; building a relationship with a student leads to positive change.

Students know when you don’t like them. They sometime even assume you don’t like them, even when you do. Sitting down in a one-to-one with a student gives you a chance to find things you like about that student and discover ways to make positive connections with him or her. 

Misbehavior happens for a reason. Most often, a student is seeking attention—from you or from peers—and doesn’t do it in ways that are in sync with your lesson plans. Frequently, a student walks into your class carrying excess emotional baggage from home, from parents, from peers, and from other teachers. If you’re just one more angry adult adding to the noise in that student’s life, you can’t expect cooperation or engagement. Your tête-à-tête with that student may allow you to find ways to give that student positive attention and to help that student learn to deal with the baggage. 

When you spend time with students individually and empathize with them, they become more receptive to what you want them to know. Life is hard. Growing up is tough. Being a teenager is pretty terrible sometimes, or at least it feels that way for many. Let your students know that you know that; it may surprise some of them who believe no one understands them or knows what they are going through. Resisting your impulse to lecture, just listen to them. You may be the only one who does, and that listening might be a breakthrough. 

Adult brains are more developed than teenagers’ brains. We are also presumably more skilled at regulating our emotions, adapting our behaviors to various situations, navigating social norms, and solving problems. To expect kids to think and reason like adults is extremely short sighted. Students who come from difficult backgrounds may be even less equipped to handle the emotional and behavioral demands of school. The best teachers are the ones who understand this and are willing to teach problem solving, emotional intelligence, and self-regulation to their students. If we teach students what is expected in our classrooms, how to respond in difficult situations, and which techniques can be used to level things out when their emotions get out of whack, we are giving them tools they can use forever. But they won’t learn them when we lecture, issue consequences, and stack punishment on top of punishment. 

So when you’re faced with your own Hortons and your first inclination is to get them as far away from you as possible and make them someone else’s problem, consider a different approach. Transform detentions from punishment to productivity. Take the difficult steps to form a relationship with that student, become an ally rather than an adversary, and teach the problem-solving and social skills to help Horton handle the stressors that life will hurl at him.  

I heard from another former student—not Horton—the other day. He’s an adult now and doing quite well, traveling the world and writing. When he was a high school freshman, I suspect some of his teachers had their doubts because he couldn’t sit still, was prone to blurt things out, asked incessant questions, lacked impulse control, didn’t pick up on social cues, and always seemed to be talking when it was time to be quiet. He was also incredibly bright, though sometimes his behaviors masked that intelligence. He is a student I didn’t let frustrate me. Instead, I did what I could to build a relationship. In his note to me, he wrote, “Having a teacher who could joke with me, but also point out my shortcomings and how to fix them, but also endeavor to understand what I was all about, but also inspire me to grow bigger than that, etc….super valuable.” I’m glad I took the time to know this young person because he’s become an adult who inspires me with what he’s done. 

Giving your students ways to fix their shortcomings and grow bigger than what they are all about right now—that’s the hidden curriculum that may be more important than the content the state tells us we have to teach. If we outsource our discipline, we are leaving those most essential lessons untaught. 

Reining Them In: A New Year's Tradition

Teenagers think they can make better decisions on their own behalf than they actually can.

This is why adults have to say things like things like, “It’s time to turn off the Nintendo and go to bed,” “Don’t eat that package of Ho Hos; you’ll spoil your dinner,” and, “Put the phone down and finish your homework.”

I’m not saying that teens unilaterally make poor choices. I’m simply observing that oftentimes what a student thinks is in his or her best interest at the time may not be.

For instance, if a teacher decides--in the name of giving students some autonomy--to allow her students to determine where they want to sit in class, a handful of students will consider legit factors, such as where they can best pay attention or where they can see the whiteboard without having to put on their dreaded glasses, while most will seize the opportunity to sit with their besties and put learning on the back burner. Inevitably, this leads to classroom management headaches for the teacher and decreased productivity for the students.

Thanks a lot, you’re thinking. Now you tell me, Craig, after I have spent 14 weeks trying to be the “cool” teacher while struggling with unruly students who sit wherever they please, feel entirely too comfortable, and are now running the place.

Sorry to be the late-breaking bearer of bad news. Don’t fret, though. There’s hope around the corner. In a little over a month, we will be beginning a new semester, and the new year is a great time for a natural readjustment of your practices and procedures.

I’ll let you in on a little secret I have learned after doing this education thing for a while: Young people secretly love structure.

In the same way that many dogs love crawling back into their kennels because confined spaces provide them comfort and security, students seek predictable routines and boundaries, even though they may try to push them at times.

I recently finished R.J. Palacio’s novel Wonder (a “wonder”ful, heart-wrenching read for middle grade children and adults, too) and cringed at the narrator’s description of the horrors of the school cafeteria.

Via had warned me about lunch in middle school, so I guess I should have known it would be hard. I just hadn't expected it to be this hard. Basically, all the kids from all the fifth-grade classes poured into the cafeteria at the same time, talking loudly and bumping into one another while they ran to different tables. One of the lunchroom teachers said something about no seat-saving allowed, but I didn't know what she meant and maybe no one else did, either, because just about everybody was saving seats for their friends. I tried to sit down at one table, but the kid in the next chair said, "Oh, sorry, but somebody else is sitting here."

He vividly describes his anxiety over finding a friend to sit with and his dread of facing the cruelty of the social pecking order. It’s a situation that reappears in books, movies, and on television, so it must be a universal adolescent terror.  

A seating chart is just one way to take that stress out of a student’s day. Imagine being the kid who is trying to do the right thing and make a learning-conducive seat choice while being pressured to sit with his friends who would rather socialize. If the teacher makes that decision, there’s a scapegoat to blame. No one gets ostracized. Everyone has a place. And students learn to work and get along with with others they might not seek on their own.

The seating chart is just one component of a mid-year do-over. My general advice to teachers is to create a classroom environment that is “comfortably structured.” Harsh rigidity doesn’t promote learning. Efficiency does.

If you look around your classroom during these first few weeks of December and wonder how things reached this point of chaos in just three short months, take the opportunity to set some resolutions to rein your students in on the first day back in January. Establish some guidelines for running an efficient classroom. Clarify (or create) expectations. Concentrate on minimizing non-instructional class time. Plan carefully, and take that extra moment to make sure you’ve got everything in place before the day begins. Create routines for partner- and small-group work. Post and explain learning targets and goals for each day. Sure, it’s not as fun for kids as letting them be in charge, but I promise that, even though they may not say it, most of them will be grateful for it.    

When you show up to class looking like you are in charge, your students will respond accordingly. Don’t be a tyrant. Just be a leader who knows what is going on, has a clear direction, and is acting in the best interests of those you are leading. That’s what everyone wants from a leader, right?

They're Coming Back

The Independent Variable

or

They’re Coming Back:  A Short Play in One Act

Congratulations. You’ve made it through the beginning of another school year. At this point, the honeymoon period is ending, and some of your students may be showing their true colors. You may have already decided which students or class periods are going to keep you up at night contemplating a career change. Perhaps you’re at a loss for what to do and see a long, long year looming ahead of you.

Two summers ago at an AVID conference, my friend Lisa Johnson, a brilliant middle school teacher who also coaches new teachers in a nearby district, told me something she tells her teachers, something that has stuck with me. So that you can be in on this nugget of wisdom,  I’m going to share it with you in the form of a largely fictionalized play, which I am titling “They’re Coming Back.” Feel free to act this out on your own with friends, colleagues, or loved ones:

________________________________

They’re Coming Back

(Scene: A middle school classroom in suburban America. LISA meets NEW TEACHER on a coaching visit after several weeks of school have passed.)

LISA:  Hey, New Teacher. How are things going?

NEW TEACHER: (despairingly) Not so good.

LISA:  (concerned) Really? What’s the matter?

NEW TEACHER: It’s my 6th period class. They’re out of control.

LISA:  In what way?

NEW TEACHER: Half the class won’t do homework at all. They don’t even care when I give them a zero. The students are wild and rude.  I can’t get them to be quiet or listen to each other. Several of them throw things and won’t stay in their seats. I’m sick of the eye rolling and backtalk. I can’t give out detentions quickly enough. And when I do, the kids just laugh. And it’s only the second week of school! Arrrrgggggghhhhhh!  

LISA: (calmly) What are you going to do differently tomorrow?

NEW TEACHER: (confused) Huh?

LISA: (more slowly) What are you going to do differently tomorrow?

  

NEW TEACHER:  What do you mean?

LISA:  (after a pause, matter of factly but gently) They’re coming back. You know that, right?

NEW TEACHER: (stares confusedly)

LISA: Those same kids are coming back tomorrow. And I can pretty much guarantee you that they aren’t losing sleep over this or contemplating any kind of personality transformation. You’re going to have to do something different if you want them to do something different.

NEW TEACHER: (having had her world view shaken up) Hmmmm….You’re right….

(CURTAIN)

________________________________

They’re coming back tomorrow. Those four words, which sound a bit like they belong in a horror movie, are a wise reminder for teachers.

In science class, they teach about independent and dependent variables. An experimenting scientist changes an independent variable to see how the dependent variable reacts. For instance, in fourth grade at Jackson Elementary, I did a science fair project in which I subjected bean plants to several forms of light to see which one would grow the most. One plant sat in a sunny window. One lived under a fluorescent light. Another grew beneath an incandescent light. And one spent its short, sad life on a shelf in the back of my dark closet. In that experiment, the bean plants were the dependent variables, and the independent variables were the different forms of light. The independent variable had an effect on the dependent variable. (Spoiler alert: Fluorescent light was the winner. My science fair project was not.)

In the classroom, the independent variable is you. The students aren’t going to change unless you change what you are doing. If you keep doing the same things and expect a different result, you’re fooling yourself. In order for you to change the culture of your classroom or to hit the reset button with that student who’s driving you a bit batty, you’re going to have to make the first move. Their change depends on your change.

If you’ve slipped into a rut of negativity, if you’re relying on threats and punishments, if you’re always feeling like the villain, you still have time to change that. If some yelling didn’t work, I suspect more yelling won’t either. If they didn’t respond to one detention, a longer detention isn’t going to do the trick. If you’re giving homework and they’re not doing it, giving another assignment of the same kind is only going to put more zeroes in your gradebook.

There’s still time to build relationships, to get to know your kids, and to make emotional investments in them. Maybe those independent variables will help you get the results you want.

Lisa’s wise questioning of her coworker helped the new teacher realize that she was going to need to dig into her teacher bag of tricks to come up with a strategy or approach that would cause her students to change their undesired behaviors. Perhaps her colleague sought Lisa’s assistance in a coaching capacity. Or maybe she just endured the behaviors that were driving her crazy for the next 34 weeks. Who knows? The ending of the play is unwritten.

Maybe Michael Jackson said it best: “No message could have been any clearer. If you wanna make [your classroom] a better place, you’ve got to look at yourself and make that change. Sha na na na na na na na na naaaaaa.”

They’re coming back tomorrow. Will you be ready?

How to Give Instructions That Kids Will Follow

How many times have you given what you thought were clear instructions only to discover that your students completely misconstrued what you wanted them to do? Or they responded with a billion questions after the fact?

Giving clear instructions can make or break a class activity. Poorly-delivered directions can cause confusion and chaos and can impede success and increase classroom management issues. In the past few years, one of my professional goals has been to work on the oral  instructions I give when I work with students and with adult learners.  I’ve listened, observed, and pondered pitfalls to determine what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few tips teachers can apply if they want to strengthen their direction-giving:

1.  Tell the students where they’re headed.  Remember what life was like before a GPS guided us everywhere?  For a few years, many of us relied on Yahoo Maps and other online tools to provide printed lists of driving directions to get us from here to there. Oftentimes, the detailed instructions were especially confusing if you didn’t look at a map first; it might take five separate steps to explain that you were supposed to get onto the Tollway going southbound. Taking a moment to preview the route could prevent confusion along the way because the driver could use the big-picture idea to make sense of the smaller instructional steps. Previewing the map also could've helped the driver get back on track when an instructional step was missed or misunderstood.  The same idea applies in the classroom. Unless it needs to be a surprise, teachers should probably let their students know what they’re about to do before providing instructions.  It can be something as simple as, “Today we’re going to learn how to use and share a Google Doc, how to create a folder to organize your Google Drive, and how to submit an assignment on Google Classroom,” or, “We’re about to set up our Writing Notebooks.”  Expert direction-givers Gordon Ramsey, Alton Brown, Emeril Lagasse, and Rachel Ray always let their at-home viewers know what they’re concocting before they start throwing ingredients together. Students, like TV-watching wannabe chefs, love knowing what they’re doing before—bam!—the instructions start flying at them.        

2.  Avoid the fillers. Someone at some point in history taught teachers to be too polite:  “Okay, so…Now, what I’d like you to do, if you don’t mind, is to take out a piece of paper—if it’s okay with you—and a pen, preferably, or, if you don’t like pen, a pencil.  I need you to be quiet so that you can hear the next instruction, if you will.”  Some teachers spend so much time apologizing in advance, avoiding giving commands, asking "if you would" or would you please" questions, and sugarcoating their verbiage that the directions get lost in the shuffle.  How about this instead?  “Take out a piece of paper and a pen.”  I don’t think this “harsh” demand is going to damage any students irreparably, and the fewer words we say, the more important each spoken word becomes.

3.  Make sure students are ready to receive instructions before you give instructions.  Don’t tell students how to fill out the top of the scantron while you’re in the middle of handing out the scantrons unless you want half the class to turn in a scantron with no name and no information on it.  Don’t start explaining where to find a Google Form when ten students are still turning on their computers.  Don’t begin instructions when a gaggle of girls is huddled in the corner of the classroom discussing the homecoming dance proposal that occurred during the passing period.  Establish your class routine for getting students’ attention, get their attention, make sure all students have what they need, and then begin your instructions. If you don’t make sure they’re ready, be prepared to repeat yourself or to watch your students invent their own interpretations of the instructions.

4.  Keep the instructions simple and direct.  This one is self-explanatory. Tricky instructions overwhelm learners. Break the procedure down into manageable steps, and state the steps clearly.  Verb + direct object.  “Take out a piece of paper.”  “Fold the paper in half, hotdog style.” “Trade papers with your elbow partner.”  

5.  Provide written instructions, too.  Simplified written steps projected on a screen or on the board can help students who are visual learners or who lag behind. Pare down your written instructions to the most essential wording, and elaborate as needed while you present them orally.

6.  Have a signal so you'll know when to proceed.  "When you've finished marking the text, put your pen down so I know you're ready to proceed." "Sit down in your seats after your entire group has shared their prewrites." Simple visual cues can help you determine when to give the next set of instructions. 

7.  Help the slowpokes catch up by providing “bridge” instructions.  You'll inevitably have a few students who lag behind the rest of the class. Some of them might be dragging their heels because they're unsure of what they are supposed to be doing. I'm fond of adding a little bridge to let everyone know how to catch up with the rest:  "After you've underlined the sentence you think is the main point of the article, write a paraphrase of that sentence in your writer's notebook."  The students who are confused or delayed then know to speed up the previous step and rejoin the class.                         

               

8.  Keep them from jumping the gun.  When you begin giving instructions, some students start before you've finished what you have to say. Starting off with, "Stand up and find a group of three people who don't sit at your table," will cause several students--or the entire class--to leap from their seats to locate their group before you tell them what to do. I recommend giving a cue at the beginning of your instructions to let them know when to begin.  "In about a minute, when I turn on the music..."  "After I finish these instructions, on the count of three...." Providing a clear signal prompting them to begin the activity will keep them in their seats and attentive while you tell them what they need to hear. 

9.  Don’t overload.  We're all guilty from time to time of giving too much information at the beginning, which leads to us having to repeat ourselves later. We begin by saying something innocent like, "Stand up, find a partner, discuss the question on the board, and then draft a summary of your response in your notebook. Then, you're going to list pros and cons for the statement you wrote down." A better approach might begin like this: "When I say 'Go,' stand up and find a solemate--someone who is wearing shoes similar to yours. When you find your partner, stand side-by-side, face me, and quietly wait for the next instruction. Go!"  Once you've ensured that everyone has found a partner, you're ready to continue. 

10. Ask for questions in a way that will get the questions you want.  I've found that "What questions do you have?" works better than "Are there any questions?" This doesn't give the students an easy "no" answer and doesn't presuppose that there will be no questions about your instructions. Even the best instruction givers sometimes leave the students with legitimate unanswered questions. 

The art of giving clear instructions is not easy to master. All of us can continually improve. But if you are mindful of the pointers above, you'll soon find that your students become more compliant and that your classroom runs much more smoothly. 

Now, when I say 'Forward this blog post,' send this to three of your teacher friends who might need help with instruction-giving so they can learn what you just learned.  They will thank you later. 

Thanks for all you do to make your classroom a successful learning environment for all your students. Forward this blog post!

Craig

Lessons from My Worst Nightmare

I don’t usually dream about school.  Several weeks ago, however, I had such a terrible nightmare that it’s continued to haunt me ever since. Here’s what happened:

I was in another teacher's classroom trying to teach a Romantic poetry lesson to all of the students—past and present—who have made it clear at one time or another that they were not Mr. McKinney fans. Personal attacks were made. Words were manipulated and thrown back at me. I couldn't find the page numbers in the book. I said things that were clearly hilarious, and no one laughed. I couldn't remember Keats' name and wouldn't let myself go on until I remembered it (I was so certain it was a two-syllable last name beginning with a C but was not Coleridge). The PA was broken and kept coming on randomly throughout the period, which did not start or end on schedule. Long pauses as I tried to figure out what to do next gave the students a chance to mutiny. A student had found something incriminating someone had pinned on a Pinterest page I made but have never used, and he announced it to the class and wouldn't let it go. My attempt to silence this student and turn this interruption into a “teachable moment” failed epically. I didn't have anything graded because my home laptop had a virus that gave me only a black screen of death when I turned it on (true story). Lesson plans were missing. No one could or would tell me what we learned previously, and what one kid told me was definitely not what we had learned. One student was digging through the teacher's desk drawers to retrieve her Spanish teacher's special rubber stamp to dishonestly add stamps to her homework card, and she refused to surrender the stamp or the card to me when I asked. This led to a confrontation in the supply closet which—though nothing inappropriate happened—would no doubt result in a he-said-she-said accusation of inappropriate behavior with no witness to defend me.  And, worst of all, two students were flagrantly in violation of dress code, the dress code referral forms were nowhere to be found, and a confused stranger was manning the phones in the Student Center when I tried to call for help. My later-in-the-day co-teacher, Linda, showed up at some point near the end, and I looked at her with tears about to fall and told her she might be on her own because I was considering taking a personal day, effective immediately.

I’m sure Freud would have a field day analyzing the goings-on in my dream, and a shrink could help me identify the roots and causes of what was troubling me. Instead, I’m going to use this as fodder for this week’s blog.

I don’t normally write about classroom management, partly because I don’t consider myself especially skilled in that area and partly because it doesn't fall under the heading of AVID’s WICOR acronym which often guides my topic selection. This dream, however, brings up six valid points about effective classroom management, all of which my “dream self” disregarded.  

1.  Walk into the classroom prepared. Dream Mr. McKinney had no idea what he was teaching that day, didn’t have materials and page numbers handy, and looked to the students like he didn’t know what he was doing (which was accurate). Without a plan in place to engage students actively, teachers like Dream Mr. McKinney are setting themselves up for a disaster, or at least for a period where little learning occurs. The days when I don’t have a clear idea of what I’m teaching and try to “wing it” are typically the most stressful.

2.  Don’t leave dead space between activities. One of the most important things I’ve learned about teaching is to give special attention to the transitions in my lessons.  How will I get students efficiently from one part of the lesson to the next? How will I handle distribution and collection of materials? How will I minimize dead space and not allow students to drift away? Sadly, Dream Mr. McKinney did not learn this lesson, and the students used a moment of dead air to unleash chaos in the classroom.    

3.  Sometimes you have to ignore things.  In the middle of the class, a student said something that attempted to get Dream Mr. McKinney off track. He knew what buttons to push and what to say to get his teacher’s attention away from the task at hand. Instead of letting the comment slide and continuing with the lesson, Dream Mr. McKinney stopped class to address the comment, tried to engage the student (apparently, Dream Mr. McKinney forgot that the teacher seldom walks away unscathed in an in-front-of-the-class confrontation), and attempted to seize the opportunity to turn the off-task, inappropriate comment into a teachable moment by sharing an ill-timed mini-lecture with the students.  While such a lesson is something most students need to hear, no one is “teachable” in the midst of conflict.  Every attempt to put the student in his place caused the student to counter-attack with more intensity. The lesson Dream Mr. McKinney learned: strategically ignore some comments and don’t discipline a surly student in front of his peers.

4.  If you ignore too many things, you’ll lose control. I love how Dream Mr. McKinney gets worried about a dress code violation at the end of the dream after everything else has gone awry. Too late, dude. While an effective teacher lets some things slide, he also knows that firm and consistent enforcement of rules and policies throughout the year stops problems before they spiral out of control.  

5.  Don’t let your emotions get involved in disciplinary issues.  At every opportunity, Dream Mr. McKinney allowed his emotions to control his actions. I can distinctly recall feeling the rising levels of anxiety, frustration, and anger while I was dreaming, and at the point when a calm head was required to diffuse the situation, Dream Mr. McKinney was hardly thinking rationally. Students love to see teachers blow their top because it’s kind of funny. Don’t give the students that joy.  Discipline with a cool, detached, demeanor and deal with the observable facts and logical consequences. Not being prepared (see #1 above) raises teacher stress levels and makes you especially susceptible to losing your cool.

6. Take care of what you can yourself, but know when to call for backup.  I’m a firm believer in handling disciplinary issues myself. The office has enough to deal with, and I've found that solving the problem with the student myself helps minimize future issues more effectively than outsourcing my discipline problems to the principal. Sometimes, though, a student needs to be removed from the classroom in order for the other students in the room to be able to learn. Dream Mr. McKinney was unprepared to deal with the discipline himself and didn't have a plan in place when his call for backup failed. I have found that if I make a practice of handling most discipline issues in my classroom (rather than being The Teacher Who Cried Help on a frequent basis), the principals are quick to respond when I finally do have to call them to intervene because they know the situation requires their aid.

I’m sure I could dredge up more lessons from the mistakes made in my horrendous dream, but the time I’m spending reliving this nightmare is causing me some stress. Rather than worrying about things in the dream world, I should spend some time planning my next lesson so this nightmare doesn’t happen in real life.

Thanks for all you do to help your students realize their dreams (and to avoid nightmares for you).

-Craig