Pressing the Reset Button

With only minutes remaining before we send thousands of excited students (and hundreds of even more excited teachers) out into the world for Winter Break, no one has much time or interest in reading a work-related blog. So I’m going to keep this short and sweet.

This is your seasonal reminder that the return from break at the beginning of semester two is an outstanding time to press the reset button to usher in a brand new focus for the brand new year. It’s the perfect opportunity to refresh your norms (or to establish them if that didn’t happen in the fall), to launch new procedures to help your classroom run more smoothly, and tighten up the reins if you’ve let things slip out of control. Blame it on your New Year’s resolution: “This year, my resolution is to be more organized, so I’ve decided to….”

It’s also a great time to press reset on your relationships with difficult students, those kids who enter your room and are already one eye roll or snarky comment away from being sent to the principal’s office. Those kids deserve a fresh start. Let bygones be bygones. Give them the opportunity to impress you with their new-year selves rather than having to lug the baggage of the first semester along with them.

Give your students the opportunity to press reset on their school year, too. Remind them that their first-semester missteps don’t have to define them henceforth. Help them set some lofty goals for their lives and speak them into existence. When you know their goals and dreams, you can assist students with the tiny goals that will help them make those dreams a reality down the road. Make it clear that you’re ready to be part of their support system. Offer help on organization, study skills, note-taking, and other academic-readiness skills. Be there for students as they strive to become the best versions of themselves.

Don’t hesitate to contact an instructional coach if you want help pressing the reset button. It’s our job and our pleasure to help you help your students succeed. Whether you’d like assistance with creating a classroom climate to maximize learning, building engaging lessons, planning for instruction, gathering in-the-moment data to shape your teaching, implementing strategies for student talk, improving writing and reading, or, well, pretty much any other instructional goal, we are here to help.  

Thanks for all you do to make your classrooms welcoming spaces for students to challenge themselves and grow. Have a safe, fun-filled, restful, celebratory, invigorating, playful, comforting, relaxing, jolly, and re-energizing holiday. See you in the New Year.

It's Never Too Early

It’s Never Too Early

or

What to Think About While You Are Actively Monitoring

It’s likely that at some point in the next few days or weeks you will have several hours during which you are contractually obligated to monitor students while they are undergoing their state-mandated testing. You’re not permitted to be on the computer or your phone; to read; to grade papers; to look at the students’ tests; to write anything; to talk; to listen to music on your headphones; to eat a noisy, stinky, or nut-laden snack; to stand still; to sit for long periods of time; to sneeze; to sigh audibly; to laugh (maniacally or otherwise); to hover over a student long enough to make him or her nervous, to sing; to hum; to line dance; to juggle; to yodel; to take the test yourself; to snap photos; to work a jigsaw puzzle; or to arrange flowers. You get to walk around and think silently and unobtrusively for four or more hours.

What will fill your thoughts during this time? Some of my friends like to complete math problems in their heads. A few compile statistics about their test takers, mentally calculating the percentages by gender, hair style, clothing choice, handedness, etc. Others spend time memorizing the names and ID numbers of the students testing in their rooms. Still others fantasize about what they’d do if they had to opportunity to meet the person who created this standardized test or the legislator who mandated that it be taken.

I have another suggestion.

It’s never too early to start thinking about beginning the next school year. In fact, right now--during this second horrible round of standardized testing--is the perfect time to fill your idle mind with visionary thoughts about what next August can look like.

As you are actively monitoring, think about how you feel about the year-in-progress. What has gone well? What could improve? What is driving you crazy?

Perhaps there’s a new initiative you’d like to try out and have been waiting for the perfect time to do so. Want to redo the way you’ve been starting or ending class? Have you recently become intrigued by the concept of Interactive Notebooks? Maybe you’re an English teacher who wants to launch a full-scale Reader’s or Writer’s Workshop. Or you’ve wanted to be more intentional about incorporating AVID WICOR strategies to engage your students.

By this time in the year, you can clearly see what your beginning-of-school preparations have spawned. Ideally, your students are still enthusiastic, engaged, on-task, risk-taking, controllable, and eager to learn (with just a touch of unavoidable “summeritis”). You might, unfortunately, struggle daily with students who are cantankerous, unruly, discouraged, distracted, and disengaged.       

One of the great things about teaching is that most teachers get a “do over” each year. You greet a new set of students who enter your classroom (and maybe your school) for the first time. The students are full of excitement and apprehension, and you have the opportunity to set precedents, to let them know how things run in your classroom, and to clarify your expectations. Students are malleable and trainable at the beginning of the year. Effective training, like most complex tasks, requires careful prior planning. That’s why it’s never too early to get started.  

Don’t wait until the last days before school starts to try to remember what you wanted to do differently this time around. Spend some time now making your to-do list for beginning next year. Please don’t spend your entire summer vacation planning and plotting for next year; you need and deserve plenty of downtime. But having the pre-made list at the ready will allow your mind to focus quickly on the ideas when August hits and it’s time to ramp up for another school year.

Right now, when you’ve got nothing to do but monitor your students, is the best time I can think of to start composing your mental list. You may even have the time to troubleshoot a few of the problems and work out the kinks in advance.

If you don’t want to think about next year, you can always start thinking about what to buy me for my birthday. It’s only 140 days away, and I’m allegedly difficult to shop for. It’s never too early to start planning.