Giving Your Class a Positive Label Makes All the Difference

A healthy self-esteem is not handed out at birth—not even to those enviable individuals who were born with such advantages as intelligence, good health, and loving families. The reasons for this are not hard to determine, but the negative effects of a poor self-image can devastate a classroom when challenging students don’t make even the smallest efforts to try to work or behave.  When students regard themselves as capable learners, they act in ways that perpetuate their positive beliefs. They resist the negative effects of peer pressure and learn to develop the social skills that will help them be positive members of class.

Self-confident students are courteous, willing to offer help, tolerant of others, and willing to take risks. Their positive attitudes will make it possible for you to create the inclusive class identity that you want for them. Promoting self-esteem in students is not something that should replace the curriculum; instead, it should be a natural part of the positive approach with all students.

It is also important to remember that in school self-esteem must be based on achievement. It can’t be founded merely on personal qualities; but must be solidly based in the sense of satisfaction that comes from doing a job to the best of one’s ability. Although there are some simple activities that teachers can do to help students see themselves as part of a successful group, the best ways to bolster a healthy self-image are the ones that will appeal most to your students.

Here are some simple suggestions to help create the positive class atmosphere that will allow you to create a positive class identity for your students.   

·       Improve your listening skills; students are acutely sensitive to the nuances of body language. Treat your students as if they are important people in your lives by attending to what they say, even in the frantic press of daily activities.

·       Pay attention to the way you talk to students. Use a pleasant, soft voice. Be friendly as well as firm with them.

·       After a particularly long or difficult unit of study, hold an awards ceremony to celebrate its successful completion.

·       Encourage them through specific praise and encouragement, not just by saying, “Good Job!” no matter what a student does.

·       It is also important to avoid needless negativity with students. For example, instead of saying “Don’t interrupt me,” try saying “I’ll be with you in a minute” if you want to send a more positive message.

·       Offer help to those students who need special help and encouragement. Some students need an extra tutoring session or a bit of extra time with you to become more capable and confident. 

·       At the end of class, ask students to tell you something important that they did well or learned.

·       Hold your students accountable for participation in class. Do not let them sleep, refuse to work, neglect to make up work, forget homework, or ignore what you have assigned for all your other students. Students who opt out of participating in class may be relieved for the moment, but they are not going to feel good about themselves or about your class if you allow this behavior. Other students will also be watching how you handle their difficult classmates, as well. 

·       There is a great deal of personal reward to be found in activities that help others. Involve your students in class activities that are geared to helping other people. Students who tutor each other or younger students, collect money and goods for the needy, participate in an Earth Day clean-up, or are involved in other compassionate and helpful activities will reap tremendous benefits in the form of improved self-esteem.

·       Ask students to describe the most difficult part of a lesson and what they did to overcome that difficult part.

·       Take a no-nonsense approach to how you provide correction for your students, but be gentle. Over and over again, research and common sense both prove that it is the positive actions teachers take with students that promote a productive classroom climate. Students who have teachers who show sincere approval for their actions are more successful than those students whose teachers intimidate them into compliance.

·       Create opportunities for students to reflect upon and recognize the contributions of their classmates after a shared assignment, project, or discussion. Teach the importance of recognizing each other’s accomplishments.

I've (Sorta) Moved! Find My New Blog at Share My Lesson!

Hi Everyone,

After experimenting with various writing schedules, I've finally decided to focus my online writing at the wonderful Share My Lesson site sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers.

If you click on this link: https://sharemylesson.com/blog, you will be redirected to the site where you can find my blog posts as well as others by knowledgeable thought leaders in our profession. Just find the icon about my blog posts and click. Easy and simple. You do not have to belong to AFT to access all the resources offered to educators by Share My Lesson. Joining the group is free and an excellent way to access thousands of lesson plans, communicate with other educators online, and create your own professional development ideas through the wealth of webinars and other opportunities offered by Share My Lesson.

If you are just looking for my work (thanks!), here are some of the topics that you can read about there:

10/15/18: Be Proactive: Maintain Your Work-Life Balance

10/1/18: 11 Teacher Traits: Develop Your Front-of-the-Classroom Persona

9/14/18: What to Expect During the First Grading Period

9/3/18: Setting Your Own Professional Goals

8/20/18: Two Important Document Collections: Your Professional Portfolio and Your Teacher's Daily Binder

8/6/18: Create a Welcoming (and Functional) Classroom on a Budget

7/23 /18:  Developing a Professional Mindset

7/9/18: You've Just Been Hired? Congratulations! Here's What to Do Next

If you need some professional development credit, you can also consider participating in the webinars at Share My Lesson. Here is a link to my latest one: https://sharemylesson.com/teaching-resource/how-survive-and-thrive-new-teacher-302970

When Frustration Leads to Defiance

No one wants to deal with defiant students no matter how young or old they are or the form that the defiance takes. Whenever I conduct workshops to help teachers cope with and support challenging students, the most common concern that I hear is always about students who are defiant and disrespectful. It is a serious discipline concern that we all share.

The toll that student defiance takes on teachers can be harsh. After all, few teachers go home at the end of a successful and productive school day worried about what will happen next class. Even the most stalwart of us find it hard to leave the emotional problems caused by defiant students at school. These tend to be the problems that cause us to sleep poorly and to contemplate changing careers.

One of the most productive ways to stop defiant students from acting out in your classroom is to first determine the cause of the misbehavior instead of blindly reacting just to the incident and its negative effects on the general atmosphere in the classroom itself. When you take the time to do this, several good things happen at once.

You treat the defiant student with respect despite the bad behavior

You send a message to the other students that you will not lose your cool

You preserve the dignity of the misbehaving student

You will be far closer to resolving the situation than if you just reacted to it

The cause of defiance is usually something that the student has been seething about for a while. Given the nature of the modern classroom, there are plenty of opportunities for students to have wounded feelings or a sense of frustration. And it is often  this frustration that causes students to react impulsively and to lash out.

To find the cause, first talk gently to the student who has been defiant. This is best done in private. If you both need a few moments to cool down, then be sure to allow that time. No one can hear even a reasonable explanation when they are stressed and upset.

As you talk, don't be accusatory. Keep your language as factual and dry as possible. Describe what you saw and heard. Then, tell the student that you want to listen carefully to what he or she has to say.

Listen carefully. Ask a tactful question or two. Figure out what caused the incident.

Try not to be preachy. Do not induce guilt. Your relationship with the student has no place in this discussion. Stick to the facts at hand. Determine the cause and act accordingly.

Once you have had this conversation with the student, then you can make the decision about how to proceed. Not every defiant act deserves a harsh consequence. Your innate teacher's judgement will allow you to make the best decision that you can make now that you are informed about the cause.

Is Anybody Listening?

One of the easiest mistakes for any teacher--and especially a first-year teacher--to make is to talk when students are not listening. There are lots of reasons for this, but none of them are good ones. If you are talking and your students are not listening, then nothing productive is happening and you are sending a strong message that what you have to say is not important.

If you only make one small change this month, then make that small change be that you will help your students listen to you when you speak to them. If you want a class to listen to you, catch their attention and then slowly lower the volume of your voice. If you really want to make students pay attention, a dramatic stage whisper works wonders.

Don't Give Up on Challenging Students

At this time of year, it's easy to feel discouraged about the potential success of students who have been challenging since the term began. By this point, you have probably had numerous conferences with administrators, counselors, case managers, parents or guardians, your lunch table companions, and the students themselves. When nothing appears to change, it's only natural to feel discouraged. Weary. Worn out. Frustrated.

Don't give up. All of your students--and especially the challenging ones--deserve the best from you. They need to feel that they can succeed. More important, however, they need to feel that you still believe in them. 

Because challenging students often have years of failure behind them, they expect to be singled out—to be different.  When teachers appear to give up, then the negative self-image that challenging students carry with them is reinforced once again. 

Teacher commitment to the belief that all students are expected to succeed is the bedrock of successfully dealing with challenging students. After all, if their teachers don’t believe in their ability to succeed, who will?

Instead of giving in to your frustration and viewing your students with expectations of looming misbehavior, if you can calmly treat difficult students with the same expectations as other students, they will often rise to the occasion. The self-fulfilling prophecy of their teacher’s acceptance and expectations will make it possible for them to achieve academic and behavioral success.

Avoid Confusion: Create a Transparent Classroom

There is an old teacher’s joke that goes something like this, “If you promise not to believe everything your children say happens at school, I promise not to believe everything they say happens at home.” Just think of all of the miscommunication that happens somewhere between school and home.  Few veteran teachers have avoided being startled at hearing from an angry parent about an insignificant classroom incident that appeared harmless at the time, but somehow morphed into a dramatic confrontation involving an overbearing teacher and an innocent student by the time the child arrived home.

Not only can unpleasant incidents such as this be avoided with just a bit of planning and effort, but the rewards of a transparent classroom are well worth the trouble: cooperative relationships between teachers and parents or guardians, a more peaceful and productive classroom, students who are held accountable for their actions at school and at home, and more successful students as a result of increased support and cooperation.

One of the easiest ways to prevent miscommunication and establish a positive relationship with the parents and guardians of your students is to make sure that your classroom is as transparent as possible by providing easily accessible information about your students and their learning activities. A transparent classroom is one where your students, their families, your colleagues, and community members can all view what is taking place in your classroom at any given time. There are no hidden agendas. No secrets. Just adults and students working together.

When you create a transparent classroom, you are not a teacher who grudgingly shares test dates or other routine information with your students’ families. Instead, actively reach out to solicit participation and support from everyone concerned. With today’s technology, making sure that everyone knows firsthand what is happening in your class is easier than ever. Your students’ parents or guardians expect to be kept informed about these topics:

·        Class policies, rules, and consequences

·        Beginning of the year information

·        Homework and major assignments

·        Tests and other assessments

·        Grading concerns

·        Due dates

·        Field trips

·        Special projects

·        Resources to help students learn

·        Behavior problems while they are still minor

·        Academic problems as soon as reasonably possible

·        Positive things about their children

When teachers take the time to communicate directly with the parents and guardians of their students, the trouble that can follow miscommunication diminishes. One frequent complaint that parents and guardians have involves homework assignments and important project due dates. Take extra care to make sure your homework policies are published in several different ways and that project due dates are announced well in advance. The parents and guardians of your students should not have to struggle to find out what their child’s homework is and when work is due.

Some of the ways that you can make sure students and their parents or guardians are aware of the expectations, rules, policies, procedures, and activities in your class include these low tech options:

·        Send positive notes home frequently

·        Maintain a daily class log or calendar

·        Use the bulletin board space in your room to post information

·        Photograph your students at work and display the photos

·        Make positive phone calls

·        Publish a syllabus so that students and their families can plan ahead

·        Send home progress reports frequently

·        Return all phone calls promptly

·        Make sure parents and guardians know that they are welcome to visit your class

·        Invite parents or guardians to visit your class for special occasions such as guest speakers, field trips, and exhibits of student work

Some methods that teachers have found effective for creating a transparent classroom using technology resources can include these options:

·        Create Power Point presentations of your students at work for parents and guardians to view at open house or other schoolwide meetings

·        Publish a class blog or have students maintain individual blogs as learning logs. An excellent free site for this is Edublogs  (http://edublogs.org). At this site over a million teachers and students around the globe maintain classroom blogs.

·        Create videos of your students working and publish them on a class web page. There are numerous sites that offer free sites for educators: Google and Weebly are just two that are easy and quick to use.

How to Survive the Last Few Weeks of School

Here is a post that I did a very long time ago for a wonderful, but vanished site called theapple.com. Monster.com runs it now...still full of great advice on all sorts of topics for educators everywhere. Here is what I suggest to help all of us enjoy the last few weeks or days of school this year!

As the end of the school year approaches, students of all ages and ability levels become increasingly restless and distracted. Even the most studious scholars seem to lose interest in material that fascinated them just a few weeks ago. The result can be enormous frustration for the teachers of these fidgety and disengaged students.

Veteran teachers know about this unfortunate phenomenon and take measures to combat its negative effects. If you have noticed a recent change in your students and find yourself checking a calendar to count off just how many school days you have left until summer vacation, the list below just may help you resolve to end the school year with the best and most professional attitude possible.

The first part of this list suggests some attitudes that may remind you of coping skills you may have forgotten. The second part contains some useful strategies that you may have forgotten, but that can energize your teaching and make school more enjoyable and productive for your students and yourself.

60 Helpful Attitudes

1. Be moderate in your approach. You do not have to be the world’s best teacher all the time. You just have to be a very good one.

2. Spend your energy on large problems first and allot less of your energy for the small ones. Choose to deal with the problems that will give you the greatest benefit right away.

3. Problems can move you forward when you choose to work to solve them. Use your creative strengths to make your classroom well-disciplined and productive.

4. Make room for more emotional energy. Ask for help when you have a problem.

5. Learn to see problems as challenges that you can overcome.

6. Don’t underestimate your students. They are capable of much more than you think they are.

7. Avoid negative people. Better yet, try not to be one of those negative people you are supposed to avoid.

8. Being optimistic doesn’t mean that you don’t have problems. A positive attitude means that you are working on a solution.

9. Make sure you have something fun to look forward to. Reward yourself when you achieve a goal.

10. You don’t teach a class. You teach complex, living, breathing people.

11. Cherish your students. Even the worst-behaved ones have redeeming qualities.

12. Carpe Diem! When a teachable moment comes along, TEACH!

13. Don’t forget that small attitude changes often create bigger patterns of success. What small attitude change can you make today?

14. When a task seems impossible, remind yourself of the teachers who made a difference in your life. You can do the same for your students.

15. The fun you have goofing around during your planning period is equal to the misery you’ll experience trying to catch up later.

16. Be proactive! Plan what you are going to do if…

17. Discard something you’re doing that is not productive. Figure out how to do just one thing more efficiently.

18. Practice deep breathing. You’ll be glad you know how to calm yourself when a student is defiant, disrespectful, or just cranky.

19. Make it your goal that every student will leave your class with a positive attitude every day.

20. Use your strengths. Focus on your positive attributes to maximize the potential for success in your classroom.

21. Keep things in perspective. Ask yourself if the problems you have today will be important next year.

Try Some Strategies You May Have Forgotten

22. Talk less and listen more to your students.

23. Change the pace. Try three new activities this week.

24. Break large tasks into small, manageable ones.

25. Plan to ignore the small stuff.

26. Get to work a little early and stay a little late.

27. Stop trying to rely on your memory! You have too much to do to recall everything. Write it down in an organized fashion.

28. Be sure to plan for the last few minutes of class.

29. Empower your students by designing assignments that allow for limited student options. Give them innocuous choices such as the even or odd problems, essay topics, group tasks, or the best day to take a test.

30. You probably need to model more for your students. Most teachers do. And don’t forget to show them what you don’t want them to do, also.

31. Ask students to justify their answers on a test to encourage deeper thinking.

32. Let your students know what activities lie ahead of them so that they have something to look forward to. Try a little countdown to an exciting event to focus them on the positive.

33. Encourage independence! Tell your students that they must “See three before me” to find answers to questions.

34. At the end of a lesson, encourage reflection (and positive attitudes) by asking students to tell you what went well during class.

35. Build in wiggle breaks. Even seniors need a break now and then.

36. When students are engaged in learning new material, periodically ask them to stop and write about these three topics: what they think about the subject so far, what they understand about the subject, and any questions they still may have.

37. Don’t work against the nature of your students. Make the material compelling by incorporating their interests and goals. When you were a teenager, you thought the world revolved around you, too.

38. Stimulate student curiosity by making your lessons as suspenseful and novel as possible. Ask students to solve puzzles or create solutions to problems.

39. Put some color in your classroom world. Break out the crayons or highlighters to help students pay attention to what’s important in their notes.

40. Lower your voice. Your students will be more likely to lower theirs than if you shout.

41. Avoid problems when students finish work early by having other activities for them to complete. Students with nothing to do will amuse themselves by annoying nearby adults.

42. Increase the frequency of the positive recognition you give students.

43. Display student work. Rewarding students in this way is worth the time it takes to arrange it.

44. Put a list of terms or facts on the board and ask your students to determine what they have in common. If you include unlikely names or items, the class discussion could be lively.

45. At the end of a unit of study, give students a sheet with the alphabet in a column on the left. To review, they need to tell you one important fact from the lesson is related to a letter of the alphabet.

46. Show a movie. Be sure to teach good movie viewing behavior before you do. Better yet, have your students make a movie or slide show.

47. Avoid acting in anger no matter how frustrated you feel. Manage the discipline problems in your class with a problem-solving approach instead.

48. Set a concrete goal with your students: 100% on every quiz, everyone on time for a week, all homework complete… Use a bar graph to illustrate their progress.

49. Graphic organizers are wonderful ways to engage students. Busy students are happy students and happy students make happy teachers.

50. Use a variety of media to capture your audience—movies, art, wikis, songs, podcasts, television, interactive game sites, magazines, advertisements, cartoons, and slogans are just a few of the ways that you can capture attention.

51. When they ask, “Why do we have to do this?” be sure to have an excellent answer ready.

52. Use your student’s competitive instincts to your advantage. Create teams to compete against other teams. Best of all, challenge your students to compete against themselves by working to improve their own best performance.

53. Center instruction around essential questions.

54. Ask students to demonstrate the best way to do something.

55. Make abstract ideas concrete. Ask students to produce a final product as the result of their work. This makes their effort visible.

56. Assign a set of questions to a group of students. Each student selects one question and becomes the expert about it. They can share with the entire class or with teams.

57. Your part of the workload should not always be greater than your students’ part. Hold them accountable for setting goals, monitoring their own progress, and self-evaluation.

58. Ask your students to invent a game for a review activity.

59. Take photographs of your students. Be thrifty and print them on paper. Your students just want to see themselves on the classroom wall.

60. Schedule in some fun every day—for you and for your students. Smile together and misbehavior will decrease.

How to Be Everyone's Favorite Teacher

It’s not hard to be everyone’s favorite teacher. Really, it isn’t. If you think about your favorite teachers, there are some common denominators that they shared.

• You felt important.

• You felt as if your opinions mattered.

• You looked forward to class because while there was lots that was predictable, there was also lots that was interesting. Time flew by most days.

• You knew that you could ask for help without embarrassment.

• They made you feel intelligent and worthwhile.

 

So, whether school is out for you now or still in session, it is not too late to be everyone’s favorite teacher. Here are some easy tips that will make your students glad to be in your class.

 

• Don’t forget that the class is about your students and not about you. Be careful not to overpower your students with your knowledge or authority. Instead, be gentle and inclusive in your approach.

• Smile. Be super polite. Overwhelm your students with niceness.  

• Tell your students what you like about them. Make it a point to compliment them whenever you can. Compliment individuals, small groups, teams, pairs…the entire class.

• Be prepared for class. When you are prepared, you will not have to worry about what you do or don’t know. Instead, you can just focus on your students.

• Show that you have a sense of humor. Share a laugh with your students whenever you can. Playing together and laughing together will make school fun for everyone.

• When you speak with students, lean towards them slightly. Let your body language indicate that you are interested and accessible.

• Greet your students courteously as they come into the classroom. At the end of class, stand at the door and speak to them as they leave.

• Take the time to reveal a little bit about yourself. For example, a brief story about a silly mistake you made or how you learned a lesson the hard way will make you much more accessible and appealing to your students than if you are always right.

• Ask questions and wait expectantly for answers. Let your body language signal that you are interested in the responses that you may receive.

• Move around the classroom. Every part of the room should be part of your circuit.

• Use inclusive pronouns such as we, our, or us instead of ones that exclude students from ownership in their class.

• Get your students up and moving. Sitting in a desk day after day will not just bore them, but it will also make the distance between teacher and students greater.

• Find out your students' goals and dreams and help them work toward achieve them.

• Provide opportunities for students to share their opinions and beliefs with you and with each other in a non-threatening way.

• Be empathetic and sympathetic. Acknowledge it when a student is having a bad day.

• Take advantage of as many opportunities as you can to interact with your students on a one-to-one or personal level. Ask about their hobbies, problems, families…whatever it takes to connect.

• Be fair. Few things destroy a relationship between teacher and student faster than a student’s suspicion that he or she is being treated unfairly.

• Be tactfully honest. Students know when they are being lied to and those lies will destroy the relationship you may want to build.

• Show respect for all of your students as well as for their families, neighborhoods, and cultures.

• Use your students’ names frequently and with a gentle tone of voice.

Redirecting Off-Task Students: Ten Tried and True Suggestions

Redirecting students skillfully is not an easy task. There is often a delicate balance between trying to gently redirect a student whose attention has wandered and disturbing the entire class. Many of us wonder just when to redirect—at the start of a problem when it is confined to just one person or when a group of students seem to be off task? As a rule of thumb, most experienced educators will agree that it is best to act fairly early and with the least intrusive methods.

 When you notice students off task, try these tried and true suggestions for gently redirecting without raising your voice or embarrassing students.

1. Matter-of-factly remind all students of the behavior you would like to see from them. The key idea here is that you have already made the expectations clear for every student. All you need to do most of the time is just to calmly remind students of what the expectations are.
2. Praise students who are on task. Be explicit and direct so that any student who is off task knows what is expected and, even more importantly, how to accomplish the expected behavior.
3. Put reminders on students’ desks. You could use one color of sticky note with a smiley face on it for students who are behaving well and another color with a frownie face for those students who are not on task. Another reminder that some teachers have found useful is to walk around placing stickers on the papers of students who are on task. If you announced that you only had five stickers and were going to give them to the first five on-task students that you see, then you can expect that your students will generally rush to earn them.
4. Count 1, 2, 3 and then wait for everyone to pay attention to your directions.  Calm wait time is crucial to getting every student to pay attention to your directions and then to attend to them. Instead of a flurry of directions, count slowly and wait expectantly.
5. Often students need redirection when their attention spans have reached their outer limits. Set a timer and give everyone a two minute wiggle break. When the timer buzzes, students can go back to work refreshed.
6. Ask students if they would like help from a classmate or if they would like to help a classmate. This will often give students confidence as well as a shift in the lesson delivery that just might be effective at keeping them focused.
7. Use your “teacher look” to remind students to keep working. Often just an inquisitive glance is all that it takes to remind a student to focus on learning instead of misbehavior.
8. Ask students to restate the directions. If you notice a student off task, first move near that student. Then quietly ask for a restatement of the directions. If you then see that there is a larger issue, you could remind the whole class of the directions. If the problem is confined to one student, then it is easy just to clarify the directions and move on.  
9. Ask students who are struggling with an assignment if they could use a little help. Often all it takes is a brief moment or two and students are able to go right back to work.
10. Proximity is effective. Move to stand near the students who are off task. While you are near, smilingly glance at misbehaving students. This will almost always serve to keep them settle to work and stay engaged in the lesson.

 

 

 

 

The Ten Most Common Discipline Mistakes to Avoid

Although there are plenty of places where classroom discipline can go wrong, it is not too difficult to figure out that there are some mistakes that are absolutely going to cause problems for you and your students whenever they appear. Here is a quick list of the ten most common discipline mistakes. If you find yourself (like many of us) involved in one of these, try your best to avoid that mistake.

1. Don’t take student misbehavior personally. Distance yourself emotionally from student misdeeds and remain objective.
2. Don’t lose your temper; you will only appear foolish. Calm down and think before you act.
3. Don’t create problems by tempting your students. Don’t leave valuables lying around, don’t leave the room unsupervised, and don’t allow opportunities for misbehavior because you are not monitoring.
4. Don’t ever touch an angry student. Your innocent touch can be misconstrued.
5. Don’t confront a student in front of the class. Not only will this create a disruption that will upset everyone who watches, but the misbehaving student may act even worse to avoid more embarrassment.
6. Don’t neglect to intervene when a problem is small enough to be handled easily.
7. Don’t label students negatively. Their behavior may be bad, but they are not bad people.
8. Don’t be confrontational or order an angry student to comply with your demands. Adopt a problem-solving approach instead.
9. Don’t assign academic work as punishment. The consequence should match the misbehavior.
10. Don’t be too quick to send a student to an administrator. Handle your own problems as often as you can.