Handling an Out of Control Class: A Teaching Strategy

Have you ever walked into a chaotic classroom?

Well I have, and I usually witness a familiar pattern:

• There is a center of activity, with other students watching
• It is a loud and noisy atmosphere. 
• Students will be seen looking for a reaction from an adult presence. Without an adult reaction, it's "party time!"

When you see this, what should you do?

Establish authority. You must be in charge of the situation, and you must establish the leadership of the classroom. It's important for you to create a sense of adult presence - this will bring calm to the classroom. Here are some examples of what to do and what to say:

What to do:

1. Look around the classroom and establish eye contact with the students. Look around the room slowly.
2. Stand apart from the chaos and be a center of calm.
3. Have your feet apart and your body fully visible. Have your arms crossed or on your hips.
4. Do not lose control, yell, or bark orders. Speak in a medium volume with medium energy. 
5. Do not apologize "Would you please be quiet?" or ask  politely. Demand attention and compliance.
6. Give time between brief verbal orders. Walk towards the chaotic centers, but keep at a distance from it.
7. Do not copy the frenetic energy or loud volume of the classroom - be a center of calm.
8. Have an activity (a hand-out or a simple activity on the board that the students can handle independently.)

To establish calm and get students to ease away from a high energy situation, you have to speak in simple commands, using  medium volume. Speak in measured tones - don't yell!
Only thank students for on-task behavior when they are on-task.

What to say:

1. "All right, students, it's time to calm down and sit in your seats." 
2. "Students, play time is over.  (pause for effect) "It's time to get back in your seats."
3. " Let's stop this and get back to work."
4. "You need to sit down.  Now let's get to work."

Keep this mantra until students have settled down. Accept zero tolerance of off-task behavior. If individuals start playing, give eye contact and repeat your commands. Proximity may be helpful. Do not isolate or give public ridicule (this will backfire and agitate the situation.)

Safety issues must be addressed at once. Call for assistance if there's a fight or students are engaged in harmful activities that will hurt themselves or others. 

Even veteran teachers look for ways to address volatile classroom behaviors. Remember that there is no one successful way to get students under control.

What do you do in these kinds of situations?

  Queen Bee

What Do You Make?

Here is a broadcast of timely words from Taylor Mali, the original author of the poem "What do You Make?"

If you are not seeing the broadcast, but you see a box with a question mark, you do not currently have access to social networking sites like Pinterest or YouTube. When possible, please check out Taylor Mali's broadcast on YouTube.com: What do You Make? or on 
Pinterest.com: What do You Make?

You may have seen or heard a variation of this poem, but like most art, the original shines brighter. Here are are the words:

What Teachers Make

By Taylor Mali

(copyright 2009: All rights reserved)

I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor.

He says the problem with teachers is
What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life
was to become a teacher?
He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation

Be honest. What do you make?

And I wish he hadn’t done that— asked me to be honest—
because, you see, I have this policy about honesty and ass-­‐kicking:
if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A-­‐ feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time
with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won’t I let you go to the bathroom?
Because you’re bored.
And you don’t really have to go to the bathroom, do you?
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
Hi. This is Mr. Mali. I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something your son said today.
To the biggest bully in the grade, he said,
“Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?
It’s no big deal.”
And that was noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math
and hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you’ve got this,
then you follow this,
and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this.

Here, let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
Teachers make a goddamn difference! Now what about you?

Mali. Taylor. “What Teachers Make.” What Learning Leaves. Newtown, CT: Hanover Press, 2002. Print. (ISBN: 1-­‐887012-­‐17-­‐6)

 hope you enjoy this as much as I have,

Lessons Learned from Challenging Students

Every student has a story and a lesson for us - some teach us about understanding, others teach us about patience and compassion. 

Challenging students are mini-teachers!

However, I find that students with challenging behaviors may teach us more than anyone else. How?  They force us to do things that we don't do on a regular basis. 

Consider this - which of these behaviors are you practicing now with a challenging student?

• We are reaching deep into our "teacher's toolkit" for teaching strategies that will work 
• We are searching out specialists and counselors to get ideas on how to handle the students' behaviors.
• We find ourselves thinking about this student and how to address this student's problems when we're away from school.
• We have conversations with other teachers and try to draw on their experience.
• We look for information that may shed light on why the student acts this way.
• We find ourselves kneeling in prayer for the patience to be professional around this student.

Well, each of these things are things that professional educators should practice on a regular basis (but we often go on "automatic" and teach within our comfort level!) In short, these challenging students get us to stretch our skills as educators, and make us better at what we do!

We should welcome this chance to grow when we have challenging students (as long as we don't have to have these students all of the time!) Let's look at them with a different eye - one that sees these students as a gift that wakes us up and moves us to learn and grow.

  

Assigning Work in Small Groups: A Teaching Strategy

How can you get everyone in your small groups to work equally?

All members of small groups should share responsibility!

In the post, First Steps for Creating Classroom Groups, I shared ways that you can introduce small groups in your classroom. But once you have students in small groups, how do you ensure that every student is doing their share of the work?

Using Job Responsibilities

One way to get everyone involved in completing a small group task is to have assigned responsibilities. Similar to the concept shared in the "One Minute Manager," it's a good idea to have something specific for each member of the team. If this isn't done, you can frequently end up with the industrious students getting burned out from doing all of the work, the lazy students doing nothing, and everyone receiving equal credit - Not Fair!

Assigning Responsibilities

Within your 4-5 member small groups, have a system in place that gives each student a job description:

• recorder - responsible for drafting notes of what has been done, completes any written documentation for the group
• moderator - responsible for leading the group and taking charge of the discussing and outlining the task
• facilitator - ensures that each person contributes to the completion of the task, and supports the efforts
• reporter - responsible for sharing out the results of the small group's work
• timekeeper - keeps everyone on the established timeline, and refocuses the group if it gets off-task

Keeping Students on Track

A great way to remind students about their specific task within the group is to have a task card folded like a tent for each student in the group. Each student would have the task card in front of them like a name card would be shown. This task card would have the job on one side, so that each member of the team knows who is doing what. On the flip side of the card there is  a description of the job, so that each student can have the job reminder facing them. 

  Queen Bee