The start of school is well underway by now, and I’m taking a moment to stop and reflect on the first six weeks.
If you have never heard of or read anything from the Responsive Classroom, I suggest that you check out their work. One of the most influential books I have read in my career is Teaching Children to Care: Classroom Management for Ethical & Academic Growth, K-8 by Ruth Sidney Charney.
In this book, Ruth talks about the importance of the first six weeks/30 school days and how it takes this long to build community and to establish the routines and norms of the classroom. While we also begin to teach content during this time, we need to remember that we are still in a process of getting to know our students as people and as learners. We are also still teaching OUR routines and the norms of how we treat others in our classroom.
If your school, like mine, has school-wide rules or behavior guidelines, we still need to identify what those guidelines look like and sound like in our own individual classrooms.
Due to the Labor Day holiday and some missed days due to weather events, we have had only two “full weeks” of school (being in school all five days). This week I found myself frustrated a few times, thinking “they should know how to do this by now” when it came to routines and procedures. Then I caught myself thinking back to Ruth’s words in Teaching Children to Care:
I spend the first six weeks of school teaching my children how to behave. It rarely takes less time, sometimes it takes more. It takes six weeks even when many of the students were in the same class last year, and have been in the same school for several years. I cannot presume that what was so clear last year is remembered and accepted this year. I start again. I do not apologize for this use of time. It is not a waste, not a waystation along a more important course of educational mastery. It is the critical foundation of learning. It is the first curriculum. I call it “classroom management.”
I then looked at my calendar and counted up how many days we have actually been in school. We were on day 21. I relaxed, realizing that we are still in “training” mode and that it’s okay to be where we are. That does not mean that I don’t continue to reinforce/remind/redirect. And that we don’t continue to practice routines as needed. It just means that we are still in the earliest stage of school, getting to know each other and defining how our classroom will work together.
I also took my own advice and made a list of all that is going well so far.
In addition, I checked my list of community-building activities which I have collected through the years and decided to do these eight activities in the next two weeks:
1 – Start a “wonder wall”. This idea is described more fully in The Curious Classroom by Harvey “Smokey” Daniels. Kids can add their own wonderings or questions for which they want to find answers.
You could find bits of time during your week for students to research their own wonderings, or you could make this an anchor activity to go to when they have some free time. I am going to implement some form of Genius Hour this year to allow time for students to research their wonderings, even if it’s more like Genius Half-Hour!
2 – Create/revisit identity maps. This idea also comes from Harvey Daniels’ book The Curious Classroom as well as Sara K. Ahmed’s new book Being the Change. For this activity, you model your own identity map/web with such topics as: personality traits, physical features, family, culture, ethnicity, languages spoken, religion, nationality, favorite foods, age, gender, traditions, hobbies, things you love, what you are trying to be better at doing.
Then students make their own maps and share them with partners or small groups before sharing more with the whole class. We already did this during the first week of school and it was very powerful as kids shared part of their maps. It’s time to revisit them and see what we could add.
3 – A couple of afternoons a week, I will jot down every child’s name & a few notes about them. Nothing fancy, just a list of what I’m thinking or have noticed so far. This shows me a lot about who is getting my attention and focus (and for what), and who may need more attention from me. (If I don’t have much to say about them, I probably need to work on getting to know them better.)
4 – Here is a similar tip. I’m not sure where I first heard this idea, but I have done it numerous times and it’s always interesting. On your drive home, say the names of each of your students. Count them off as you say the names. If there is anyone you cannot name without referring to your class list — that’s the kid to pay close attention to tomorrow.
5 – Use dialogue journals with your students. You might offer some prompts for them to respond to, but I encourage my students to tell me whatever they want to tell me. Make it a safe space for students to write to you and tell you what they want to share. When I respond to the journals, usually the response is written. However, sometimes I think the issue needs a longer conversation and I will find some time to talk privately with the student.
6 – Greet your students at the door every day when they enter your class. Just smiling and saying “good morning”, “I’m glad you’re here” start the day or the class off right for both you and the student. Saying phrases like that actually make you have a positive attitude toward the child you are greeting (even if you did not have such a positive attitude toward them when you saw them). This is also important to do when you change classes. This gives students a “reset” if something negative happened earlier in the day.
7 – Include your students’ interests in your lessons wherever possible. For example, if a math problem involves cupcakes, you can mention your students who love to bake. If a soccer game is mentioned in a book you’re sharing, you might mention your students who play soccer or who like soccer.
8 – Consider using social media with your class. Set up a class Twitter account or Instagram account. Keep it private for just your students and families, especially if you post photos. Including your students’ ideas as you write a daily post is a great way to review, share memories together, and include parents in the learning process.
I am looking forward to an awesome year with this, my 21st class of students. I hope these tips will help you reflect and reset for an awesome year as well!