Rules of the Trade – A Teacher's Life

The Kids Constantly Talk Over Me

February 9, 2022 Laura

You Make Me Feel Brand New

Despite the sincere and wonderful meaning of this Stylistics song title, for a veteran teacher, this phrase is like the kiss of death.

A few years ago, I decided to go back into public education after experimenting with private education. I ended up landing a part-time job with a non-continuing contract. One of the issues I had when I took over the classes after being their third English teacher for the year (yeah, you read that correctly) is that the kids would repeatedly speak over me. It was obvious that the practice had been going on for a long time, but it was foreign to me because I had always been able to cultivate a classroom of respect for verbal communication. However, I had never been a replacement. I had always started the year with my own classes, so I had my methods down. They weren’t working here.

The Embarrassment

Frankly, their behavior was embarrassing to me as a teacher. I didn’t have control. I couldn’t get control. They didn’t even care when an administrator was in the room which told me a lot about myself and the district that hired me. I did what any teacher might do in that situation: I blamed the kids. Why couldn’t they just be quiet long enough for me to get through a set of instructions? Why couldn’t they just let me do my job? When another teacher or administrator walked into the room, my face was hot with embarrassment and shame. I looked like a teacher who didn’t know how to command a classroom. While I’d had a couple of bad classes in the past (three, actually, during my seventeen years of experience at the time), they occurred earlier in my career. I felt like a brand new teacher all over again. It made me doubt whether or not I’d made the right decision to go back to the public classroom.

The Power of Google

For the first few weeks, I blamed the kids for their behavior. One day, out of sheer frustration, I googled “Why is my classroom out of control?” Apparently other people googled that exact phrase, so I felt some small comfort there, but it was short-lived. I came across an article that made me feel even more shame. You can read it here. Ultimately, the article kicked me in the butt and told me to take control of my room again and to stop blaming others for my mistakes–something I’ve always told my students. It was my fault, and when I chose to take control again, it would happen. That’s just what I did.

I invited an instructional coach into the room to get an outsider’s perspective. I had already determined a few mistakes on my own and figured out ways to correct them:

I needed more consistency at the beginning of class. In the past, I had simply greeted the students and discussed what we’d done the previous day. This wasn’t enough. These kids were used to Early Work in most of their classes. Because they had no specific task to complete when class began, it became a free-for-all with kids standing and speaking to their friends long after the bell rang. Once I started creating Early Work in the form of journals, the kids would sit down right away and begin writing. Such a simple idea.
I was trying to teach to the kids as if I’d had them all year. In the past, I taught the kids to raise their hands in order to speak for any reason. After the first quarter, the students organically moved to speaking in turn without raising their hands. I was expecting these students to automatically take turns speaking as if I had already trained them during first semester. Silly, silly teacher. At this point, it was too late in the year to train them, so I backed off. I stopped getting so upset since they were doing what they had been taught was acceptable by other teachers. I did, however, work on getting them more engaged so that the conversation was about the topic at hand. This was by no means perfect, but it drastically changed the culture of the classroom and my attitude by the end of the day. This time, they were still talking over each other, but they were doing it in excitement to respond to other students’ comments.
I was trying to move on even when the kids were out of control. This was dumb. I would simply tell them to be quiet and try to continue going over directions as if that would really work. I started making them practice silence. They really hated this which made it extremely effective. There were times we would wait in silence for three minutes before moving on. If I didn’t elongate the time, they would simply begin speaking again within seconds of stopping the first time. Trust me, it was torture the first few times I did it. The seconds dragged on, and I wanted to move forward so badly. But I couldn’t. The point had to be made. It didn’t take long before the silences became significantly shorter without the fear of having to stop again.

Strategies From the Instructional Coach

One of the practices the instructional coach noticed was my lack of movement in the class-room. In my old district, I would have the kids stand up and stretch to wake them up and get the blood circulating again. This seemed to be enough for them. However, it wasn’t enough for these kiddos. Kelly (the instructional coach) suggested more activities that would get the kids up and moving. We talked about 4 Corners, group work, small presentations, and acting out scenes from reading. These were activities I had done in the past, but this group needed to do them much more. The activities worked to help the kids focus when they needed to.

The classroom was never perfect, but it improved, and my relationship with my students improved greatly along with my attitude. These examples worked for me, but there are so many more you can try if you find yourself in my situation. Remember that you can always get control back when you want to.

Please feel free to like this post, comment, share, or ask questions.

Problem-Solving, Relationships, Rules of the Trade

My Students Don’t Turn in Homework

February 9, 2022 Laura

This is a tough one. After many years of teaching, I still don’t have a clear-cut answer for this. All I can do here is offer some suggestions. Each class and kid is different, so it is really hard to figure out the best way to get kids to do the daily stuff. However, basic professional requirements have to happen regardless of the other tactics that may differ from year to year.

PRACTICES YOU HAVE TO DO:

You have to have a conversation with the student as soon as you start noticing a pattern. I’m not talking about eight missing assignments later. No more than three. I might even have the conversation at two if I get the vibe that the student really dislikes the class or school, in general. It’s important to know why the student didn’t do the work. Is it done but in a locker? Is it at home? Does the student care about the grade? Is there something happening at home preventing the student from being able to complete school work? Is this happening in other classes?
You have to update grades online regularly. I am still working on this because I am slow to update. Updating once a month doesn’t tell the parent anything, and I’ve had my fair share of updating way too slowly. If you can, make it a habit to update no less than once week, even if it’s just one assignment. If you can’t get that assignment in the grade book, at least get the missing work in the grade book so parents see that right away. We have the option at my school to label it as missing or missing with a zero as a temporary grade. The zero really gets attention quickly.
You have to find a way to keep parents informed about what is happening in your classroom. Maybe this is a very basic homework blog. Some teachers use Google Classroom to upload documents so there is no excuse that it was forgotten on some cafeteria table. Some teachers send mass emails to parents when something big is going down. And I use the Remind App mainly for students, but the parents have the option to sign up to see the posts for the class. You might think that it’s too much hand-holding, but I prefer to think of it as covering my butt while keeping parents in the loop. You can’t follow each kid home to make sure they do their work, but their parents sure can. Let them decide how much hand-holding to do with their kids while using your information. Also, you may only opt to use one or two of these.

PRACTICES YOU MIGHT DO: (Not all of you are going to agree with these. Keep in mind that I’m just offering ideas.)

Have a late work policy in place that is approved by the administration and is clearly understood by parents and students. Sometimes it really depends on the school district. In one school district, I had a policy that allowed students to turn late work in within 45 minutes of school ending and receive no penalty. This meant that if a student left the homework in a locker, he or she could easily retrieve it after school, and they wouldn’t feel the desire to ask to get it during class. It also allowed me keep the work with the rest of class instead of separating it as a penalty reminder. If the student did not turn it in after school, he or she could turn it in during class the following day for a 10% reduction on the assignment. After this, however, I wouldn’t take it. Some school districts shy away from a policy like this. I worked in one district that allowed students to make up work that was two months overdue and no more than 10% off the grade. This frustrated me because it took away any incentive for the students to hold themselves accountable. It also made for horrible paperwork issues.
Make homework a small percentage of the grade. If homework in your classroom is really just practice for something much larger, there is something you need to ask yourself. Is it worth the hassle? Is assigning the homework really worth the time and worry that it’s causing you to plan it and grade it? If the answer is no, then don’t assign it. Evaluate all the homework you give and make sure that it’s absolutely necessary for students to complete in order to understand the final assessment. Or assign the homework and don’t panic when it’s not turned in because it’s a small percentage of the grade.
Assign some sort of homework detention. One school district I worked for encouraged homework detentions and created an 8th Hour, a study hall after school in the library where students with missing work were required to attend. A teacher was paid extra to do this hour-long study hall, and parents were informed that it was a school-wide practice. Other teachers assign detentions before or after school or during lunch.

You will find that you struggle to find middle ground in this area year after year. Some years, your late work policy is golden; other years, you find yourself changing it up because the students don’t respond to your policies. It’s frustrating, but you have to think of what works for your students at that time and what works for you.

Please feel free to like this post, comment, or ask questions.

Rules of the Trade

6 Rules to Follow as a First-Year Teacher

February 9, 2022 Laura

Okay, there really are significantly more rules to follow than just 6, but I’m here to tell you the ones that I feel are the most important. These will make your life easier as your year continues.

Rule 1: Never pretend to know something that you don’t. Kids will catch you pretending, and it will haunt you forever. If you don’t know, simply tell them you don’t know but you will find out and give them the answer tomorrow. Just make sure you follow up on finding the answer. I did this once. Once. And I still remember how being caught made me feel even though it was back in 2002.

Rule 2: Consistency is key. Follows the rules you set for the class. Don’t give exceptions because there will always be 10 more exceptions that follow. This goes with rules, homework, threatening to call home or talk to an administrator. You can’t make a threat that you can’t back up. Being consistent will help students see that you are honest and fair and you mean what you say.

Rule 3: Keep a homework blog. Some districts require this, but it’s really important to have information about your classroom available to parents and students at all times. While it’s extremely helpful to parents, it also covers your ass. I once told a class of honors students that there was a potential snow storm coming and that they needed to take home their reading books since I was still going to be following the reading schedule. I even posted a link to the PDF of the book in case kids forgot the book. It was close to the end of the semester, and I didn’t have time to catch up. We were out of school for three days. This was Wednesday’s, Thursday’s, Friday’s, and weekend’s reading schedule that students had to follow. All but one student listened, and he and his parents agreed that he should have followed the directions. It allowed all the students to stay on the same page, it covered my butt, and it allowed us to stay on track without having to assign a bunch a pages of reading in one night that would have been impossible for the kids to accomplish.

Rule 4: Send mass parent emails regularly. Most districts have a way for you to send emails to every parent in a class. Doing this will show parents that you are in a partnership to help their kids succeed. It also lets parents know that you expect them to be doing their job as parents while you’re doing your job as a teacher. I regularly sent out emails to parents about larger quizzes, tests, speeches, and projects. It works well for reminders for conferences or simply to let them know that the class was working on a large project so there were no grades posted that week. Parents don’t always contact you when they have a problem. Sometimes they go straight to your administrator. Cut them off before they have any questions. You didn’t update grades this week because the kids spent time in the lab working? Let them know. If the administrator comes to you about it, you have proof that you sent the email to parents about it.

Rule 5: Find one person that you can confide in and stop there. Every district is going to have its problems. They are too big to please everyone. The key is to find a district that upholds your big beliefs about education. You are going to have those days when you need to vent. Do NOT vent to every person you see. Find a private place and vent to that one person you trust implicitly. And don’t assume all teachers will agree with you. There will be someone you speak to who will violate your trust and possibly get you into a lot of trouble. Be careful about what you say in regard to your school, other teachers, students, and administration. Say anything you want that is positive, and repeat it multiple times. But watch the venting.

Rule 6: Be active in your school. Be a part of as much as you can without spreading yourself too thin. (I will be writing a post on this topic in detail later.) You can’t complain about a school and its issues if you’re not willing to be a part of the solution. You can’t be a part of it while still remaining separated. If kids ask you to go watch their wrestling matches or football games, do it. You don’t have to go to every one, but you need to show that you care about them as more than just a name in a grade book. Be a part of the curriculum committee or the school improvement team so administrators see that you want to make the school a better place. Sponsor a club to see kids outside of the classroom. Trust me. It’s worth it.

These are all really important. I will be writing future posts that go into detail on some of them.

Please feel free to like this post and comment or ask questions.

Rules of the Trade

Welcome!

February 8, 2022February 9, 2022 Laura

This site is dedicated to helping teachers make it through their first few years of teaching or many years of teaching. A large percentage of teachers leave the profession within five years, and I really feel that one of the largest contributors is the lack of support. This blog is created with love knowing that teaching is incredibly hard (and sometimes rewarding) work. No one understands it quite like a teacher. Your friends won’t understand. Your family won’t understand. Heck, even your spouse might not understand. Think of me as your support. When you have a question, I’ll be there. When you need advice, just look through the pages here to find some possible. If you can’t find them, make a comment or send an email asking for a blog post on a particular topic or struggle.

This site will deal with classroom management, grading, the myth of finding balance, and many more topics. I’ve been teacher in the public school setting for 17 years with 2 additional years in a private school setting. I also taught English Composition for five years at a vocational college.

I have a variety of successes and failures that I hope you can learn from to make your life in the classroom easier. Enjoy!