Beginning my 3^rd year of teaching kids in the 7^th and 8^th grade, I’ve come to believe it is time to begin a journal of how the year goes.  We started the 2011/2012 school year on a Wednesday.  That means we had 3 days with the kids during our first week.  It seemed like an awkward start date at first but my assistant principal commented that it would be good to get the weekend break early. 

He was right.

The first day of class consisted of my team of teachers drilling rules, expectations, procedures, rewards and consequences.  All day in every hour our students heard about: the school rules, our team procedures and each classroom’s expectations.  We went through the student handbook with them a section at a time.  We lined up and walked into the room (quietly and moving directly to our seat.)  Then we did it again, if necessary, for 6 periods.  We lined up for lunch and then walked down the halls quietly with our hands to ourselves (we didn’t have to do this again until the third day.)  We handed out papers.  Some needed to be signed (by student and parent and brought back) while some were the student’s papers to do with as they saw fit (by the third day I had my first student ask me if they could throw away their student handbook- I told her it was hers to do with as she pleased just understand what is inside first.)

In my classroom on the first day, we went through our procedure for CLOZE reading.  I was very explicit with my instructions.  I’ll read something that the whole class has in front of them.  Every so often I will pause on a word.  When I pause on a word the whole class needs to say the word I paused on.  We went through our procedure for lining up at the end of an hour.  I saw problems at first because I didn’t explicitly tell some of my classes to line up away from my desk.  So, initially, I had students wanting to line up next to my desk. 

Oh hell no!

I didn’t say it, so I had to correct it right away.  If I didn’t stop them from lining up by my desk, in a couple of days I would have stuff missing from my desk.  Before dismissing any class I went through the steps of where I wanted them to line up in order to file out the door.  Before they left, I made sure each student had an All About Me worksheet to fill out.  I will file these in their individual student folders for future reference.

On the second day, I very briefly went through school rules and our team procedures.  Then I went over classroom expectations again. 

Number one, follow directions the first time. 

Number two, respect the speaker.

Number three, try hard everyday.

Number four, allow the teacher to teach and students to learn.

Number five, observe the Golden Rule.

I unpacked what each one of these expectations meant to me as well as what they look like and what they don’t look like.  Once we got through with review of expectations and rules, we started to get to know each other by practicing classroom expectation number two (i.e. respect the speaker.)  I gave students five minutes to interview their shoulder partner.  They were to find out the answers for the following questions:

What’s their name?

Where is the favorite place they’ve ever been?

What are 2 to 3 interesting facts about them?

What is their favorite thing in the world?

At the end of five minutes we went around the room as I called on students to introduce their shoulder partner.  (The shoulder partner procedure was explicitly taught be interviewed and confirmed as a success at the end.  We didn’t project our voice louder than three desks away.  We stayed on task.  We were prepared to share at the end.)  Key expectations given out before we began reporting out were: be honest about what they said, be respectful of one another (observe the Golden Rule) and no side conversations.  We were practicing respecting the speaker as an objective for this lesson which was introduced at the beginning as well as reviewed periodically throughout the lesson.  Today, I introduced students to where I will write our objectives on the board.  This second day was a short day, so we didn’t get done with all the introductions in any class.  I had one class where we didn’t even get started.  This is going to be my challenging class.

Day three began with me reviewing with students, in the hallway, how to enter the classroom.  Quietly take your seat.  Look to the objectives for the day written on the white board.  Look to the due now work written on the white board.  Start quietly working on the due now work.  Today’s due now work was to pick one of the classroom expectations and either:

Rewrite it in your own words.

Give an example of what it might look like.

Ask a question about it.

At the end of five minutes of silence, I called on five or six students to share what they had written.  I explained to them that this is how we would answer questions in this classroom.  I generally will give wait time for students to formulate an answer and I will generally call on people at random while I keep track on a checklist of who was called on.  After this was finished, we continued introducing our shoulder partners.  Every class, except my challenging class managed to get introductions done on the third day.  My challenging class started to waste my time by having several of them goofing around and laughing as soon as they entered my classroom.

Oh I got something for that!

I went global thermonuclear on them.  No yelling.  No frantic movements.  At least ten students out of thirty were messing around.  I stopped talking for about one minute.  No response.  They’re still messing around.  There’s too many to hand out warnings because I’d be running from one side of the room to the other.  There’s too many for me to call out by name.  Plus, I don’t even know all of their names yet (I’ve got 150 names to learn and I’ve learned about 40-ish so far.)  I really can’t individually get their attention by calling their name out, yet.

I quietly walked over to the white board and in capital letters I wrote, “I WILL FOLLOW DIRECTIONS THE FIRST TIME.”  Next to the sentence I wrote “x 100.”  That got their attention.  Most of the kids stopped messing around at this point and they were asking me what I was doing, but I said nothing.  Next to the sentence I then wrote, “2:00 mins.”  I silently went to my desk and got out a stopwatch then returned to center stage in front of the room of 30 students showing them the stopwatch.  Then I explained when all eyes were on me and their mouths were shut.

In this classroom, I will not try to corral kittens.  I explained my metaphor by demonstrating trying to redirect a kid on one side of the classroom and then running over to the other side of the classroom to redirect a different student, then running back to the original student to redirect again.  It’s a very visual performance so all students understand what I’m talking about.  I then explained corralling is what cowboys do when they get cows to move all together in a straight line.  I ask students to imagine trying to corral cats.  It is a useless effort because it won’t happen!  So I will not spend my time in class trying to corral kittens.

What I will do is write a sentence on the board, put a number next to it and then put a time by it.  When we reach the time I’ve written on the board that sentence becomes homework for the next day and I stop teaching.  I explain to students that this is monkey work and not what I envision us doing this year.  I want to do the real work we’re all capable of doing, but if they choose to waste my time then I will waste their time.  If the homework is not done the next day, they have after school detention everyday until I get my sentences and I do keep track with a recurring reminder in my phone.  Everyday the message will pop up.  Does so and so have my sentences?  No? 

Detention!

My challenging class wasn’t convinced.  They wanted to debate and sidetrack the issue.  “I don’t understand.”  I started the timer.  One girl smiled and said she didn’t understand after all of the other students responded by closing their mouths and directing their eyes on me.  After twenty seconds ticked by on my stopwatch, that one student demonstrated that she understood as well. 

No debate. 

No raising my voice. 

No getting red in the face!

I explained to my students that I’m not here to make their lives miserable.  If I assign this kind of homework, I’m not mad at them but I will expect that they immediately get to work on the assignment for the rest of the period in silence.  If they choose to talk then I will simply add more sentences to the individual choosing to talk.  When the classroom gets to this level of unproductiveness, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution.

We only got through with our spelling inventory in one class today.  Overall, I left the week feeling pretty good.  I know about 40 student’s names in their seats and at least 20 by sight.  I’ve got over 100 to go.  At the start of my 3^rd year of teaching, I’m feeling pretty comfortable in my classroom and I think we’re having a great start.  Next week we will focus on procedures, rules and consequences as well as different motivations for wanting to come to school.