How To Begin 2021 On The Right Classroom Management Foot
Whether you’re teaching in person, online, or a hybrid of the two, there is one thing you must do to begin 2021.
It’s easy, requires zero preparation, and takes no more than ten minutes.
But it’s absolutely essential.
What is it?
It’s to review your classroom management plan. It’s to once again define for your students the boundaries that protect learning.
Here’s why:
Two weeks is forever.
It may not seem like it in your world—especially given how much you cherish your time off—but for anyone under eighteen a two-week holiday feels like an eternity.
Memories fade and good habits deteriorate.
Some students will return to your classroom as if waking from a dream. “I don’t remember having to raise my hand to ask a question. Oh, and where’s the restroom?”
It reestablishes the primacy of behavior standards.
By reviewing your classroom management plan on the first day back from break you’re communicating its supreme importance. You’re saying in essence that reestablishing limits must come first.
—Before reading, writing, discussion, or anything else.
It’s your plan, after all, and your commitment to following it, that paves the way for effective teaching and learning. It’s the good soil from which sprouts a culture of scholarship.
It reminds students of their trust in you.
Jumping straight into your plan reminds students that they can place their trust in you. They can let down their guard, exhale fully, and focus on enjoying school.
They can forget about their concerns of the past and future and engross themselves in the work of the day. In this way, good teaching and classroom management produce a form of active meditation.
They bring about a flow experience for students that lasts from opening bell to dismissal.
It invites a fresh start.
An enthusiastic review of your plan, when combined with the dawn of a new year—and the rebirth and resolutions it evokes—invites every student to start anew.
Poor grades, misbehavior, malaise due to Covid . . .
It clears the deck, absolves the lost and fallen, and encourages a turn of a new page and hope for a better tomorrow.
It makes you more consistent.
Defining boundaries and modeling right behavior is not just for your students. It’s also for you. Because, you see, it cements in your mind what is and isn’t okay.
It removes the gray area. It allows you to be a good referee and see clearly when a rule has been broken.
Add to it a promise to follow through and protect every student’s right to learn and enjoy school, and you place just enough pressure on yourself to make sure that it’s true.
The Walls of Windsor
There is so much we’re eager to get done on the first day back from a long holiday break. For me, I want nothing more than to dive into a cool lesson right after attendance.
But if you ignore the one thing that makes it all go, the one ingredient that frees your students to focus on learning and enjoying school, then they’ll be climbing the walls by noon.
And you’ll be stressed-out and already looking forward to the next vacation.
It’s far easier to take control with a reset of your classroom management plan than having to go back and reteach it because you’ve lost control. The professional subverts misbehavior before it starts.
Therefore, as soon as your students settle into their seats, don’t waste a second. Do it now. Be bold. Be clear. Be unmistakable and unapologetic.
And fortify your boundaries as tall and impenetrable as the walls of Windsor Castle.
PS – Recently, I was interviewed on the Ready, Set, Growth podcast about the importance of hobbies. If you get a chance, check it out.
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