Episode 38: "The Boring Management Stuff That Actually Saves Your Year"
Classroom management for CI teachers is the part no workshop covers - in this episode of Comprehend THIS!, we get into the procedures, routines, and room setup that make comprehensible input possible in the first place.
You'll hear which small logistical failures quietly wreck an entire period, the classroom procedures experienced teachers wish they'd known on day one, and how to build routines that serve acquisition instead of competing with it.
CI professional development will spend an hour on input and never once mention where thirty phones go. This week Pamela Parks and I are joined by guest host Stephanie Carbonneau, a middle school French teacher in York, Maine with 28 years of acquisition-driven instruction in a classroom without desks, which demands a level of procedural clarity most of us have never attempted. Pamela worked as a professional translator before moving into world language teaching, so she understands what a broken system actually costs. We talk about the gap in CI training, the classroom management problems teachers end up solving alone, and the one boring system each of us is tightening before students walk in this year.
Not sure where your comprehensible input practice stands right now? Take the CI Proficiency Quiz and find out in a few minutes: https://imim.us/ciquiz
If you'd rather stop building everything from scratch, the CI Survival Kit gives you ready-to-teach materials and the classroom systems that hold them together: https://imim.us/kit
Getting your procedures right before the first bell is the entire premise of the Back-to-School Bootcamp: https://imim.us/bootcamp
CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to the podcast: https://imim.us/live
CI Proficiency Quiz: https://imim.us/ciquiz
CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit
#ClassroomManagement, #ComprehensibleInput, #CITeacher, #LanguageTeacher, #WorldLanguage, #TPRS, #ClassroomProcedures, #TeacherTips, #BackToSchool, #LanguageAcquisition
Hosts:
Scott Benedict - https://www.instagram.com/immediateimmersion
Pamela Parks - https://imim.us/pamela
Stephanie Carbonneau
Resources & Links:
CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit
Back-to-School Bootcamp - https://imim.us/bootcamp
Calendar Talk Book - https://imim.us/calendartalk
Join the Conversation:
Got thoughts or your own story?
Share it in the comments or tag us @ImmediateImmersion!
Watch & Subscribe:
👉 Watch LIVE or replay on YouTube: https://imim.us/live
👉 Listen on your favorite podcast app: https://imim.us/podcastlinks
👉 Never miss an episode: https://imim.us/comprehendthis
Connect with Scott:
Host: Scott Benedict — Immediate Immersion
🌐 https://immediateimmersion.com
📧 Scott@immediateimmersion.com
Youtube: https://youtube.com/immediateimmersion
Instagram: https://instagram.com/immediateimmersion
Facebook: https://facebook.com/immediateimmersion
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@immediateimmersion
Transcript
Welcome everybody to Episode 38.
Speaker:Sorry, couldn't
Speaker:breathe for a second there.
Speaker:Episode 38, this is going to be a big one
Speaker:we were just talking behind the scenes.
Speaker:So name one CI workshop that spent even
Speaker:90 seconds on where the phones go.
Speaker:I'll wait.
Speaker:We'll happily give you an hour on input,
Speaker:comprehensibility and slowing down,
Speaker:then you walk into a
Speaker:room with 30 teenagers,
Speaker:a door that opens two
Speaker:feet from your projector,
Speaker:and a transition that quietly eats four
Speaker:minutes every single period.
Speaker:None of that was on the agenda.
Speaker:This week, Pamela Parks and I are joined
Speaker:by Stephanie Carboneau.
Speaker:Welcome back, Stephanie, a middle school
Speaker:French teacher in York, Maine,
Speaker:all the way on the other coast, because
Speaker:both Pamela and I are on the west coast,
Speaker:who's been doing acquisition driven
Speaker:instruction for 28 years
Speaker:in a room with no desks.
Speaker:No desks.
Speaker:Sit with the procedures that requires.
Speaker:Pamela spent years as a professional
Speaker:translator before she taught anybody,
Speaker:so she knows precisely what it costs when
Speaker:a system fails in the middle of a job.
Speaker:So we're doing unglamorous stuff today.
Speaker:Procedures, routines, where things live
Speaker:and how kids move through the room,
Speaker:the part nobody presents on because it
Speaker:doesn't look
Speaker:impressive in a session title,
Speaker:and also the part that decides whether
Speaker:any of your input actually happens.
Speaker:Stay with us. We'll be right back.
Speaker:Is it already August? Again? ]
Speaker:And you're supposed to have a fresh,
Speaker:engaging, life-changing
Speaker:plan for the first week?
Speaker:Cute.
Speaker:Here's the deal. Back-to-school boot camp
Speaker:is your secret weapon.
Speaker:Ten short, pre-recorded lessons you can
Speaker:watch in pajamas while
Speaker:hiding from your admin
Speaker:or during that mysterious planning period
Speaker:we keep hearing about.
Speaker:You walk away with strategies,
Speaker:plans, and actual confidence,
Speaker:not just a Pinterest board full of guilt.
Speaker:Access it all for a full year.
Speaker:Go to mm.us.com and get yourself together
Speaker:before the kids show up.
Speaker:[ Silence ]
Speaker:Welcome to Comprehend This, real talk for
Speaker:real language teachers.
Speaker:No drills, no dry theory, honest stories,
Speaker:practice ideas, finder your name,
Speaker:let's dive in.
Speaker:Sorry about that intro, not sure exactly
Speaker:why our music keeps going back and forth,
Speaker:but I will fix that.
Speaker:I thought it was me. I
Speaker:thought it was my internet.
Speaker:I don't know what is going on on my
Speaker:computer. Who knows?
Speaker:Stephanie, we are so glad you're back.
Speaker:Thank you. I'm glad you're back.
Speaker:You're about 10-up knowledge.
Speaker:Yeah, great.
Speaker:And also we were talking right before
Speaker:class, so you guys
Speaker:welcome Stephanie and Pamela.
Speaker:About my first full week of school last
Speaker:week, I only had kids for three days,
Speaker:but I'll tell you one thing that happened
Speaker:on Wednesday, which was
Speaker:the first day with kids.
Speaker:The worst possible thing
Speaker:that could go wrong went wrong.
Speaker:My computer had a major crash and had to
Speaker:be reinstalled from scratch.
Speaker:Yep. Uh-huh.
Speaker:And it was going to take two hours and it
Speaker:kept freezing up during that two hours.
Speaker:So I ran without a computer that first
Speaker:day. It was really difficult.
Speaker:And the computer, I couldn't print
Speaker:anything there. I couldn't
Speaker:print my rosters or nothing.
Speaker:It was just really...
Speaker:That was my first morning.
Speaker:So yeah. Yep. That was my first day.
Speaker:So anyway, today we're talking about
Speaker:classroom management procedures.
Speaker:Go ahead, Pamela.
Speaker:Flexibility is the name of the game. This
Speaker:is part of classroom management, right?
Speaker:It's like, "Oh, I got the blue screen to
Speaker:death. That's okay. We got to pivot.
Speaker:We're going to do old school, guys."
Speaker:There's one day a car ran into the
Speaker:transformer in town, and this was when I
Speaker:was going to have my clay lesson.
Speaker:So I had 10 parents in the room who were
Speaker:going to help make sure the kids didn't
Speaker:burn themselves on all my
Speaker:clay pans and everything.
Speaker:And a car rammed into the transformer. We
Speaker:were in the dark seconds before we were
Speaker:going to pour our batter onto the pans.
Speaker:And I was like, "All right, parents, you
Speaker:get to see me work under pressure."
Speaker:And so I got out all the Twister sets,
Speaker:and we did Twister in the dark.
Speaker:Oh. Okay. That could go way, way wrong.
Speaker:It was funny.
Speaker:Yeah. I played Twister in my class, and
Speaker:all the other teachers were like, "You're
Speaker:playing Twister with high schoolers?"
Speaker:I'm like, "Yes." And I've got three
Speaker:boards. I've got one. There's a
Speaker:family-sized board that's even bigger
Speaker:than the regular boards.
Speaker:And then I got two smaller boards. So
Speaker:kids will self-segregate. I'm like,
Speaker:"Yeah, it's never been a problem, but I
Speaker:would never add the in-the-dark part."
Speaker:I haven't been able to do it since the
Speaker:pandemic. Students just don't want to
Speaker:touch each other now.
Speaker:Oh, I have no problem.
Speaker:I'm not true in middle school.
Speaker:I've had no problem with it. I did have
Speaker:somewhere some kids wanted to be on a
Speaker:separate board, so that's
Speaker:why I have three boards.
Speaker:And sometimes the girls would sit there.
Speaker:But I even had a girl last year. She was
Speaker:in a skirt. I said, "You don't have to
Speaker:play." She goes, "Oh, no, I'm playing."
Speaker:Well, the other thing I did was I printed
Speaker:a couple of boards on just regular paper,
Speaker:and I had my secretaries laminate it.
Speaker:And then for the students who don't want
Speaker:to do it, I have them twist little pipe
Speaker:cleaners into people, and then they have
Speaker:the pipe cleaners play Twister.
Speaker:Oh, that's a great
Speaker:idea. That's a great idea.
Speaker:I've done it in years just because there
Speaker:was a shift in what the students were
Speaker:willing to do with each other in close
Speaker:proximity since the pandemic.
Speaker:So I haven't tried it in years.
Speaker:Yeah, I've had no problems in the last
Speaker:couple of years. They see the Twister
Speaker:boards in the back of the room, and
Speaker:they're like, "When do we get to play
Speaker:Twister? When do we get to play Twister?"
Speaker:So I need to get one of
Speaker:those giant Jenga boards.
Speaker:Yeah, Jenga's great.
Speaker:Well, you see some of them in the park,
Speaker:and they're big ones.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, they stand like four feet tall.
Speaker:Go to your PTSA. You're in a big school
Speaker:now. You must have a PTSA. Go to them and
Speaker:ask, "How do I apply for a grant?"
Speaker:PTSA bought me seven Jenga sets so that
Speaker:each table group has their own Jenga set.
Speaker:And I numbered them all, and I used
Speaker:colored markers to number them so that
Speaker:when they fall, the sets don't
Speaker:get mixed up with each other.
Speaker:Oh, this is the big set.
Speaker:And then no matter what language I'm
Speaker:teaching, no matter what subject I'm
Speaker:teaching, I can just say, "Oh, look on
Speaker:the board. Those are your 15
Speaker:questions to ask each other."
Speaker:If you get it wrong, you have to pull a
Speaker:second piece. Nobody wants to pull a
Speaker:second piece because
Speaker:they don't want it to fall.
Speaker:So, yeah, Jenga's great.
Speaker:I was thinking of asking our
Speaker:construction. We have
Speaker:construction on campus.
Speaker:If they'll build me a big one.
Speaker:A big one, they might. Yeah.
Speaker:I had our shop class build us a...
Speaker:We brought in some boards and they just
Speaker:cut us some wooden dice
Speaker:that I then colored on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Let's talk about the thing.
Speaker:Before Stephanie joined us today, Pamela
Speaker:and I were talking beforehand about
Speaker:classroom management
Speaker:and all the stuff to...
Speaker:to keep all the balls in the air and not
Speaker:falling and crashing down is not taught
Speaker:in any teacher school. It's just not.
Speaker:Never saw it in a teacher school.
Speaker:I've seen maybe two books geared to
Speaker:elementary school
Speaker:about classroom management.
Speaker:Never seen anything for high school or
Speaker:middle school. That was stuff
Speaker:I had to learn the hard way.
Speaker:While in the fire.
Speaker:And I'll say the two books that they gave
Speaker:me at high school and I was just starting
Speaker:teaching and I'm like, was the Harry Wong
Speaker:book and the Fred Jones book.
Speaker:Both those books.
Speaker:And they, to me, when I first started
Speaker:reading, I'm like, this is all
Speaker:elementary. Did they give me the wrong
Speaker:books? I'm teaching high school.
Speaker:And it took me about seven or eight years
Speaker:before I realized, oh, those two guys are
Speaker:geniuses and I should have
Speaker:been doing this all along.
Speaker:Because I think, like, especially Harry,
Speaker:Fred Jones uses illustrations in his
Speaker:book. They're not
Speaker:actual pictures of kids.
Speaker:But Harry Wong uses pictures of kids and
Speaker:they're all elementary age kids.
Speaker:I think he does himself a disservice by
Speaker:doing that and probably would be better
Speaker:off having an assortment of kids from a
Speaker:variety of ages so that it doesn't look
Speaker:like it's an
Speaker:elementary book on the surface.
Speaker:But that's what we're
Speaker:going to talk about today.
Speaker:Procedures for everything. It's such an
Speaker:important skill and it should be. They
Speaker:should have classroom
Speaker:management procedures.
Speaker:101, 102, 103, 104. There should be like
Speaker:six or seven classes that you take in
Speaker:college to get your degree
Speaker:because it's so important.
Speaker:And people used to tell us discipline
Speaker:before instruction, discipline before
Speaker:instruction, but they never told you what
Speaker:the discipline looked like or what to do.
Speaker:What do you do if a kid does X? How do
Speaker:you handle what if they do Y? That never
Speaker:has. And you're like, well, especially if
Speaker:you are a young teacher and you don't
Speaker:have kids or younger siblings, then you
Speaker:don't know what the parents do.
Speaker:And I know my teacher said, well, don't
Speaker:you have that look? And I go, what look?
Speaker:You know, that parent look. I'm not a
Speaker:parent. I don't have a parent look.
Speaker:And they go, give me your serious look. I
Speaker:gave it to them and the teachers at lunch
Speaker:would go, yeah, we
Speaker:wouldn't follow that either.
Speaker:I don't have that look. I haven't
Speaker:developed it. So that's what we're going
Speaker:to be talking about today.
Speaker:So let us know. Let me put this here in
Speaker:the chat here really quick. Let us know
Speaker:your horror stories.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:So we can talk about them. And I will
Speaker:tell you the one that tested me. We've
Speaker:talked about this a lot was my second
Speaker:period first semester last year.
Speaker:So a year ago where I'm at right now,
Speaker:that one tested me in every way, shape
Speaker:and form that one test. But let's let's
Speaker:talk about let's talk about first.
Speaker:What's the first thing that is so small
Speaker:when you think about the scheme of
Speaker:things? But if it doesn't go right, it
Speaker:sets the tone for the rest of the class.
Speaker:Who would like to start?
Speaker:I think it's that opening five minutes
Speaker:like if you don't have them in line, I
Speaker:don't think in line.
Speaker:But if you don't have a solid routine for
Speaker:those first five
Speaker:minutes wrangling them in.
Speaker:It's tough to keep going
Speaker:for the rest of the life.
Speaker:Yeah, I certainly feel like give them an
Speaker:inch and they'll take a mile. If you are
Speaker:not ready when the bell rings, your kids
Speaker:are not ready when the bell rings.
Speaker:And then it's hard to get them absolutely
Speaker:OK. You know, it's been five minutes. I'm
Speaker:still putting attendance in your kids.
Speaker:It's going to be another five minutes
Speaker:before you get the lesson started. So you
Speaker:need it. You need to
Speaker:be right there, I think.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Some kind of activity that they do every
Speaker:single time they come in
Speaker:the room. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And they should they should be they
Speaker:should be in a routine so they know what
Speaker:that activity is so that they're not
Speaker:floundering trying to
Speaker:figure out what do I do today?
Speaker:Yeah, I always have something right on my
Speaker:you know, on my board right away. My
Speaker:screen when they come
Speaker:in, it's right there.
Speaker:It gives them clear instructions what to
Speaker:do. And I'll tell you, I know I am the
Speaker:king. I use it for a lot of things.
Speaker:But one of the things I've been using it
Speaker:for is to simplify instructions for
Speaker:students. So I'll put my instructions in
Speaker:there and then I'll have them rephrase
Speaker:them and put them in there.
Speaker:So they're much more clear and succinct
Speaker:for the kids to understand. And there's
Speaker:like no wiggle room.
Speaker:But and I'm going to make this comparison
Speaker:a lot. And I don't mean to be offensive
Speaker:when I make the comparison.
Speaker:But as I said, I don't have children. I
Speaker:have dogs. And a lot of what I've learned
Speaker:in dog obedience and ways to get dogs to
Speaker:do what you want them to do.
Speaker:Because they're sentient beings just like
Speaker:our kids and they don't always want to do
Speaker:what we want to do. They
Speaker:have their own minds for things.
Speaker:I mean, when you see a squirrel, all hell
Speaker:breaks loose with dogs. So, um, but one
Speaker:thing they told us with dogs, if you've
Speaker:got a dog like pulls on a walk like first
Speaker:thing in the morning,
Speaker:you know, your first thing.
Speaker:Is you have to start in a calm state.
Speaker:They have to start in a calm state. So my
Speaker:old dogs, before I knew this, soon as
Speaker:they hear the leashes jingle, they are
Speaker:jumping all over the room.
Speaker:There's jumping, they're barking, they're
Speaker:all excited. My new girl, my baby girl,
Speaker:that's only just turned two.
Speaker:We go there, she sees me at the door. She
Speaker:comes, she looks excited. And I used to
Speaker:have to say, sit before I put her collar
Speaker:on, before I put her leash on.
Speaker:Now she knows she's not getting that
Speaker:leash and we're not going out the door
Speaker:until she sits. And she can't get up from
Speaker:the sit until I say okay.
Speaker:So it's not unlike what you do with kids
Speaker:that, like Stephanie said, the first five
Speaker:minutes are so important. They have to
Speaker:have a routine. My dog knows the routine.
Speaker:I go to the door, I get the leash, she
Speaker:comes, she sits down, I put the leash on,
Speaker:she waits patiently for me to say okay.
Speaker:And then she gets up.
Speaker:I open the door, she knows she cannot go
Speaker:through the door unless I say okay. And
Speaker:then once we're outside, she's in a much
Speaker:calmer state. And it's not unlike what
Speaker:you do with your kids.
Speaker:They have to have something to do. They
Speaker:just came from five minutes of passing.
Speaker:And who knows what class they came from?
Speaker:Was it sport practice? Because it's so
Speaker:hot here in California. Our sport
Speaker:practices are in the morning before
Speaker:school starts. So they could be all doing
Speaker:that. Because it's 105 in the afternoon.
Speaker:They just can't do
Speaker:football practice at 105 degrees.
Speaker:With all that equipment on, there's just
Speaker:no way. So setting that tone right off
Speaker:the bat, giving them something to do.
Speaker:You've got something to do too. You got
Speaker:to take attendance. You may have a couple
Speaker:other things you got to get ready.
Speaker:And having them set with that task and
Speaker:training them. They may not know what the
Speaker:task is. I do have a routine with my
Speaker:tasks. They're in a certain order. But I
Speaker:might change it up
Speaker:one week. Or who knows?
Speaker:But they know the routine is they got to
Speaker:sit down, get their supplies out, and
Speaker:then go ahead and get started with
Speaker:whatever is on my screen to start my warm
Speaker:up. And it's a really powerful thing.
Speaker:It takes my kids forever to pull things
Speaker:out like they are. Really slow at pulling
Speaker:things out. So I started using timers. I
Speaker:count down or I count down. You need to
Speaker:be ready in 10, 9. But then I
Speaker:feel like I'm a drill target.
Speaker:See, I don't count down, but I give the
Speaker:timers. You can find a timer for any
Speaker:amount of time on YouTube. Because I put
Speaker:it on a slide. So I'll put that little
Speaker:video in the corner of the slide so you
Speaker:can see the timer counting down.
Speaker:And I heard this secret in one of the
Speaker:classroom management books I read. Don't
Speaker:use even numbers. Don't say five minutes.
Speaker:Say five minutes and 24 seconds. You got
Speaker:five minutes and 24
Speaker:seconds. Whatever it does.
Speaker:That's interesting.
Speaker:I'm writing that down.
Speaker:It does something really weird with the
Speaker:kids. They're like, what? They're not
Speaker:expecting it. So it's never an even
Speaker:number. So I go through and I find these
Speaker:ones with weird numbers in them. And
Speaker:that's my timer for that. But I put the
Speaker:timers because they need
Speaker:to be visible to the kids.
Speaker:Because then they go, oh, I've only got
Speaker:30 seconds. I've only got 10 more
Speaker:seconds. And so it helps things. It helps
Speaker:with transitions. So timers are another
Speaker:thing. And they never talk about timers
Speaker:in the classroom, you know, anything.
Speaker:But it really does help with the
Speaker:transitions when they know they've only
Speaker:got X amount of time. And I know one
Speaker:teacher I saw do this years ago. And I
Speaker:can't do it. I know that I know the song.
Speaker:But I can't get the numbers to work in
Speaker:the song. I'm going to have to like
Speaker:channel her find her where she
Speaker:is so she can teach it to me.
Speaker:Because I only heard her do it once. But
Speaker:she has kids doing transitions, sing the
Speaker:numbers in the target language to the
Speaker:Happy Day song. One o'clock, two o'clock,
Speaker:three o'clock. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Who
Speaker:was that? That was a.
Speaker:This was 20 some years ago, I heard this
Speaker:teacher do this. And by the time they get
Speaker:to the end of that song, they have to be
Speaker:in the next activity, whatever it is. And
Speaker:it keeps the kids from talking with each
Speaker:other, which then slows them down. Right.
Speaker:So I thought that was genius, but I do
Speaker:not have the musical ability to to get
Speaker:the words to match up with the music. I
Speaker:need like a YouTube. I have to look it up
Speaker:after this. I'm running it down. Look up.
Speaker:See if there's a YouTube video because I
Speaker:play all my songs with YouTube.
Speaker:I'm trying to remember if I saw that in
Speaker:an like a regular elementary school
Speaker:teacher or a language teacher. Because
Speaker:I've certainly heard that before.
Speaker:It was a language teacher for me, and it
Speaker:was amazing. It was amazing. So that
Speaker:really, really helps. And just talking
Speaker:about that, having those procedures like
Speaker:my last school kids were too cool for
Speaker:school this year. The kids, I don't know
Speaker:if I'm just lucky. It's the first couple
Speaker:of days. But last year, the first couple
Speaker:of days were a disaster. So I don't know.
Speaker:Um, if it's what's different, but my kids
Speaker:actually saying on the first day, the
Speaker:first day they sang. So I was like, this
Speaker:is going to be a great year. But having
Speaker:said those procedures, because I make
Speaker:them stand and I got to set them up. You
Speaker:cannot lean. You can't you got to use
Speaker:your own two feet. You're not touching
Speaker:anybody else. You're not touching a desk.
Speaker:You're not propping yourself up on your
Speaker:chair. Nothing butts off
Speaker:the tables. Everything up.
Speaker:And if you don't set those expectations
Speaker:and follow through with those
Speaker:expectations, it can
Speaker:cause lots of problems.
Speaker:And you've got big classes this year. You
Speaker:were saying, yes, last couple of years,
Speaker:I've been lucky to have only a few kids
Speaker:in a class because I was at the queer and
Speaker:tech Academy. Um, so I didn't have large
Speaker:classes like my biggest classes like 15
Speaker:or 16, which has its problems to. It may
Speaker:sound luxurious, but it has. I mean, I
Speaker:had a class with only.
Speaker:3 students in it. Um, wow. And never had.
Speaker:And I had to beg because I originally had
Speaker:one student. I said, I cannot be in a
Speaker:classroom alone with the student every
Speaker:day. So you got at least give me 3
Speaker:because if one of them's absent, if
Speaker:there's 2, I'm back in that same problem.
Speaker:Because in California, we've been a law
Speaker:that you can't be alone in a classroom
Speaker:with a student. Oh, okay. And they were
Speaker:they were prepared to give you one
Speaker:student. They gave me one student. Yes.
Speaker:So that I like, I won't teach it.
Speaker:I will not be there. I am protecting
Speaker:myself. So they gave me 2 other students.
Speaker:So thank you for that. But, um, yes. So
Speaker:now I've got 36 to 38 kids in all my
Speaker:classes and it's mixed variety. And so,
Speaker:um, back to the big classes like I used
Speaker:to have before that.
Speaker:The numbers don't bother me as long as
Speaker:there's room in the classroom, it works
Speaker:fine for me. Yeah. Um, so setting up
Speaker:these routines and stuff are so very
Speaker:important and they just don't teach it.
Speaker:Now we're seeing more workshops about
Speaker:classroom management, but
Speaker:that never used to be a thing.
Speaker:That never was always about the new fun
Speaker:activity or new fun technique in whatever
Speaker:discipline. It was never about the
Speaker:discipline itself because it's just not
Speaker:it was not attractive.
Speaker:You know, and I have to remember that I
Speaker:teach middle school that even after we've
Speaker:practiced it and practiced it and
Speaker:practice it, we still need to practice it
Speaker:again later on. They're not. I can't
Speaker:assume they're going to remember unless
Speaker:we continue to practice
Speaker:it all year, not just.
Speaker:Hello, have you heard of a fire drill?
Speaker:How many times we practice that they
Speaker:practice it 4 or 5 times a year, every
Speaker:year for every year they're in school.
Speaker:They still need to practice.
Speaker:Yeah. Especially after a long break or a
Speaker:vacation or if you haven't used that
Speaker:procedure in a while,
Speaker:they need that practice.
Speaker:Well, and also they just need to know
Speaker:that it's important. Hey, we're
Speaker:practicing this because I want to teach
Speaker:you. I want you to be super smart. This
Speaker:is one of the tools we have. So you need
Speaker:to be invested in it. You need to
Speaker:understand why it's important because
Speaker:they want to take the path of least
Speaker:resistance. If they can talk to each
Speaker:other in English, they want to talk to
Speaker:each other in English,
Speaker:you know. So, so just
Speaker:just reminding them this is important.
Speaker:This is why we do it. That's
Speaker:part of the practice, I think.
Speaker:Yeah. And I will say, you know, one of
Speaker:the things that I have learned took me
Speaker:many years to realize it that you need to
Speaker:have a procedure for everything. So you
Speaker:need to go through your class and think,
Speaker:what am I going to ask students to do
Speaker:everything from walking into the
Speaker:classroom to learning?
Speaker:I'm not leaving at the bell or in my
Speaker:case, not leaving at the bell, leaving
Speaker:when I tell them to go. Thank you. I'm
Speaker:doing all of that so that you got to plan
Speaker:this out and you need to have a procedure
Speaker:for everything. But just because you have
Speaker:a procedure for everything, you do not
Speaker:have a procedure day where you go over
Speaker:every procedure that you have.
Speaker:Oh, that'd be insane. You just teach the
Speaker:person like if this procedure is not
Speaker:going to be used for six weeks, then
Speaker:don't teach it until the six weeks. Yeah.
Speaker:And as Stephanie has already told us, it
Speaker:has to be practiced and rehearsed
Speaker:regularly. You can't just tell them.
Speaker:And you can't just show them they
Speaker:actually have to do it. Like some people
Speaker:just show them before there's a fire
Speaker:drill the exit path. No, I got to
Speaker:actually show them where we're going.
Speaker:Let's go. Let's go do it ourselves. So we
Speaker:know where we're going, how we're getting
Speaker:there, what door we have to go through
Speaker:all of those steps along the
Speaker:way because muscle has memory.
Speaker:They have to actually physically do it.
Speaker:So we also have to plan our own
Speaker:procedures and our own. You need to think
Speaker:things out beforehand. Like, for example,
Speaker:what are you going to
Speaker:do when the phone rings?
Speaker:Yeah, you need to figure that out. And
Speaker:I've taught my kids when the phone rings,
Speaker:they get to do rock paper scissors with
Speaker:the person next to them until I'm done
Speaker:because otherwise I like
Speaker:that one. That's a good idea.
Speaker:And the interruptions and things like the
Speaker:one I need to work on this year is when
Speaker:students arrive late. I have two doors to
Speaker:my classroom. Oh, and they're on the same
Speaker:wall. They come in one and
Speaker:they leave through the end.
Speaker:And they're like, why do I have to leave
Speaker:with this one's closer? I'm like, this is
Speaker:just the procedure in case
Speaker:people would be coming that way.
Speaker:And it's like in restaurants, they make
Speaker:that a big deal. So the waiters don't
Speaker:don't crash into each other. And I
Speaker:explained that to them. And they're like,
Speaker:I mean, they're 1112. They don't they
Speaker:don't have that experience. But I always
Speaker:shut the indoor when it's time to start.
Speaker:So anybody who's late has to come in the
Speaker:outdoor. And it's like the walk of shame.
Speaker:But I don't like that they cross in front
Speaker:of everybody makes the disruption. So I
Speaker:think this year, my desks
Speaker:are in a squared off view.
Speaker:And they're pulled back from tables, I
Speaker:think they're gonna have to walk, train
Speaker:them to walk behind so that it's not
Speaker:across and everybody's watching them. But
Speaker:that's gonna be a tough one.
Speaker:Absolutely. And it's so true, you have to
Speaker:go through every day and think about
Speaker:everything that you ask your kids and
Speaker:then come up with a, a really succinct
Speaker:procedure. Bathrooms are my nightmare. I
Speaker:explained bathrooms to
Speaker:them on that first day.
Speaker:We have an app that the kids use. And
Speaker:it's a better app than we used to use in
Speaker:my old school, we had an app, my old
Speaker:school called e-haul pass. But that one
Speaker:the kids have to request the pass on
Speaker:their Chromebook, but you have to go to
Speaker:your Chromebook, and you
Speaker:have to accept it or deny it.
Speaker:No way.
Speaker:You're teaching too much
Speaker:of your precious first time.
Speaker:While you're teaching. So this new one is
Speaker:it's called Minga. And I don't have to
Speaker:accept the pass. So I gave them two step
Speaker:procedure because I cannot stand bathroom
Speaker:passes. They drive me crazy. I tell you,
Speaker:you got I did this in middle school to I
Speaker:will treat you like an adult until you
Speaker:prove to me that you are not.
Speaker:So nobody tells me when I go pee pee. I'm
Speaker:not going to tell you when you go pee
Speaker:pee. So if you need to go pee pee just
Speaker:know you're responsible for when you're
Speaker:what you miss when you go, you can't say
Speaker:well, I only have five minutes left for
Speaker:the quiz because I left so sorry you
Speaker:should have you knew you're having a quiz
Speaker:you should have waited.
Speaker:But I don't like the hand up. Can I go to
Speaker:the bathroom because that's an
Speaker:interruption. And I don't like the little
Speaker:cross the fingers and like that so
Speaker:elementary and I didn't know the first
Speaker:like few years. What the heck are you
Speaker:doing? What are you doing? I don't know.
Speaker:So I'm like, just get up, get your
Speaker:computer, sign out with Minga. And I say
Speaker:Minga let you go, you can go. Because
Speaker:Minga puts a restriction they have so
Speaker:many passes a day they can use. They have
Speaker:if they have a bathroom buddy I go if you
Speaker:have a pee pee buddy, and the school
Speaker:knows about it because you guys keep
Speaker:going pee pee together at the same time,
Speaker:it will block you. So you can't go pee
Speaker:pee with your pee pee partner. It won't
Speaker:let you it'll say no.
Speaker:Your pee pee partner. Yeah, that's why I
Speaker:call it I make I embarrass them all over
Speaker:the place. I go pee pee partner. I go I
Speaker:want you to enjoy the go. But we need to
Speaker:find a way to do this. So you go into
Speaker:Minga, you put in there if there's
Speaker:already somebody in class Minga will not
Speaker:let you go either someone in the same
Speaker:class is already out.
Speaker:They have to turn their computer around
Speaker:so I can see that the timer is going. So
Speaker:I don't have to open my screen to the
Speaker:Minga to see that it kids actually out. I
Speaker:say just go Minga says you can go go.
Speaker:Remember you have less than 15 minutes
Speaker:that 15 minutes the school automatically.
Speaker:That's a long time.
Speaker:It is a long time but no I'm saying
Speaker:they're supposed to be that way before
Speaker:that but at 15 minutes automatically. It
Speaker:alerts the administration. A phone call
Speaker:goes home to parents, and they're Mark
Speaker:truant for the class.
Speaker:Okay, automatically so I warn them right
Speaker:off the bat that that will happen. So if
Speaker:you and I said and I use a kid last year,
Speaker:I had a student named Junior, and he was
Speaker:all about his body he was he didn't care
Speaker:he shared everything with us.
Speaker:And he goes, and my old school we had the
Speaker:communal bathrooms like we had a regular
Speaker:bathrooms but we also had some private
Speaker:bathrooms. And he goes, profane I'm about
Speaker:to blow up the toilet. I'm gonna need
Speaker:about 20 minutes. I need to go to the
Speaker:private bathroom to be alone.
Speaker:And he goes, I feel sorry for us to come
Speaker:in after me. And I knew he was going to
Speaker:be gone for a long time. So I wouldn't
Speaker:send the cavalry after them so I told him
Speaker:and I said, if you start to abuse it your
Speaker:PP then I have to go talk to your parents
Speaker:but your PP problem, and then you have to
Speaker:go to the PP doctor.
Speaker:So I went through but the kids are all
Speaker:laughing because this is high school and
Speaker:I'm calling it PP and PP partners and
Speaker:enjoy the go and wash your hands. So I'm
Speaker:giving them all that but that's a
Speaker:procedure that I worked out right away.
Speaker:Don't ask me, get your Chromebook out,
Speaker:put your pass in. If it says you can go,
Speaker:you can go flip your
Speaker:computer around, go come back.
Speaker:So what if you don't have a system like
Speaker:we don't have that. We don't have a
Speaker:computer system and in my class the
Speaker:students computer is under their chair
Speaker:until we're using it
Speaker:like, do you have to sign out.
Speaker:I used to have them sign out before we
Speaker:had this. So what I did was, they know
Speaker:the computer has to be put away. And you
Speaker:can't bring it out unless I tell you the
Speaker:only exception is the bathroom pass.
Speaker:That's the only exception.
Speaker:So before I did this, I made a Google
Speaker:form. So they would have to go on their
Speaker:computer and fill out I had it was like a
Speaker:short code like a bitly code bathroom,
Speaker:something like that pro face bathroom
Speaker:something like that, they would sign in,
Speaker:they just fill out the
Speaker:pass with their name.
Speaker:And then done. They didn't have to look
Speaker:at the clock and figure out the time
Speaker:because Google would give me the actual
Speaker:time. So that worked. So that worked
Speaker:really, really well. For that before I
Speaker:did the Google, I used to have them sign
Speaker:out and piece of paper to do that.
Speaker:So I had to go to the Google form and
Speaker:then Google form will give you a
Speaker:spreadsheet so administration arrest who
Speaker:is out at 12 42 on Thursday, I can just
Speaker:open my spreadsheet, find Thursday at
Speaker:that time and give them the kids.
Speaker:Okay, the time stamps pretty cool. Now
Speaker:for me, I want my students asking me to
Speaker:go to the bathroom because a couple
Speaker:things. First of all, I'm out in a
Speaker:portable very far
Speaker:away from the bathrooms.
Speaker:If there's a fire drill or something, I,
Speaker:I need to know where the kids are and
Speaker:everything. So I'm insistent. I know your
Speaker:other teachers guys, your other teachers
Speaker:say get up and go, you cannot do that out
Speaker:here in a portable where
Speaker:we're far away from everyone.
Speaker:You have a portable a lot of no, no, no,
Speaker:I get jealous of the elementary school
Speaker:next door because they
Speaker:have portables with bathrooms.
Speaker:No, you don't want to be that close to
Speaker:the bathroom, believe me. And I don't
Speaker:think your school likes you very much.
Speaker:They pile all these kids on
Speaker:you. They put you in the back.
Speaker:I know I'm so far away. Um, so I am so
Speaker:insistent on day one, kids, you are going
Speaker:to learn to ask how to say, can I go to
Speaker:the bathroom in the target language?
Speaker:Because I call back to
Speaker:that all the darn time.
Speaker:I have a rule that as long as my students
Speaker:are talking in the target language, they
Speaker:can talk me into stuff. Okay. So like
Speaker:when my, I don't know, my French students
Speaker:there, they'll be like, um,
Speaker:oh, can we play bull today?
Speaker:And I'm like,
Speaker:I should have called upon on gray, you
Speaker:know, I don't have to figure it out. Oh,
Speaker:okay. I know how to say, can I go to the
Speaker:bathroom? I know, Eska is how to start a
Speaker:question. I know, is, can I? Um, okay.
Speaker:All a is to go how it's to play. Oh yeah,
Speaker:that's Jewish. So they can construct the
Speaker:sentence and we're calling back to that
Speaker:sentence all the darn time.
Speaker:So I think, I think teaching the
Speaker:students, uh, Puedo, uh, the, the te form
Speaker:in Japanese, that is like, that saves me
Speaker:so much heartache throughout the year
Speaker:because they can already
Speaker:make those, those requests.
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah. For me, I just don't
Speaker:like the, the interruptions because when
Speaker:they raise their hand, I think even they
Speaker:have an excellent question or they got an
Speaker:excellent answer to the
Speaker:question that I asked.
Speaker:And then when I get, can I go to the
Speaker:bathroom that just destroys the whole
Speaker:momentum? And I feel my whole life is a
Speaker:failure because, but then I bring it into
Speaker:the lesson. And you know, now we're
Speaker:talking about the ability, you know, I
Speaker:know I, it's just the bathroom is my bait
Speaker:in my existence. So I
Speaker:teach that one right away.
Speaker:I don't want you to ask me, please do not
Speaker:ask me to go to the
Speaker:bathroom. Do not ask me to go.
Speaker:Maybe this is one of the reasons that
Speaker:nobody ever teaches classroom management
Speaker:because a lot of it is going to depend on
Speaker:your personality and a lot of it's going
Speaker:to depend on your
Speaker:location in the building.
Speaker:You know, Stephanie's got two doors in
Speaker:her room, which sounds
Speaker:kind of cool actually.
Speaker:I used to have two
Speaker:doors years ago. Really?
Speaker:Also when I do running dictation, when I
Speaker:do running dictation,
Speaker:indoor, outdoor, indoor.
Speaker:Yeah. Oh my gosh. That would help. So,
Speaker:cause my, my last rule for running
Speaker:dictation is don't
Speaker:trip. Don't kill each other.
Speaker:Well, that's going to suck for me this
Speaker:year. I didn't think about it. I, in the
Speaker:past I had big windows that were, you
Speaker:know, eye level and I would put the
Speaker:things reverse from
Speaker:the inside of the window.
Speaker:But now my windows are like eight feet
Speaker:up. So there's no way the kid can see
Speaker:them. And the walls are
Speaker:like, um, stucco and concrete.
Speaker:So there's not a way that I can, um, the
Speaker:inside walls, they were really smart. My
Speaker:classroom is inside. It's all, um, tack
Speaker:board. The indoor
Speaker:walls are all tack board.
Speaker:Every wall is tack board. So you just put
Speaker:a thumb tack in, you know, nice and neat.
Speaker:Um, but the outside it's a building.
Speaker:So, um, because we don't have halls. We
Speaker:can, when we, in California, when you go
Speaker:outside, you are outside in the sky. So,
Speaker:um, I don't have a place really to hang
Speaker:anything up there. I'm going to have to
Speaker:find some other
Speaker:mischievous way to figure that out.
Speaker:I don't know. I'll have to figure
Speaker:something out with that.
Speaker:But, um, because I do also, um, I play a
Speaker:game with a scavenger hunt from a novel
Speaker:where they'll have to, or a story that we
Speaker:read where I'll give like
Speaker:10 statements from the story.
Speaker:They have to first find all 10, get a
Speaker:picture of them with their phones. So
Speaker:they have them. And then they have to
Speaker:come back as a group.
Speaker:Yeah. I let it, I let it for this
Speaker:activity. Only for this activity. Then
Speaker:they come back because it takes too much
Speaker:time for them to copy, to copy down the
Speaker:phrase. Then they come back as a group.
Speaker:Phones are away now.
Speaker:And they've got to, um, come up with the
Speaker:right order of the sentences. So they
Speaker:liked that little bit of a game. It's
Speaker:kind of a little fun game. And I used to
Speaker:hide little sentences everywhere.
Speaker:Not to find out new places when I do this
Speaker:one, but it was, it's a fun little
Speaker:activity. What are some other procedures
Speaker:that we don't think about that we need to
Speaker:incorporate in class
Speaker:or that you incorporate?
Speaker:Okay. So first thing I'm going to say is
Speaker:when I'm playing a game that the students
Speaker:haven't played before, I give those
Speaker:instructions in English
Speaker:because I want them to understand.
Speaker:But when we're doing a procedure by
Speaker:golly, those instructions are always,
Speaker:always, always in the target language.
Speaker:Okay. Because as soon as the students
Speaker:have internalized what those instructions
Speaker:mean, then we can use them as
Speaker:springboards to other things. Okay.
Speaker:Oh, you, you already know how to say, um,
Speaker:uh, Toma in Pisa don Blanco, you know the
Speaker:word for to take what is to take. Okay,
Speaker:great. Um, so all that is, is like baked
Speaker:into it. So that's the very first thing
Speaker:I'll say procedurally.
Speaker:Um, the second thing is like, just like
Speaker:Stephanie was saying, you've got to
Speaker:predict, you've got to think about your
Speaker:whole day. Where are the students going
Speaker:to get tripped up? Okay, so that's your
Speaker:prediction. If you know where the
Speaker:students are going to get tripped up, you
Speaker:can build in your scaffolding for it.
Speaker:Um, before the students even enter the
Speaker:classroom. So I'd say that's number two,
Speaker:number three, because, um, Scott and I
Speaker:were talking about, I think this was
Speaker:before, um, before we started
Speaker:broadcasting today, we were talking about
Speaker:how flexibility is the name of the game.
Speaker:You have got to be flexible.
Speaker:Things are going to turn south. So one of
Speaker:my routines is I have a giant inbox full
Speaker:of scrap paper and I've taken, you know,
Speaker:like I go into the copy room and somebody
Speaker:printed their math thing wrong and
Speaker:they're about to throw it
Speaker:away. I'm like, I'll take that.
Speaker:And I just slice it in half. So I've got
Speaker:little half sheets of paper. That's the
Speaker:scrap paper. Something goes wrong. It's
Speaker:going to go wrong. I can say, um, plenty
Speaker:on, on foil, poppy, a, uh, cameo.
Speaker:I thought they could decide, go grab a
Speaker:sheet of paper and then I can do
Speaker:something else. I can say we're going to
Speaker:do a draw label caption. We're going to
Speaker:do a before, during, after we're going to
Speaker:do a, um, I don't know, a project Harvard
Speaker:project zero plus one routine, something
Speaker:with the paper to refocus the kids.
Speaker:And I think, I call that bailout
Speaker:activities. You need to have a
Speaker:couple of bailout activities.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Mine are already set up and like you
Speaker:said, photocopies cut, they're ready to
Speaker:go. I have a true and false, uh, true and
Speaker:false. Um, two truths and a lie.
Speaker:Um, it is, um, a drawing one and a fast
Speaker:five, which is a, they come up with a
Speaker:question and they have
Speaker:to go talk to five people.
Speaker:Um, but those are my bailout and it has
Speaker:to be about whatever topic we're in.
Speaker:Like, so if the computer does much, does
Speaker:its thing, I'm like, okay, that's five.
Speaker:And they just, they just know what to do.
Speaker:And if my lesson is really, really
Speaker:taking, I have them practice their
Speaker:letters and numbers in battleship. That's
Speaker:like, you know, I
Speaker:think I have set up. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. I have a lot of games that I go to,
Speaker:um, my, uh, fail safe that I always have.
Speaker:And it works for no matter what we did
Speaker:that day is the pencil game, you know,
Speaker:where you ask true and
Speaker:false questions about it.
Speaker:And if it's, um, false, you're supposed
Speaker:to grab the pencil, be the one who has
Speaker:the pencil grab. So I can do that about
Speaker:whatever we did that class. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:It's, um, I can do it really quick. And
Speaker:so if I run out of time or something, I
Speaker:always have that. Um, I, I pre-make a
Speaker:whole lot of look at and gim kit games.
Speaker:So those are ready to go when I need to.
Speaker:I don't have to like create one. And for
Speaker:those of you, I know I'm getting, here's
Speaker:the AI King member. Don't have it create
Speaker:content for you, but
Speaker:have it be your assistant.
Speaker:But what you can do is you can upload a
Speaker:book at template. The one that the book,
Speaker:it has or upload the gim kit template to
Speaker:the AI and then give it a list of words.
Speaker:You don't even have to have the
Speaker:translations and put those in there and
Speaker:say, make a book it out of this. And it
Speaker:will give you the book at file that you
Speaker:just upload straight to it. And it saves
Speaker:you a ton of time. You don't have to come
Speaker:up with a Kahoot. You have to come up
Speaker:with all the other
Speaker:choices that are in there.
Speaker:It will do it automatically for you. If
Speaker:you already have a Kahoot and you want to
Speaker:make it a book, it, you can download the
Speaker:Kahoot and tell AI to swap it over to a
Speaker:book it and it will do it. So it saves a
Speaker:heck of a lot of time to prepare those.
Speaker:So I make a whole bunch of those. So I
Speaker:have them ready to go whenever we need
Speaker:them. That really, really does help.
Speaker:It really does. At this point, you could
Speaker:probably just search BlueKit and find,
Speaker:find things already made. There's a lot
Speaker:of them there. You can, but lots of times
Speaker:I find that they're either not in depth
Speaker:or it's not easy. Like the vocabulary
Speaker:that my kids are used to or something. So
Speaker:sometimes I'll, if I plan ahead, I'll
Speaker:steal something like numbers. I've never
Speaker:made a number one. I steal their numbers
Speaker:and then I edit it because, you know, you
Speaker:have this number or something like that.
Speaker:But like at the last minute spur of the
Speaker:moment, I don't do a search because I
Speaker:don't know what that's going to contain
Speaker:inside of it. So I want to be able to
Speaker:have time to preview it and know what's
Speaker:going. So I like to make mine in advance.
Speaker:But if I know that we're going to be
Speaker:doing numbers, I'll make sure during my
Speaker:planning time, I have a little, in my
Speaker:to-do list, I have a little subtask that
Speaker:says games. Look for the games I'm going
Speaker:to need for that and make sure that I
Speaker:have everything ready to go.
Speaker:So that, and I'll do that research if I'm
Speaker:going to find one that someone else did.
Speaker:I do, I do steal a lot from novels.
Speaker:There's a lot of bookets and gimp kits
Speaker:that have novel questions about a novel
Speaker:that you're reading, but I'll go through
Speaker:and I'll read through and go, oh, that's
Speaker:not a really important question. Let's
Speaker:get rid of that one. Or I don't like that
Speaker:question. Or, or I want to add this
Speaker:question in there, but at least I have
Speaker:something to start with, which saves me a
Speaker:heck of a lot of time.
Speaker:Yeah, that's what I do. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'd say another, another important
Speaker:classroom management thing is to think
Speaker:about your logistics. Where are things
Speaker:located in your classroom? It took me a
Speaker:couple of years before I realized now, I
Speaker:think the very best thing I ever bought
Speaker:with PTSA money was my mini whiteboard.
Speaker:That like, I can use those for anything.
Speaker:Oh, something's going south. Guys go grab
Speaker:a mini whiteboard, you know? Um, but it
Speaker:took me, it took me a good three years
Speaker:before I realized, oh, there's a long
Speaker:line to get the mini whiteboards. I
Speaker:should have two stations of mini
Speaker:whiteboards in my room.
Speaker:So just thinking about like, where are
Speaker:the bottlenecks? Where do things slow
Speaker:down? Where's the transition? Like, why
Speaker:is the transition taking five minutes
Speaker:when it should really only take 30
Speaker:seconds? So in that you can really only
Speaker:decide when you want to.
Speaker:You are in your space and looking around
Speaker:at your space and thinking about how
Speaker:people are moving around in it. Ingress,
Speaker:egress. Um, yeah. Another thing I did was
Speaker:really smart. I don't know why they
Speaker:never, again, never tell you this.
Speaker:Put your garbage can by the door. By the
Speaker:door. Yep. Because I say they go, I got a
Speaker:close way. No, you don't. Just save it as
Speaker:you walk out the door. It's conveniently
Speaker:located right as you go out the door.
Speaker:Uh-huh. You know, it works. I mean, who
Speaker:would have thought putting the garbage
Speaker:can by the door, but that works a lot.
Speaker:That's where my passion basket is as
Speaker:well. Because they're going out that
Speaker:door. Uh-huh. They can turn it in right
Speaker:there. Yep, absolutely.
Speaker:I have all my, I have eight baskets. So
Speaker:they're all in the back of the room. I
Speaker:can't go and just have one. I have them
Speaker:color coded for class.
Speaker:Um, I, uh, I found these tiny, they're
Speaker:adorable. They're little, um, garbage
Speaker:cans. They're like, I don't know, they're
Speaker:for Barbies or something. I found them at
Speaker:the dollar store. I guess it's not a
Speaker:dollar store anymore. It's a
Speaker:dollar fifty store or whatever.
Speaker:And when I took the deep dive into
Speaker:interactive notebooks, which I'm really
Speaker:enjoying, I was like, oh, their kids are
Speaker:going to be cutting out a lot of stuff
Speaker:and then they're going to be getting up
Speaker:and going to the garbage can.
Speaker:So I got these little trash cans and I'm
Speaker:like, they're only for paper guys. Don't
Speaker:try to stick your chewing gum in there.
Speaker:Um, and so they're on each of the table
Speaker:groups so that the kids don't have to get
Speaker:up and go throw things away.
Speaker:That's a good idea too. Again, thinking
Speaker:everything that you're doing in your
Speaker:classroom, thinking it all through and
Speaker:what would make things go smoother. And
Speaker:to be honest, before you actually do it,
Speaker:you're not going to remember or think
Speaker:about everything they do.
Speaker:So then make a note at the end of class,
Speaker:this didn't go so well. How can I fix it?
Speaker:What can I do to make this go smoother?
Speaker:Like realizing that you need to have two
Speaker:piles of mini whiteboards to make
Speaker:it more efficient. You didn't think about
Speaker:that when you didn't because you didn't
Speaker:see it actually happen until it actually
Speaker:happened. You go, wait, yeah, that
Speaker:procedure that I thought through and
Speaker:thought was marvelous at the time.
Speaker:It's not anymore. It's not actually
Speaker:functional. So we need to adapt it. And
Speaker:so feel free to change them if what you
Speaker:were doing doesn't work.
Speaker:Right. And Scott, I'm glad you brought it
Speaker:back to that reflection piece, which I
Speaker:think we do not talk about enough. No, we
Speaker:do not talk about that. Okay, so we got
Speaker:our prediction before
Speaker:the class goes in walks in.
Speaker:We are predicting how the lesson is going
Speaker:to go. Where do we think there's going to
Speaker:be hiccups? And then afterwards, we have
Speaker:to reflect on it. Did it work or did it
Speaker:not work? Where can I tweak it?
Speaker:Those two things together help you so
Speaker:much for the really tense stuff about in
Speaker:the middle when you're actually teaching.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And I forgot to mention
Speaker:this before, but you talked about
Speaker:interruptions. I
Speaker:think it was I don't know.
Speaker:I think it was Stephanie who mentioned
Speaker:about the getting the phone call or
Speaker:whatever. I love the idea of the rock,
Speaker:paper, scissors. But what I do for a
Speaker:little longer, like if the principal
Speaker:comes in, wants to talk to me or another
Speaker:teacher comes in, wants to talk to me.
Speaker:It's going to be a minute or two. I train
Speaker:my kids that if I leave the room for
Speaker:whatever, I'll be off the door. I'm not
Speaker:like going down the hall or anything.
Speaker:It's right outside the door. They to go
Speaker:back and get the silent reading books.
Speaker:And they pull out the book to read. So
Speaker:they know that's their training right
Speaker:there. Now for a phone call, that's a lot
Speaker:shorter. So I like that rock, paper,
Speaker:scissors one. But usually when I have to
Speaker:walk out and talk to an administrator or
Speaker:a teacher comes in for something, it's
Speaker:usually a two, three, maybe four minute
Speaker:kind of a thing. It's not as quick of an
Speaker:interaction. Otherwise, they would have
Speaker:just called or send an email. So they're
Speaker:trying to go right away. So planning
Speaker:those interruptions that you get and
Speaker:having the kids do something because if
Speaker:you don't, that's another thing they tell
Speaker:you with dog training. Again, I'm
Speaker:comparing with dogs. Don't just tell them
Speaker:no, they can't do it.
Speaker:You have to give them some alternative to
Speaker:put that energy into. So you can't just
Speaker:tell them we're stopping class, wait,
Speaker:because they're not they're going to mind
Speaker:you're going to go into all kinds of
Speaker:things. Paper airplanes are going to be
Speaker:flying, they're going to be wrestling,
Speaker:you know, all kinds of stuff is going to
Speaker:be horseplay is going to be happening.
Speaker:But if you give them something to do
Speaker:something concrete, I leave the room, you
Speaker:go back, you get your
Speaker:silent reading book and you read.
Speaker:Period. That's what we do. That's our
Speaker:thing. And for those who don't want to
Speaker:read span, if they've got a reading book
Speaker:in English, they I don't care during that
Speaker:time. It's not my normal silent reading
Speaker:time. So I just want you to read a book.
Speaker:So if you've already got a book that
Speaker:you've got to read for English class,
Speaker:make the time at least somewhat
Speaker:productive for you so that you're using
Speaker:that time. That's fine for me. But we're
Speaker:not getting out homework. We're not
Speaker:getting out because that's a lot more
Speaker:involved. And then when I come back, it's
Speaker:not easy. It's not just
Speaker:closing a book and putting it in.
Speaker:Putting it away is I got to put the
Speaker:pencil away. I've got to put the, you
Speaker:know, all the other stuff that I brought
Speaker:out to do it, my calculator. So I don't
Speaker:let them do work. But that is something
Speaker:to think about. It's and you may have to
Speaker:go through a few cycles of classes to
Speaker:also go, oh, I need a procedure for that.
Speaker:Ooh, I need a procedure for that. Ooh, I
Speaker:need a procedure for that. But it is so
Speaker:important. And then what I do, because
Speaker:I'm in my personal life, I am not
Speaker:organized at all. Do not know.
Speaker:I'm not organized. I use all my
Speaker:organization schools, skills at school.
Speaker:But I have a Google slide deck of all of
Speaker:my procedures. Whole deck, all of them.
Speaker:So then all I have to do is find the one
Speaker:I need for that day that I'm teaching and
Speaker:copy and paste that
Speaker:slide into my current lesson.
Speaker:I have the same thing. And I actually
Speaker:have laminated cards when for certain
Speaker:expectations, like when we're making
Speaker:parallel lines, what that looks like in
Speaker:our room. And I, you know, I hold it up
Speaker:as I'm giving the directions because, you
Speaker:know, I know what a parallel line is. But
Speaker:sometimes they don't. Or if the class is
Speaker:big, you know, we can't just do one
Speaker:parallel line. This is
Speaker:what it should look like.
Speaker:And I find having those are helpful too
Speaker:with procedures and
Speaker:heading down transition time.
Speaker:Absolutely. Another thing for transition
Speaker:time we were talking about is timers, but
Speaker:giving them timers to also you have to be
Speaker:done with your transition
Speaker:by the end of that time.
Speaker:So give them that 10 seconds or that and
Speaker:they need to see the timer displayed so
Speaker:they can see exactly how one teacher told
Speaker:me not teacher. My administrator told me
Speaker:he was evaluating me. He goes, I've never
Speaker:seen someone have such
Speaker:smooth transitions as you.
Speaker:And I'm like, I never even thought about
Speaker:it. I just expect my kids to be with me.
Speaker:That was the thing. It was just the
Speaker:expectations that we're moving on and you
Speaker:better be moving. You're either coming
Speaker:with us on the train or you're being left
Speaker:behind at the station.
Speaker:So that they, my kids learned that plus
Speaker:having a routine that we're doing this in
Speaker:a certain pattern. They know that we
Speaker:start with a warm up.
Speaker:Then we have an inspiration.
Speaker:Then we do the morphine. Then we do the
Speaker:song of the week. And then, you know, we
Speaker:go to calendar talk. They know all of
Speaker:these. So they're also expecting if you
Speaker:do something randomly every day and they
Speaker:don't know a pattern
Speaker:that's going through.
Speaker:That's where a lot of problems are going
Speaker:to happen as well because they're
Speaker:scrambling every day. It's like the first
Speaker:day of class every day. And that makes it
Speaker:really difficult for them to learn.
Speaker:And you say that, well, routines are
Speaker:boring. Not a routine is not boring. Dogs
Speaker:look for routines. Kids look for
Speaker:routines. It's stability. It's what you
Speaker:do in those routines
Speaker:that can either break it.
Speaker:So we have a game time. They know the
Speaker:game time is coming. They just don't know
Speaker:what game it is. They just know in this
Speaker:slot, a game or a brain
Speaker:break is going to happen.
Speaker:It should never be the same thing all the
Speaker:time. But the routines are
Speaker:there to give you structure.
Speaker:Yeah, the order, the structure of it. And
Speaker:I don't have a like Mondays are
Speaker:conversation day. So it's not we have the
Speaker:main event. That's a conversation on
Speaker:Tuesday. It's a story. So it's not like
Speaker:every day is exactly the same. But the
Speaker:pieces are all there.
Speaker:Just like a meal, I think of it like I
Speaker:like I said, the main event, the main
Speaker:meal. Every meal has a plate, a glass,
Speaker:silverware, napkin. There's a certain
Speaker:order to it. But what's on the plate is
Speaker:different every time.
Speaker:But if you're expecting a fork and a
Speaker:knife and you get a spoon and you're
Speaker:like, what, how am I going to eat this
Speaker:with a spoon that disrupts the whole
Speaker:routine. So you've got to think through
Speaker:it a little bit more when you do that.
Speaker:And I think this took me a while to
Speaker:figure this out. And like I said, I was a
Speaker:mentor, a lot of people and I tell them
Speaker:you need a routine to save your own
Speaker:sanity. I mean, it's going to cut our
Speaker:prep time down so much. We know.
Speaker:Oh, I've got calendar talk here. I better
Speaker:be ready with the holiday. Oh, I've got
Speaker:my TPRS story. I'd better be with a TPRS
Speaker:story, whatever it's going to be. And so
Speaker:now I don't have to think as hard.
Speaker:I just need to plug in what what is going
Speaker:to help them with whatever cohesive
Speaker:decision I made about the unit.
Speaker:And thank you for saying that because
Speaker:planning is a big thing. So I call my
Speaker:shells. I have, you know, a shell for
Speaker:every week of school. So I know this is
Speaker:my first song I'm going to be teaching
Speaker:that covers weeks one and two.
Speaker:This is my next song. That's weeks three
Speaker:and four. I have all those routine things
Speaker:are already put in my slide decks. So
Speaker:they're all ready to go.
Speaker:What I plan each week is what the meat
Speaker:and potatoes is. And that goes in the
Speaker:middle part of my lesson. So I mean, I
Speaker:already have the games planned out that I
Speaker:want to do because the
Speaker:games can be used for any topic.
Speaker:It doesn't matter. But this way, making
Speaker:sure that I'm not doing the same game all
Speaker:the time and I give one week, one day a
Speaker:week, I give student choice game.
Speaker:They get to choose from one of the games
Speaker:that we've done and they can choose so
Speaker:they get some choice,
Speaker:voice and choice in that.
Speaker:But I have my lesson plans. I can do them
Speaker:months in advance. The shells just all
Speaker:that routine stuff. And then all I've got
Speaker:to spend my time on is the actual
Speaker:specific activities that are different
Speaker:that we're going to do.
Speaker:So I already know my more themes. I'm
Speaker:going to do for the 40 weeks. I already
Speaker:know them. So why not already put them in
Speaker:the slide deck so they're all ready to
Speaker:go. I don't have to think
Speaker:about it after the fact.
Speaker:And so that really makes it makes a big
Speaker:deal for me to make that easy. And so
Speaker:thank you for saying that. That's a
Speaker:really good point. It does save time on
Speaker:planning than having to come up and
Speaker:recreate the wheel every single week.
Speaker:I call it having my top 10. I have when I
Speaker:do calendar talk, I have 10 ways that I
Speaker:do it. And I just kind of rotate them
Speaker:through. And when I say 10, they're not
Speaker:all 10 different. It's really three that
Speaker:I've come up with
Speaker:alternative ways to do those three.
Speaker:So it just shakes it up a little bit. And
Speaker:I don't keep adding games and games and
Speaker:games. I just narrowed it down to the
Speaker:ones that work with everything. You know,
Speaker:you do one with a class and you're like,
Speaker:ooh, this class can never ever handle
Speaker:this game again. But sticking to those
Speaker:similar things, that's
Speaker:also a routine for them.
Speaker:And it saves time, the cognitive load for
Speaker:them, saves time giving directions. But I
Speaker:think pre-planning certain things like
Speaker:that is really to your benefit. What are
Speaker:you going to do when
Speaker:somebody throws up in the room?
Speaker:Like having, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker:just a few little things thought out
Speaker:beforehand, or how the shell of your
Speaker:lesson is going to go is important.
Speaker:Yep. We've all been talking about
Speaker:calendar talk for a few moments. So I
Speaker:have not ordered this book yet, but it's
Speaker:on my list to order by Rebecca Moulton. I
Speaker:know Rebecca, she's
Speaker:an incredible teacher.
Speaker:Yeah, I have it on my list too.
Speaker:Teachers Discovery. So it's on Teachers
Speaker:Discovery. Here is a quick link that I
Speaker:just made for you. Mm.us.calendartalk.
Speaker:I'll also put it in the show notes so
Speaker:that you can go and get it. It's 25
Speaker:bucks. They also have a
Speaker:digital version. So get it.
Speaker:It'll give you some ideas because my
Speaker:calendar talk, I need some ideas. Mine
Speaker:gets stale and boring. It does. So I need
Speaker:ideas. And so I'm looking forward to
Speaker:getting this book. It's just been on my
Speaker:place. I haven't thought about it yet.
Speaker:New school, new kids, new textbook. I'm
Speaker:just trying to get my, just to survive
Speaker:right now. So I'll be getting that
Speaker:shortly. And have time to digest it. But
Speaker:it's so important that we share these
Speaker:resources when we can find them.
Speaker:You know, like we're always told novelty,
Speaker:you know, is where it's at. But you just
Speaker:need to have novelty to a routine.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, that's
Speaker:exactly it. You need to have a routine.
Speaker:And they know what's, it's a, this, it's
Speaker:like the warm up comes up first, then
Speaker:this comes up. But what you do in that,
Speaker:what that warm up is, or what that
Speaker:reading will be like, will it be a novel?
Speaker:Will it be a kid story? Will it be a
Speaker:story about what we did in class? That's
Speaker:all what's going to change. And that's
Speaker:where you put the novelty in. But the
Speaker:routine is there. Like, example again
Speaker:with a dog. I'm so
Speaker:sorry, but that's what I have.
Speaker:They say take your dog. My dog knows
Speaker:we're going to go for a walk every
Speaker:morning. But if we go on the same route
Speaker:every day, they get eventually get bored.
Speaker:Like it's always more exciting. I'll go
Speaker:and repeat a route after a rain.
Speaker:Because a rain changes all the smells for
Speaker:the dog. And it's all brand new again. So
Speaker:she knows she's going on a walk, but she
Speaker:doesn't know where she's going to go on
Speaker:that walk. So we could turn that we can
Speaker:make a left down the street instead of
Speaker:making a right down that street.
Speaker:So that's where the variation, the
Speaker:novelty comes in. They know we're going
Speaker:to do a song. They don't know what song
Speaker:we're going to do. They know
Speaker:we're going to do a reading.
Speaker:And then you can do it yourself as well
Speaker:with, okay, this is how I'm doing my
Speaker:weekend chat on Friday. I'm going to
Speaker:repeat that same type for what did we do
Speaker:over the weekend on the next Monday.
Speaker:You know, just again, having a routine
Speaker:like that. And then the kids know, oh, on
Speaker:Friday, when we talked about what we were
Speaker:going to do, we wrote them on sticky
Speaker:notes. And then we put them under five
Speaker:categories on the board.
Speaker:They know that that's what's going to be
Speaker:about, you know, for the weekend. So what
Speaker:we did over the weekend, but just again,
Speaker:having those core and alternative ways to
Speaker:deliver those core routines is what's
Speaker:going to save your sanity.
Speaker:And just to point out, absolutely,
Speaker:excellent idea, Stephanie, because both
Speaker:for the IB and the AP exam, what is
Speaker:really important to them and where you're
Speaker:going to get the higher scores off of a
Speaker:three is if you can control the three
Speaker:main timeframes present, past and future.
Speaker:And they don't specify that you have to
Speaker:use the future tense per se. It just has
Speaker:to be the expression of future. So the
Speaker:I'm going to for languages that have that
Speaker:is fine. That counts. Yeah. And it
Speaker:counts. And you need to practice it.
Speaker:So doing that I'm going to do this
Speaker:weekend and then coming back on Monday, I
Speaker:did this weekend is a great way to do
Speaker:that. And you can start because AP and IB
Speaker:is never a one year class. It is a four
Speaker:year class. It just takes, you know, it
Speaker:takes four years to get there.
Speaker:It takes that time. Yeah. And so you
Speaker:start with that if you expose them to
Speaker:that. And I'm not assessing them on the
Speaker:future or the past and level one, but I'm
Speaker:exposing it to them so that it's
Speaker:something that's familiar.
Speaker:And then when it's actually taught and
Speaker:assessed, they're like, Oh, yeah, I
Speaker:remember that, that kind of a thing. So I
Speaker:think that's a really good routine to get
Speaker:your kids into and get them used to
Speaker:because now level one is all about the
Speaker:present tense for most textbooks.
Speaker:You've got that solid working on, but now
Speaker:you're adding past and present. So you're
Speaker:building them up for success in those
Speaker:upper level classes because AP and IB and
Speaker:Pamela just went through
Speaker:the AP training so she can.
Speaker:I just went through AP training. Yeah.
Speaker:They're not looking for that. They're
Speaker:using the advanced uses of the
Speaker:subjunctive. That is not something that
Speaker:they're necessarily looking for or that
Speaker:they can use the past perfect right.
Speaker:They're not looking at those type of
Speaker:things. They're looking at, can you
Speaker:control the time, present, past and
Speaker:future? Yeah. And then Stephanie also
Speaker:touched on cognitive demand, which is
Speaker:another reason, like for us, the routines
Speaker:help our planning so much.
Speaker:But for the kids also learning another
Speaker:language is a huge cognitive demand. And
Speaker:so if they're also thinking about, Oh,
Speaker:wait, what's the logistics of this thing
Speaker:I'm doing? Suddenly, they can't stay in
Speaker:the target language as easily.
Speaker:So the routines will also help your
Speaker:students. Absolutely. Don't don't shy off
Speaker:of routines. I shouldn't be thinking
Speaker:about it's like in an emergency on a
Speaker:plane, you practice it
Speaker:every time you get on a plane.
Speaker:If you're a frequent flyer, you know it
Speaker:by heart. You know exactly what they're
Speaker:going to say before they say it. But
Speaker:knowing that because the cognitive load
Speaker:during an actual emergency is so heavy,
Speaker:you don't want to have to think.
Speaker:So what are the steps again? You want it
Speaker:to be instinct. And it's the same thing
Speaker:with grammar. I say the same thing.
Speaker:Teaching them grammar sits right here on
Speaker:the surface and a little wind
Speaker:could just blow it right off.
Speaker:Where I want it to become instinct where
Speaker:it actually sinks into the brain and it's
Speaker:now part of the brain. It makes some of
Speaker:those wrinkles in the brain because a new
Speaker:wrinkles, a new piece of learning.
Speaker:So that's what I want so that in the time
Speaker:that the cognitive load is, Oh my God,
Speaker:someone asked me a question in the target
Speaker:language. I'm in the country. I can't
Speaker:resort to English. What am I going to do
Speaker:that they have
Speaker:something they can pull from?
Speaker:And so that's really important to lessen
Speaker:that cognitive load for them. I told them
Speaker:about the cognitive load with the
Speaker:headphones. I said in that class that is
Speaker:really not important and you're never
Speaker:going to use it after
Speaker:high school like math.
Speaker:You can put your headphone in and listen
Speaker:and still keep up. But in a language,
Speaker:your brain has here one ear it's got your
Speaker:music and the other ear it's got me. It's
Speaker:going to tune me out automatically
Speaker:because it doesn't understand me.
Speaker:And every time the brain is going to
Speaker:choose what's familiar to it. So you
Speaker:can't have it in your ear
Speaker:and still know what's going on.
Speaker:Right. Yeah. Cognitive load. Yeah. I do
Speaker:so much. Yeah. Only you soon. Absolutely.
Speaker:When we're coming close to an end this
Speaker:one went really, really fast. So I want
Speaker:to end with. It's a good topic.
Speaker:I know. We've been going an hour and a
Speaker:half lately the last few weeks.
Speaker:The what is the number one procedure that
Speaker:you wish you would have known at the
Speaker:beginning of your career and would have
Speaker:made your life so much easier.
Speaker:Well, the thing we haven't touched on
Speaker:because we're talking about procedures
Speaker:and classroom management everything the
Speaker:thing we haven't touched on
Speaker:is when you have misbehavior.
Speaker:I think it was like maybe my third day of
Speaker:actually being in the class. Somebody
Speaker:said to me if a student misbehaves assume
Speaker:they haven't learned how to do the right
Speaker:thing and teach them.
Speaker:And we we talk a lot about how behavior
Speaker:is communication and we
Speaker:are experts in communication.
Speaker:So when when you have students who are
Speaker:acting in ways you don't want them to
Speaker:act, it is your job as a teacher to think
Speaker:about, OK, what are they trying to
Speaker:communicate to me with their misbehavior
Speaker:and how can I respond to it?
Speaker:Absolutely. That's good. And that's hard
Speaker:to do in the moment. You have to wait
Speaker:until that reflection piece because in
Speaker:the moment here you're probably going to
Speaker:be responding viscerally.
Speaker:But then the next day you can come back
Speaker:hopefully and address whatever
Speaker:communication gap there was that had your
Speaker:students behaving in ways that you didn't
Speaker:want them to behave.
Speaker:Absolutely. And it goes back to my dogs
Speaker:again. You can't just tell them no. They
Speaker:don't know what they're supposed to do in
Speaker:that situation. You have to
Speaker:give them something to do.
Speaker:So it's the same kind of thing with kids
Speaker:if they don't know. You know, we always
Speaker:assume here's a good example.
Speaker:Years ago I was teaching native speakers
Speaker:and I asked them to write an essay in
Speaker:double space. I assume they're 10th
Speaker:graders. I assume they
Speaker:knew what double spaced meant.
Speaker:That was my fault because what I got was
Speaker:word space space word space space space
Speaker:space space space space word.
Speaker:I was like how have you never double
Speaker:spaced an essay before in school? How
Speaker:have you never done that
Speaker:before? And so you can't.
Speaker:I agree. Not assuming they know
Speaker:something. And even though you put it to
Speaker:them, don't assume they
Speaker:remember it. Absolutely.
Speaker:Those procedures and routines. And
Speaker:sometimes they do it differently in every
Speaker:classroom. I had one school that really
Speaker:thought this out and said,
Speaker:we are going to vote right now as a
Speaker:teacher class. What method of note taking
Speaker:are we going to take? Are we going to
Speaker:take Cornell? Are we going to do this?
Speaker:So that kids aren't learning a new note
Speaker:taking method in every class. We can take
Speaker:that cognitive load off. They say take
Speaker:notes and everybody
Speaker:takes notes the same way.
Speaker:Because we taught them the one way every
Speaker:class does it the same. And so we didn't
Speaker:have to teach that again. Number one and
Speaker:number two, the kids had a skill that
Speaker:they could take with
Speaker:them every classroom.
Speaker:And it went through no matter what the
Speaker:discipline was. That was the takeaway
Speaker:from that. And so I think that really
Speaker:helps as well. Because when we if we
Speaker:assume that like going to the bathroom, a
Speaker:lot of teachers do this
Speaker:little cross the fingers.
Speaker:And I think that's the first thing which
Speaker:drives me crazy. But not everybody does.
Speaker:But if we all have a similar procedure,
Speaker:then the kids don't have to learn a new
Speaker:procedure every way.
Speaker:And you can do it with every procedure
Speaker:because every class is different. But a
Speaker:lot of common ones that are like taking
Speaker:notes, it would be very helpful for the
Speaker:kids to have one technique that they know
Speaker:they can walk away with
Speaker:and go to college with.
Speaker:I know a solid way of taking notes that
Speaker:I've been working on for four years in
Speaker:high school and I can continue it in
Speaker:college. So that's a very strong thing.
Speaker:I will say, before I let Pamela go, I can
Speaker:find out what key I want to hit on my
Speaker:car. For me, it's jobs.
Speaker:I do not start jobs until halfway through
Speaker:my career at least. So this is my 25th
Speaker:year. So somewhere around year 12 or 13,
Speaker:I started jobs. And Bryce
Speaker:Headstrom is the king of jobs.
Speaker:Yeah. And everybody asked me, well, what
Speaker:jobs do you have? I'm going to tell you
Speaker:right off the list. Here comes my dog.
Speaker:She's breaking up my screen.
Speaker:You cannot use someone else's list. It
Speaker:doesn't work. I have tried like someone's
Speaker:got a hospitality that greets the people
Speaker:who come into the classroom. Okay, that's
Speaker:just too pokey pokey for
Speaker:me. It doesn't really work.
Speaker:Like if an administrator comes in or if a
Speaker:new student comes in, they have a
Speaker:hospitality. It was a Japanese class. So
Speaker:it was really appropriate for a Japanese
Speaker:class, but not so much for my class.
Speaker:So you can't steal other people's jobs.
Speaker:It doesn't work in your classroom. I
Speaker:tried it. Bryce has, you can find a list.
Speaker:Go on an internet search for classroom
Speaker:job lists and you'll
Speaker:find hundreds of them.
Speaker:Find the ones that work for you. And
Speaker:Bryce put it this way, and I really love
Speaker:this. If it doesn't require a college
Speaker:degree to complete, then
Speaker:delegate it to a student.
Speaker:And then I add, child labor is cheap.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So my custodians only vacuum the room
Speaker:every three or four days because they
Speaker:can't do every single day. Well, hello in
Speaker:middle school. You can't go 24 hours. The
Speaker:room, it's a disaster. So I bought a
Speaker:cheap vacuum for my classroom. I had in
Speaker:there one of my jobs. The last period of
Speaker:the day, I had three
Speaker:students sign up for the job.
Speaker:To vacuum the classroom. All my kids
Speaker:loved that job. I didn't think I'd get
Speaker:anybody. They loved doing that job. And I
Speaker:have three in case a couple of kids are
Speaker:absent. So we've
Speaker:always got someone in there.
Speaker:Because that was a job that needed to be
Speaker:done to make sure my room was clean every
Speaker:day when we started in. I made, so think
Speaker:about all the things that could be done
Speaker:by kids. Putting up chairs on the desk.
Speaker:Putting making sure all the desk because
Speaker:they all kind of move throughout the day
Speaker:that they're all back a line. I put
Speaker:little Velcro stickies on the floor where
Speaker:the line should be so that they match the
Speaker:lines up so they know exactly how to
Speaker:position the desk at the end of the day.
Speaker:All these little jobs, keeping traffic of
Speaker:classroom points. I have a classroom
Speaker:manager who does that puts the points up
Speaker:on the board. So I don't have to think
Speaker:about it. They do it.
Speaker:I rotate the jobs every month, but
Speaker:everything that I didn't I have because
Speaker:kids getting up and turning in papers.
Speaker:Lots of times is a it's like a whole
Speaker:bunch of herd of elephants all trying to
Speaker:go into one little tiny
Speaker:spot. So what I do is I have
Speaker:Three paper princesses, even though
Speaker:they're boys, three paper princesses. I
Speaker:call them all funny names. And they love
Speaker:that job. So their job is either pass out
Speaker:papers or to collect papers. So they go
Speaker:through and they
Speaker:collect. So three of them.
Speaker:I have I make my room shaped into you. So
Speaker:I've got three sections. One side the
Speaker:back the other side. They take care of
Speaker:their section, grab all those papers.
Speaker:Then only three kids are going to the
Speaker:back to turn in the papers. Or if I need
Speaker:to pass out papers, whether they are like
Speaker:handout. So there's no names on these
Speaker:need to go out or they're passing back
Speaker:papers. I've graded. They go out and they
Speaker:pass those papers back.
Speaker:So I don't have to do it.
Speaker:And it makes it so much easier to do
Speaker:those jobs and make my life so I can
Speaker:really focus on the stuff that needs a
Speaker:college education to focus on. And so my
Speaker:energy is not trying to multitask
Speaker:everything. I'm focusing on what I need
Speaker:to do, and I just delegate all the rest.
Speaker:So I have a list. You can go on my
Speaker:website, too. There is a list there. It's
Speaker:changed. I don't remember when I
Speaker:published that list up there. It's it's
Speaker:an old one, whatever it
Speaker:is. I haven't done that.
Speaker:I haven't done it in a while.
Speaker:But my class, my things change.
Speaker:I find, ooh, new ideas.
Speaker:I need this job.
Speaker:And the other one, I
Speaker:don't really use that job.
Speaker:So let me throw it away.
Speaker:I'll tell you one that is awesome I use.
Speaker:And that is the
Speaker:absent manager, their job.
Speaker:I'll tell them there are, you know,
Speaker:three kids are absent
Speaker:today, here are their names.
Speaker:They get the handouts for the kids.
Speaker:They put the names on
Speaker:the handout for them.
Speaker:They keep track of
Speaker:what we did for the day.
Speaker:And then they go and
Speaker:when the kids come back,
Speaker:they give them their handouts
Speaker:and they tell them
Speaker:what they did for the day.
Speaker:They might write on a
Speaker:sticky note or whatever
Speaker:and put it so they have a little packet.
Speaker:And they give it out to
Speaker:them when the kids come back.
Speaker:I don't do that.
Speaker:I don't have to worry about that.
Speaker:And the kids know to go
Speaker:to the absence manager
Speaker:to get their work.
Speaker:They don't come and ask me, interrupt me
Speaker:doing whatever I'm
Speaker:doing or during the warmup
Speaker:and they should be working.
Speaker:They just get it from the
Speaker:absent manager and it's done.
Speaker:And so that's also a really great thing.
Speaker:And if you have an LMS
Speaker:that has like a feed in it,
Speaker:I give them access, my
Speaker:absent managers to type up
Speaker:what we did that day and
Speaker:what we turned in so that it,
Speaker:because Schoology has a feed.
Speaker:The last couple LMSs that
Speaker:I had did not have a feed.
Speaker:So we didn't do it for many years
Speaker:but Google classroom has a feed.
Speaker:So they would just get the
Speaker:access to be able to type in
Speaker:what we did for that class period
Speaker:and what we turned in
Speaker:for that pack class period.
Speaker:So the kids kind of knew
Speaker:and they would go to the absent manager
Speaker:to get the actual stuff.
Speaker:So that worked out really well.
Speaker:That was a really good
Speaker:useful job that I found.
Speaker:But get your jobs, find
Speaker:which ones work for you
Speaker:and delegate a lot of the
Speaker:tasks that you don't have to do
Speaker:that don't require either a
Speaker:college degree or legality.
Speaker:Like some teachers have
Speaker:their kids do attendance
Speaker:but that's a legal issue.
Speaker:So I don't let my kids touch
Speaker:the computer with attendance
Speaker:because they accidentally mark a kid here
Speaker:and something happens to that kid.
Speaker:I'm legally responsible
Speaker:because I said he was in my classroom.
Speaker:And so I don't want that responsibility.
Speaker:So I don't let them touch attendance
Speaker:or anything like that.
Speaker:Any of those legal things
Speaker:or college degree things,
Speaker:why not clean my board, please.
Speaker:Change the date on my board, please.
Speaker:Cause I forget.
Speaker:So the last, it's a job for
Speaker:my last period of the day.
Speaker:They go in and they
Speaker:change my day every day for me.
Speaker:So I don't have to remember to do it.
Speaker:So that's my thing.
Speaker:Scott, do you have a job?
Speaker:Do you have a job for every single
Speaker:student in your class?
Speaker:Or just for your-- Not always.
Speaker:So what I do is I have my jobs
Speaker:and lots of jobs are
Speaker:more than one person.
Speaker:And then I pass the sheet around
Speaker:and I say, not
Speaker:everybody has to have a job
Speaker:but every job needs to be filled.
Speaker:So if you don't choose your job,
Speaker:one might be chosen for you.
Speaker:So, and then they get extra points
Speaker:because I pay in salary and points,
Speaker:participation points
Speaker:which don't go for grade,
Speaker:but they go for prizes in class.
Speaker:A good call home or drop a quiz pass,
Speaker:those kinds of things.
Speaker:So they'll earn points that way.
Speaker:And I give points for
Speaker:the undesirable jobs.
Speaker:I give more points for.
Speaker:And the jobs that everybody
Speaker:wants, they only get five.
Speaker:And it's a monthly salary
Speaker:because they keep their jobs for a month.
Speaker:So like the classroom manager
Speaker:is a really important job for me.
Speaker:They've got to keep
Speaker:track of all the points.
Speaker:Even though it's a popular job,
Speaker:I give more points to that one.
Speaker:I give like 15 for that one.
Speaker:Any cleaning jobs,
Speaker:they're like 20 or 25 points.
Speaker:They get lots of points.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Paper pass or
Speaker:auditors, my paper princesses,
Speaker:they get five points
Speaker:because everybody wants
Speaker:to be a paper princess,
Speaker:even the boys, they want
Speaker:to be a paper princess.
Speaker:So, and I come up with little funny names
Speaker:for all of these, because they're funny.
Speaker:And I give out the
Speaker:points, so I get some to do it
Speaker:but not everybody has a job,
Speaker:I say every job needs to be filled.
Speaker:Okay, that's a good philosophy.
Speaker:I go, you can have more than one job
Speaker:after everybody's had
Speaker:a chance to get a job.
Speaker:So if someone doesn't really want a job
Speaker:and someone else doesn't mind doing two,
Speaker:they can fill both of
Speaker:those jobs in there.
Speaker:Yeah, good idea.
Speaker:Stephanie, what about you?
Speaker:I have always shied away from the jobs
Speaker:because I thought you had
Speaker:to give everybody a job.
Speaker:But now that I'm thinking through that
Speaker:and you said not everybody has a job,
Speaker:I can see myself opening
Speaker:up to some possibilities
Speaker:with that and my room is
Speaker:set up very similar to yours.
Speaker:And I really liked the
Speaker:idea of one person per section
Speaker:being responsible for papers.
Speaker:But yeah, I think it's
Speaker:important to think through
Speaker:and change it if it's
Speaker:not working for you.
Speaker:Cause last year, they
Speaker:picked up papers, did not work.
Speaker:So now I have a solution.
Speaker:You have a solution.
Speaker:And I will say one caveat,
Speaker:one place where you're
Speaker:gonna need to have a job
Speaker:for everybody's elementary school.
Speaker:Elementary school you're gonna need
Speaker:because they're gonna
Speaker:go, they feel left out.
Speaker:Middle school and high
Speaker:school kids don't care
Speaker:about that kind of stuff.
Speaker:They don't care.
Speaker:They're like, I don't
Speaker:want a job, so I'm good.
Speaker:But elementary, you need to have one.
Speaker:So even if you have to make a fake one,
Speaker:a fake job in there,
Speaker:like the positivity prints,
Speaker:you're the one who's
Speaker:gonna go to every kid
Speaker:when they answer a good
Speaker:question, you go, good job.
Speaker:Good job.
Speaker:You know, you come up
Speaker:with whatever you need to do
Speaker:to get everybody a job for them.
Speaker:But you only got 30
Speaker:kids max in those classes.
Speaker:So it's not gonna be
Speaker:that difficult to come up.
Speaker:And especially if you have multiple,
Speaker:passing out papers is
Speaker:a multiple person job
Speaker:cause it goes quicker if
Speaker:you have more than one person
Speaker:doing it, it goes so much quicker.
Speaker:So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Multiple jobs and come up
Speaker:with funny ones or crazy ones
Speaker:or ones that aren't really, you know,
Speaker:the cheerleader in the
Speaker:classroom, woo-hoo, we did it.
Speaker:You know, just, that's their job.
Speaker:Every time we finish an
Speaker:activity, woo-hoo, we did it.
Speaker:That's their job.
Speaker:You know, they feel
Speaker:important cause they're part of it.
Speaker:And the byproduct of jobs, what I found
Speaker:is where you can get them to work.
Speaker:They could not work in my last school.
Speaker:They just did not work.
Speaker:I tried them.
Speaker:They were too cool for school.
Speaker:They just never got done.
Speaker:I'm bringing them back for my new school,
Speaker:but it brings a sense of
Speaker:ownership to the class.
Speaker:So they feel more
Speaker:responsible for the class as a whole.
Speaker:And we're working together as a team.
Speaker:I hate that little phrase, you know,
Speaker:teamwork makes a dream work.
Speaker:I hate that phrase.
Speaker:Really I do.
Speaker:I always think Disney, I don't know why,
Speaker:but I always associate it with Disney.
Speaker:It has nothing to do with them, but
Speaker:that's what I always--
Speaker:You're headed to Disney.
Speaker:But I like the one that, you know,
Speaker:many hands make light work.
Speaker:That's the one that I prefer to say.
Speaker:It really does work that way.
Speaker:It makes a lot of things so much easier
Speaker:and takes things off my table.
Speaker:Like remember to change the date.
Speaker:It's so small.
Speaker:It takes a minute, but
Speaker:that's a minute I just don't have.
Speaker:It's-- And we forget.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like right now we have to stay at school
Speaker:for a half an hour afterwards.
Speaker:And I'm used to having fourth period prep
Speaker:for the past two years.
Speaker:I had an hour and a half at
Speaker:the end of my day every day
Speaker:to be able to change my
Speaker:day, put everything up,
Speaker:get my board ready for the
Speaker:next day, do all of that stuff.
Speaker:I've got a half an hour
Speaker:and those are
Speaker:technically my office hours.
Speaker:I've got to be there for the kids.
Speaker:So it's like, okay, I
Speaker:can't get everything done.
Speaker:Like on Fridays they send emails
Speaker:to parents and kids every Friday.
Speaker:I barely had a time to send it
Speaker:because I've got to send
Speaker:emails to my Spanish kids,
Speaker:emails to my culture kids,
Speaker:emails to my Spanish parents,
Speaker:emails to my culture parents.
Speaker:For emails I've got to write
Speaker:and I can't write them
Speaker:until the end of the day
Speaker:because part of it what it
Speaker:is, what do we do that day?
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:And so I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't,
Speaker:I don't want to, so I
Speaker:don't hit traffic so bad.
Speaker:I got to leave at 405.
Speaker:I want to make sure I hit
Speaker:at 405 and I haven't been.
Speaker:I've been 417, 420, I've been getting out
Speaker:because all the stuff that I have to do.
Speaker:Anything I can delegate will save me a
Speaker:heck of a lot of time
Speaker:and those minutes add
Speaker:up, the minutes add up.
Speaker:Stephanie, what's one procedure you wish
Speaker:you would have known?
Speaker:There are a lot of,
Speaker:I did everything myself
Speaker:because I thought it was easier.
Speaker:It was going to be quicker,
Speaker:but actually giving the students
Speaker:opportunities to do stuff,
Speaker:like you said, it's the
Speaker:ownership of the class
Speaker:and thinking about things differently,
Speaker:how things are done, not
Speaker:just you passing out the papers.
Speaker:It's not you, it's
Speaker:not you, you, you, you.
Speaker:And I thought that's how it had to be
Speaker:and it took years to figure out that,
Speaker:oh, I can have the kid who's
Speaker:sitting next to the empty chair,
Speaker:put the kid's name on the paper.
Speaker:Like, why did I have to do that?
Speaker:But definitely that you
Speaker:don't have to do it all yourself
Speaker:and that you shouldn't assume.
Speaker:That was the big one also.
Speaker:And I still get that a lot.
Speaker:That's a big one, the assuming.
Speaker:And I'm a control freak.
Speaker:I did not like group work
Speaker:because I wanted to make
Speaker:sure it was done and done right,
Speaker:at least to my standards
Speaker:and nobody else could live it.
Speaker:So I had no problem doing
Speaker:all the work for everybody
Speaker:because I want to make sure it was done.
Speaker:And in my classroom too, I want to make,
Speaker:it's got to be done right.
Speaker:I got to turn the
Speaker:papers back the right way.
Speaker:Like, is there a right
Speaker:way to pass back papers?
Speaker:But giving up that control
Speaker:was very difficult for me
Speaker:in the beginning to do
Speaker:that, to do that kind of thing.
Speaker:And so I think it's a
Speaker:really important thing.
Speaker:We're only human.
Speaker:We can only do so much in
Speaker:the time that we're given.
Speaker:And we got to have that
Speaker:nice work-life balance.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So we have gone our hour and a half.
Speaker:It seems like that's what
Speaker:we've been doing lately.
Speaker:An hour and a half.
Speaker:We have a lot to say.
Speaker:We do have a lot to say.
Speaker:There's more we can say about this.
Speaker:So I thank all of you who stuck with us
Speaker:for the whole hour and a half.
Speaker:That is the episode.
Speaker:Thanks for spending part of your Sunday
Speaker:on classroom logistics,
Speaker:which is either a sign
Speaker:of deep professionalism
Speaker:or a sign that August
Speaker:has already gotten to you.
Speaker:Either way, I'm glad you were here.
Speaker:Pamela, thank you as
Speaker:always for making the case
Speaker:that a routine is
Speaker:really just a translation
Speaker:of what you actually value.
Speaker:And Stephanie, thank you for
Speaker:being the only person I know
Speaker:who can turn seating
Speaker:into a normal position,
Speaker:a moral position, sorry.
Speaker:28 years without desk and still winning.
Speaker:Today we covered the small stuff
Speaker:that quietly wrecks a period.
Speaker:Plus the procedures nobody bothers to
Speaker:hand you on day one.
Speaker:If this saves you one
Speaker:bad October, subscribe,
Speaker:leave a review or send it
Speaker:to the teacher down the hall
Speaker:who's still passing
Speaker:papers one row at a time.
Speaker:Catch us live on
Speaker:YouTube or grab the replay
Speaker:wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Ditch the drills, trust the process,
Speaker:and we'll see you next
Speaker:time on "Comprehend This."
Speaker:Bye-bye everybody.
Speaker:Bye.
Speaker:(upbeat music)
