Seasoned Sages Sundays: Setting Yourself Up for Success: The Questions (and Whom) to Ask Now

On a Facebook group page for upper elementary teachers, a new teacher asked, very intelligently, 'What questions should I be asking my principal or my team leader right now?'  There's so much that you'll have to manage, you want to know how it all rolls before you plan a room and a day.

Before we begin though, let me toss in this thought: listen a lot more than you talk over the next few months. People-watch. Keep an eye on interactions and how they flow. Who are the power players? (They may not be the people you think!) They'll be your go-to people. The first week, full-staff meetings are good for starting this.

What should I be asking my principal?
As little as possible. He/she runs a building. Your job is to run your classroom. A young teacher I once worked with, having trouble managing a class went, often, to admin for help. Then, hurt and confused, she found herself on the wrong side of the principal and labeled as a poor teacher. Afterwards, she came to the veteran teachers on our staff saying, "But she said that if I needed help, I should go to her!" to which each of us answered, "And you believed her?!"
My boss is a great guy. He's affable and easy to work with. I leave him alone unless something needs his express approval (like an overnight field trip) is going to cause a phone call downtown he'll have to deal with (a particular child's crazy mama's on the warpath, wanting things she can't have. Again.) something that will affect several teachers (a schedule change) or is way over my head (a child in a criminally abusive situation). As a reward, he's always glad to see me, and on the rare occasion I need action, I get it.

Great. So, whom do I ask?
A not very well kept secret is that it's the secretaries who actually make everything work. (Ours aren't actually called 'secretaries', they're a bookkeeper and an attendance officer. Some can be a little touchy about it. Mine aren't, but the ones at my son's school are. Find out.) Most day-to-day questions or issues should be run by them first. From them, you need to find out:
*How is attendance done?
*How do I handle (Powerschool, or whatever platform's being used for grades, attendance, etc.) What if I get locked out of it?
*How do I get classroom supplies?
*How is money handled?
*What if a kid's hurling? Lousy? Bleeding?
*What if my kid's school/sitter calls and he or she is hurling/lousy/bleeding?
*How do I get a sub?

Your grade/department chair is the person to whom to direct most of your questions. These should be things like:
*Do we plan together or on our own? Will we turn in lesson plans? If so, when and how?
*What are the expectations for the literacy block? Other areas?
*How does our grade/department collect data? What's it used for? Who will see it?
* What's the daily schedule? How religiously does it have to be followed?
* What are the procedures for: beginning the day, using the bathroom (not just the kids - you too.   Welcome to the world of the steel bladder.) getting through the cafeteria, playground, dismissal? Get your lead to walk you through a day.
* How do you handle homework? Word study?
* How do papers go home to parents?
* What if a kid's doing horribly? What are the procedures for getting those kids help?
*What do teachers actually wear? Are there jeans Fridays? How does that work?
*What sends the boss over the edge?What quirks does he or she have that I should know about?

Assistant Principals sit an odd fence. I've loved most of mine and had my tail saved by a few. They live in the admin world, but still keep a toe in the classroom. Rarely, you'll run into one that's ambitious to the point of putting him/herself above what's good for teachers, in which case, principal rules apply, but as long as you lean sparingly, they can be a great resource. Specifically, you'll need to know:
*How and how often will I be evaluated?
*Who is my mentor? Are there particular times that teacher and I meet? Is documentation required?
*What do I do if there's a transportation issue?
* What's the procedure if a kid's totally out of control?

Finally, a few last bits of this and that:
Be nice to the lunch ladies. Make your kids behave in line and don't let them talk trash about the pizza until they're out of earshot. Clean up your tables; keep to the schedule.

Be even nicer to the custodians, unless you never want anything moved or dusted again. Don't leave the room trashed. I once had one say, "I know everything I need to know about a teacher just by looking at her floor at the end of the day." Think about it; she was telling the truth. My current hall custodian is awesome. I left a small bookcase in its box on my floor one afternoon in May, planning to put it together the next morning. When I came in, it was already built. While I never go to the office to tattle, I totally will to brag. Mr. Larry's the man!

If you have security staff and/or a CRO (Campus Resource Officer) get to know them. They're your guardian angels and can do a lot with your kids as an alternative for kicking them to the office.

I know this was lengthy, and if you stuck with it to the end, good job! Believe it or not, there's no way I've covered it all, so continue on to the other Sages' sites to learn more!

Before you go, be sure to pin this for your teacher friends!

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Seasoned Sages Sundays: Open House

Ah, Open House, or Meet the Teacher Night, or Back to School Night, whatever you call it, even we veterans meet it with a mix of high hopes and abject terror. Those last frantic hours when we finally just give up and shove the last few jumbled things into the closet, knowing that once it goes in, it won't come out until June, in the push to have a presentable classroom. No pressure; it just sets the tone for the whole. durned. year.

You, of course, will have it even tougher. At least I have a professional reputation to fall back on. (Totally required it last year, too, when I was still painting bookshelves at the last possible moment. Nothing like meeting parents with paint in my hair. Seriously, don't try this at home...) You are young, maybe even the age of your students' older siblings. Parents don't know you and worry a bit that breaking in a newbie could mean a wasted year for their child. Great.

So, what can you do? I've been on both sides of that fence. As a young teacher of eighth graders, I was sometimes mistaken for one of the kids. During that first week of school, another teacher, whom I'd not met yet, threatened, quite rudely, to haul me to the office for being in the hall without a pass. When my son, now a high-school junior, was entering third grade, he got the new teacher, a fresh-from college young man from Pennsylvania. Both situations turned out well enough, though not without their bumps. Yes, you can survive.

So, dear rookie, I'm going to offer you two bits of advice. One is simple. Dress the part. If you're young, and particularly if you're teaching big kids, invest now in an attractive-but-all-business wardrobe. Had I been in a suit and not in khakis and a polo, the teacher would have been much more likely to recognize me as staff. It helps un-blur the line between being young enough to be their sister and a being a Teacher. It will encourage your parents to see you as another adult. Yes, I know what firsties get paid. Do it anyway.

The second is this : Don't Reinvent the Wheel. 
Smart teachers totally rip each others' ideas off, but then we make it our own. Don't feel bad about it; sharing ideas is why we blog. Open House is as good a place to start as any.

So, whose ideas am I stealing this year? This summer, I pinned this blog post from  Turnstall's Teaching Tidbits about using stations for your night:Check it out here. 
Now, of course, she's teaching younger children than I am, and each person's classroom runs its own way, so I'm going to take the idea and adapt it. I'd like to add a station for Remind 101, but I might not be able to because cell reception on my side of the building is garbage. There are a couple of websites I'm going to use this year for which under-13s will need parent permission to sign up; I'll have a station where they can do that and save a lot of hassle later. My little giftie? I found - get this - kits to make sunglasses out of glow sticks! Squeee! Yes, there will be a bad pun involved about their future being bright, but since my kids are Lego-proficient, their hands will be busy when their parents get to the last station, where they meet me.

The other person I've been ripping off for a couple of years is Anglea Maiers. In a blog post you can find here, she gives a model of a bang-up first day letter to her students. I've taken her framework and adapted it to my situation and teaching style. (These days, I teach 4th and 5th grade math and reading to gifted students.) If you click it, it will take you to its Google Doc.

As I close, I'll gently remind you, readers, as I do my students, that borrowing and plagiarizing are two different things.  Again, make things your own. You could end up on the ugly side of a scandal if two teachers had the exact, same letter.

 Pin this article to help your teacher friends!

I hope I'm setting you up to borrow some amazing ideas from this week's Sages. Good luck... relax....smile! Thankfully, it's only once a year!

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Seasoned Sages Sundays: Classroom Management

We've all been there: you've put a lot of time and effort (and maybe even money) getting lessons and activities planned and ready, and it's all gone horribly wrong. Kids are out of their seats, supplies are now toys, and God only knows what That Kid is doing. This is why classroom management is the first skill a young teacher has to master; without it, nothing else works.

I remember the day that this happened - again - in my classroom. Part of me wanted to just quit. Then, I got mad. These little $%#@s hadn't earned a classroom; I had. One hot place was going to freeze over before I'd allow them to take mine. I pitched a fit of epic proportions. After school, I went to a veteran teacher across the hall for help setting up a consistent and simple management plan. (I had gotten my first teaching job the day before school started and in the next state, so there hadn't been time for thinking about it much.)

You'll  notice that I didn't go to the office and I didn't kick kids into Helen's classroom. That turned out to be a good move, because that shifts the responsibility for my discipline to people who aren't me. Why does that matter? Well, later in my career, when I found myself teaching in an inner-city middle school, our principal pointed out to all of us in a staff meeting,

"When you let the office handle your discipline, the office gets the respect. Not you."

She's right. So, my dear newbie, rather than give you tools to manage your classroom, which I'm hoping you'll pick along our hop today, I'm going to give you an attitude. You'll need it. My one, best piece of advice for you is this:

It's your classroom. Own it.

It's all you, babe. You make the choices about lessons, about routines, about how children will treat you and your classroom, and exactly how much crap you're going to take. Take some time to think about limits, because once you set them, you have to make them stick. Children can't deal with 'this rule matters sometimes'. If it's not worth enforcing, don't make it a rule. (I don't care that much about hand-raising, but the kids know that only a fool backtalks me.) Be true to your word; no false threats and no empty promises. Ever.

If you've ever been in a Target, Wal-Mart, or grocery store, you've probably seen children totally owning their parents. These kids will be in your classroom this August, and many will expect that you will abdicate your power as their moms and dads have. In more than a few cases, calling home is  pointless. which, again, is just as well. Wait...what? Yes, because parents are just like the office. 

Children need to behave in your room because YOU said so. Not the office, not their mamas. You.

Now, before you think I sound like an ogre, consider this: because I have control of my classroom, and my own (and the other kids in the grade) know it, I can actually have a lot more fun. It's OK to lie on the carpet in front of the Promethean to take notes. Yes, you can read around the room. Most of my work is done collaboratively because things don't get out of whack. When I say stop, it's done.

Case in point: we had a fabulous overnight field trip to the Georgia Aquarium. All  60 of the kids had their bed rolls laid out in front of and around the giant tank with the whale sharks and the manta rays, getting ready to climb in. Caleb, a boy from the classroom next door, whose sleeping bag was perpendicular to mine, said, "You know, this would make a great pillow fight. How could we start it?" I turned around, grinned, said, "I dunno. Maybe kind of like this?" and lit him up. He looked stunned for a second, then grabbed his pillow and got me back. Then it was on like Donkey Kong: sixty kids, two teachers, pillows flying. It was a great fight.

I let it run for a few minutes, and when I used my Teacher Voice (Bonus advice: you must develop this and your Stink Eye.) to count down from 10, it all wound down like it should have. By 1, everyone was panting and laughing, but it was done. If I didn't know that I could maintain control of something like that, it couldn't have happened. It would have ended up with at least a couple of kids in tears and something (or someone) broken. 

Kids do want structure, and in the next few weeks, you need to think about what YOU are going to do to provide it with simple, consistent rules along with their fair and consistent enforcement. In the end, this is the only way you can be the fun teacher with the engaged, happy classroom that you've been envisioning for the last four years.

Good luck! Remember, the Seasoned Sages are here for you. Feel free to send up a flare, should you find yourself struggling, using one of the social media buttons up top. On that note, there is a new teacher chat on Twitter each week. (I thinks it's run by @Cybraryman) that is totally worth your time. 

Be sure to pin this link-up to help your teaching friends!

 

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