Some January Management Advice

Start strong, follow through, change one thing at a time

I fly a fair amount. I grew up on the east coast and most of my family still lives there, so I fly back from Colorado to visit. Heading through airport security I know I’m supposed to keep all liquids to 3.4 ounces and put them in a clear plastic bag. I never do that last part, though. Finding a plastic bag always seems like a bit of a pain. I started leaving the plastic bag behind and no one ever says anything to me so I guess I don’t need to follow that rule.

I share that anecdote because pushing boundaries, testing to see if a rule is truly a rule, is normal human behavior. I’m mostly a rule follower, but I still want to see if, when someone says “the rule is A,” they follow through.

Kids push boundaries. It's normal. It's healthy. It's not unique to kids, all humans push boundaries. The difference is that kids are learning how to push boundaries. Boundaries aren’t an unnatural or controlling part of teaching. Helping students understand boundaries is a part of growing into an adult, and testing boundaries is exactly what they should be doing.

On the topic of boundaries, here are a few pieces of classroom management advice:

Start strong

If you care about something, care about it from day one. This is where lots of new teachers have trouble — they simply don’t know what they should care about when they start, and the lack of consistency from the beginning of the year makes everything harder. Norms and routines are the backbone of teaching, so don’t waste any time getting them set up at the start of the year.

Follow through

If you say you care about something, stick with it. I struggle with this all the time. If I say something is a rule but then I don’t follow through, it sends a message to students that they should push more boundaries to see what other rules might not actually be that important. It’s like the airport — if that plastic bag rule isn’t very important, what else does airport security not care about?

Ok so all that advice is fine, but it's January. How is that supposed to help? The chance to start strong was months ago. Here's one more piece of advice. This is a time of year when I often get frustrated with my classroom culture, and I say to myself "ok when we come back from break I'm going to reset A and B and C.” I come out of the gate really hot. But within a week everything is slipping again. Here's my last piece of advice:

Change one thing at a time

I can't do more that one. I want to reset my turn-and-talk routine next week. More and more kids have been chatting with someone besides their partner, because their friend sits behind them or whatever. I haven't done a good job following through with that expectation. At first it doesn’t feel like a big deal, but as it slips there are more and more kids not talking at all during turn-and-talks. It’s time for a reset. Now, I also want to sharpen my end-of-class routine, and work on norms for what students do when they're stuck during independent work, and a bunch of other stuff. Maybe some of you reading this are amazing teachers and you can reset four things at once. But in my experience, for most regular teachers, changing one thing at a time is the way to go. I put a post-it on my desk, and a reminder on my computer, and maybe another visual aid to help me remember.

It's not easy changing things because, naturally, kids push boundaries. The hardest part is that day one usually goes fine. But by day three or four more and more students are pushing boundaries, trying to see if this is a real expectation or if it’s optional. That’s why trying to change multiple things at once is so hard — I could reset four different things on Monday and that class would probably go well. But by Wednesday or Thursday, as more and more kids push boundaries, I would have a hard time keeping track of everything. Changing one thing at a time helps me follow through. When I try to do too much at once, when the boundary-pushing is too much for me to keep track of, I end up getting frustrated. Then I forget that pushing boundaries is normal and healthy, and it’s my job as a teacher to set students up to feel like in my class I follow through with the expectations I set.