The Hamster Wheel

You spend quite a bit of time at the beginning of the year preparing yourself and your students for the routines that you will expect to be practiced and mastered. Let's face it, it takes a LOT of mental and physical energy to get students used to procedures that need to be followed for a class to run smoothly. But, it's the beginning of the year, and they're fresh, you're fresh, and after a few weeks, you start to see that well-oiled machine working. You look around your class with a sense of pride and think, this is going to be a great year.  Then Christmas break happens. 

Goodness knows you and your students are well deserving of some time apart, and of some R&R, and even though you're leaving the school with a smile on your face in the back of your head is the first day you'll be back. Inevitably, that first day back arrives and you realize that even though your students "know better", you may have to spend a week or two getting them back on track. The silver lining is that you're not totally exhausted, so reviewing and re-practicing these ever important procedures isn't the worst thing you've ever done.  As expected, the students seem to pick up where they left off, and you're all off and running....until the Spring Break. 

This break happens after a lengthy (and in Saskatchewan, generally frigid) January.  Now, I try to be patient after this break and be fair about re-establishing routines, but it's soooo HARD!! I quickly begin to feel like this IS the worst thing I've ever done. I know it's necessary-the routines have to be in place, but I just don't always want to!  We've got stuff to do people!!

Definitely after the Easter Break, I'm really digging deep. I find I talk to myself more; "Why do I have to keep going over this?! It's not like they don't know the expectations!".  And it's at this time of the year when I wish that I could flip that elusive magical switch for students that controls "following procedures" and keep. It. On.  (I hear the Beach Boys in my head right now.  "Wouldn't it be nice...").

So I'm already trying to mentally prepare myself. I might come back to a class that just gets down to business like we never left. But they're 9, so the chances of that are highly unlikely. The good news is that I have a wonderful class, and they don't disappoint me, so I shouldn't feel too sorry for myself, and I guess when I think about it, I'm reinforcing the expectations all the time in one way or another anyway. So I suppose I'll just pull up my socks (like I tell my students to do), and re-establish those routines. Because it really IS easier with them than it is without them. 

Red Flagging Ourselves

I was talking with a colleague today recently after school and we got onto the topic of "red flags". Usually, as teachers, we look for red flags in our students. We think about what the grade-level expectations are and we diligently follow our students' progress.  

But what about finding our own "red flags"?  How do we know when we have become complacent?  How do we know if we are using best practice?  How do we know if our management strategies are efficient?  

I think our best compass is our internal compass. 

I know when I've wandered off the path, so to speak, I can feel it in my gut. And when I think closely about the times when my compass is off is because I know that what I'm doing is not in sync with what I believe teaching should be. 

For example, In the past I've had a slotted time in my day for independent reading for my students. But it wasn't long before I started to get this feeling in the pit of my stomach that this reading time was missing something.  I was giving them 15 minutes of extra time to read for fun, which is good, but I couldn't drop the feeling that I was not taking advantage of this instructional opportunity.  I could just feel it. 

Even though structures are in place to help, our best guide is ourselves. We just have to pay attention.