Miscellaneous Tips To New Teachers--Be nice to the secretaries, avoid the bus drivers, don't let your room get too messy. Those staff members are often the informal CIA and FBI. Your reputation may largely depend on what these people report informally to their supervisors and the public. --Watch out for the parking policies, coffee policies, and smoking policies. My recommendation would be to park far away, don't drink coffee, and don't smoke. I've seen these issues dominate faculty meetings, conversations, cliques. You can make a mortal enemy by parking in a secretary's parking spot. And no one ever agrees at any school on who is carrying the load of keeping coffee in the pot and the mugs cleaned up. And smokers vs. non-smokers are like cats and dogs. These issues often are the sources of the deepest, unspoken resentments at schools. --Never apologize in class about the curriculum. Don't ever tell students your lesson might not be as good as planned, or that you forgot to bring the tape recorder, or that the ditto should have been clearer, or that you forgot their papers, or whatever you want to apologize for. Students are critical enough already without your adding fuel to their fires and giving them the unintended message you admit you are incompetent. Besides, some students undoubtedly thought everything was fine and no one knew what they were missing, so leave apologies for personal matters. --When you are leading a class discussion and a student asks a question softly --be sure to repeat the question so everyone hears it. Tend to move away from a student you are talking to (while maintaining good eye contact), so that the student speaks more loudly and thus can be heard by everyone. Also, often when you've asked a question simultaneously answered by multiple students, you will inadvertently hear only the correct answer. However, all the students may not know which of the many they heard was correct. Tend to repeat a correct student answer. --When asking students to read out loud, I recommend calling names, so everyone gets a chance, but allowing the student to choose not to read. This puts everyone on notice they might be called; allows you to avoid giving the toughest passage to the worst reader; and allows students an escape route from embarrassing themselves in front of the class. --By the end of the first day know every student's name. This helps rapport and discipline. --Minimize extra directions or repeating directions to the entire class. Circulate to see that your directions were understood properly. --Running a class is like an airplane trip. The danger usually lies in the "take-off" and in the landing. Monitor the ingress and egress of your class to avoid problems and to create a positive learning environment. --Don't say, "No talking without raising your hand," and then answer several questions about that policy by students who did not raise their hands. ( I personally always found it a challenge from grade school to graduate school to slip in comments without raising my hand. I now try to avoid situations that end up with hand waving.) --Don't ask poor questions like, "how many have read . . . " It tends to inculcate dishonesty. --Theodore Roethke contends "the cardinal sin of an educator is to be boring." Make your class interesting; make the quality of life in your class agreeable. --Don't accept late assignments. Make your deadlines in advance to give the students plenty of time to turn the assignment in early. Encourage early submission. What if a student is absent? Even if the student is quarantined, the postman picks up mail once a day and the mail is postmarked that same day. If a student cannot bring, or send, in an assignment, accept it in the mail, but only with a postmark that meets the deadline. --A well-taught class mitigates against discipline problems. --Variety is the spice of curriculum as well as life. Vary your teaching strategies. --You don't have to cover in class everything you expect students to learn. that's what texts and homework are for. --Homework should be assigned every week night, Monday through Thursday (or every week so that it could be done every night. However, if some students can master your objectives without doing all the homework, who cares? And if your students who can't or don't do homework, learn most of your objectives, why not make it possible for them to at least pass your class. It should not be necessary to have done it all to pass your class. --A meaningful, activity-based curriculum works. From John Dewey to Leslie Hart educators have verified we learn by doing. --Circulate. When you circulate through your class you help keep students on task; help clarify and instruct students who need help; have opportunity for friendly, personal interaction with others. and you can give special help to those behind and slow down those ahead so the class finishes about the same time. --Put assignments on the board. And when students ask what they are supposed to do-- just point at the board. It saves time and energy. --Take deposit for pencils and paper, or use stubs and scratch paper other than let a student disrupt your class. We always forget some time and it's just not worth the hassle to ruin your day on the inevitable. --No permanent potty pass! Especially no tire irons or hub caps or other passes that will never be lost. If a kid has to go, be interrupted. It discourages unwarranted use of the request. If a kid needs to go a lot, the student has a bladder problem or you need to talk to the student about how to make the course more enjoyable or at least more possible. Another idea is to have a non-publicized three potty pass limit that you tell the student privately about after two trips. If the student needs to go a fourth time, okay it, but require an after class or after school discussion to stay honest with the intent of the policy. --If you can get the class involved in a self-directed activity, you can spend time with individuals or small groups who need special help. --If materials are required for class, meet students at the door to remind them prior to the start of class. --Step outside your subject to solve whatever problems are in your way. If your class members aren't listening to each other, do a communications lesson regardless of your subject matter. If your talented chorus doesn't look like winners, teach poise. --Scan the class at unpredictable times, especially during tests. A favorite trick of mine is to identify someone doing something they shouldn't, like chewing gum, and then while my back is turned, ask them to throw it away. Cultivate the misconception you have eyes in back of your head. --Don't leave your keys out EVER! --Tolerate ambiguity. Don't try to make everything black and white. Emerson says a "foolish consistency is the hobglobin of little minds." Leave yourself room for adjustments. --Teach to your test. Your test should measure your objectives, so you should be teaching the skills you measure. --Students who can pass your cumulative final, should be able to pass your class with at least a "D." It proves they learned something and you can keep at them, and on their side, until the very end. --Teach your students how to study, read, and write for your particular subject area. Don't assume the English teacher, or anyone else can do that for you. --Show an interest in students' extracurricular activities. Ask about the teams, the clubs, the dances, the awards. --Make your learning environment attractive. Display student work. Highlight your subject matter with displays and posters. Students are very likely to retain this material they were looking at while otherwise not paying attention. --Make your own rules and solicit student agreement; don't let "Norman" make them for you. My one rule was No Corn Nuts. They smell terrible, especially on hot days. So of course students brought corn nuts every hot day. Then I could yell, and then be flexible and remind students of the larger issues of social contracts. --If you have to grab a student, grab him/her by the arm just below the armpit. Hair, necks, private parts can get you in trouble, but there's no real damage you can do the student by the arm just below the armpit. --Make 'em go home reciting Shakespeare. He's good P.R. and every student knows it's not only part of our cultural heritage, but what every "good" school makes our students learn. Do, however, pick a good passage that's not too long. --Keep them guessing. Be a bit off the wall. Occasionally do something unexpected. It keeps them alert, less likely to mess with you and interested, when you are not totally predictable. --Appreciate differences. You've spent all your years finding out who you are and what you like and dislike. But now, as the teacher, you need to appreciate all the tastes, foods, human values, cultural backgrounds of all your students. If you strive toward diversity in your instruction, you can give every student a chance to succeed at something and to improve at something else. --Take roll by identifying who is absent. Count those present and those marked absent and compare that total to the number registered in your class to verify the accuracy of your attendance count. This way you catch anyone who answered "here" for a friend. Since most students are usually there, it is a lot quicker as an attendance taking technique and you avoid spending further time in an activity that is usually accompanied by minor discipline problems. --A further hint about negative attendance taking; often the students absent were the ones absent the day before. And if you ask the students, "Who is Absent?" it helps make them aware and a little more concerned about each other. --No one into your desk. It compromises your authority. That's your private area. --Laugh if it's funny. Don't be threatened. --Teach to your strengths. --Don't makes everything competitive. --Be flexible. Don't paint yourself into a corner with arbitrary rules. --Ask students when they want tests. You can avoid putting it the day of the physics test or the day after the Super Bowl this way. You'll be seen as decent human being. And you'll get better results and fewer complaints about the scores --A few students in most classes will try to get a competitive edge by missing your test; getting an excuse from their parents; and asking friends about what was on the test. And you, by law, have to allow them opportunity to make-up work missed because of an excused absence. Always make the make-up test different; try to make it harder; if it was a multiple choice test, try to make the new one an essay to minimize your time in rewriting a second test. Reward those who take the test as planned. --School bulletins are an important source of school communication, and, like Pavlov's bell, tend to make the listener's salivate and bark. Tell students briefly at the beginning of the term you agree the bulletin is exceedingly important, and that with their cooperation, you can read it in 30 seconds. Then from each bulletin read the topics (e.g., Spanish Club meets Thursday); the occasional announcement everyone should hear; and then post the bulletin so anyone who needed more specific information will know to read it after class. --Let students decide where they are going to sit. It doesn't allow you the convenience of seating chart for learning names, or taking roll or leaving it for the substitute teacher. It also tends to create more small problems like friends talking to each other. But in my opinion, that's better than friends yelling or passing notes to each other across class and allows students to sit away from each other when they are having problems with each other. Not only is letting them choose their own seats more democratic, it tends to minimize the likelihood of some bigger problems. If your class is getting unruly or a little out of hand, give them a quiet, seat assignment and call them one by one to come sit at your desk while you show them in "The Record book" their string of grades for the term. This puts the troublesome students on notice; makes them a little wary; sobers them a bit; helps get them back on task. You, in the mean time, can enjoy their discomfort while being very encouraging about how you know they are smart and can still do okay in your class. It is amazing how mesmerized some students become by a grade book. --Divide and conquer. I like to divide my class up into four sections with a lane down the middle going from side to side of the classroom. I prefer my desk in the rear of one of the sections. If I absolutely have to talk to the entire class I go to the middle where the two lanes cross and I can be the center of attention. Otherwise the four sections are convenient for small group or seat work. If I'm having trouble with a small group, I can isolate the group without distracting the other groups. Divide and conquer. If I'm having trouble with an individual student, I try to get him or her outside for a personal discussion. Divide and conquer. --CYA. Cover your assets. It's helpful to know which on-site administrator you can best trust. If you hear a rumor that involves you, for example a student in your class was "seen" under the influence of alcohol, there's a good chance others have heard the rumor. I think it is wise to informally inform the trusted administrator something like, "I've heard a rumor so and so was under the influence of alcohol in my class, but I couldn't tell it, but I'll continue to watch for a problem." This communicates you are on top of things and should the administration pick this rumor up elsewhere, you've helped them cover their assets. --If you absolutely need administrative help, use it. But they are exceedingly busy people, too, and they want to feel that before they help you with an unusual problem, that you are basically a competent person. Administrators often become defensive when you bring up a problem, because it usually means it will be time consuming for them and probably impossible to solve anyway. So mention a problem (that unbeknownst to them you have already solved very successfully), watch them tense up defensively, and then share how you solve the problem. In their relief they will be most congratulatory and supportive, you will have won points, and they will be less defensive and more helpful should you hear a problem you really can't solve later. --If you are going to make students be seated at the end-of -class bell, make them go back to their seats before the bell rings to dismiss them, not after the bell has already rung. If the bell has already rung you might not only look foolish when you are unable to control their exit, you might also be trampled to death. --When you are passing out tests at the front of each row, count them out loud. It helps keep students from trying to latch onto an extra copy to take to a friend, and helps perpetuate the image that you are well organized. --Try not to blame kids and get mad at them when they aren't doing what they are supposed to and down deep inside you know it's because you are ill prepared or previously upset or haven't thought through your assignment. --All of your assignments do not have to be for a letter grade. Some can be "criterion referenced." If they meet the basic criterion, the student receives full credit. Excellence is its own reward. This allays a lot of fears and nit-picking about differences in grades on tasks with unclear criteria for success. --Now that your lesson is exceedingly well conceived and prepared, you've still got to sell it to your class. "This will be really fun," or "interesting," or "helpful in college," or "keep you from flunking." It is much easier to sell something you do believe in, but you still need to sell it. --Just like I think you should teach to your test (because it measures what you wanted students to learn), I think you should teach to your "Course Evaluations." If it is important to "organize" your subject matter, point out how your subject matter is organized. If you want students to enjoy "Music," point out the times they are enjoying music. Help students make the connections between the purposes and the results. Then ask students how well your particular class made those connections. --The overwhelming advantage of a cumulative final is that you can hold out to your worst student the prospect of still passing, if only barely so, your course. Any other decision on your part invites a discipline nightmare from the moment the student realizes s/he cannot pass your class to the last minute of that class. --Learn students' names the very first day. Do whatever necessary to learn them. I have started borrowing a video camera and asking them to tell me their names on a tape (and how I might best remember their names). I study the tape that first night. It takes several run throughs, but it works. And the time is the best spent time of the term. --Pay attention to the extra curricular events on campus and compliment students in your classes for work well done. --THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE A HAPPY AND WORTHWHILE TEACHING CAREER IS TO TEACH STUDENTS NOT SUBJECT MATTER. With all the time I have spent in school I hope I do not have to explain that I think subject matter is incredibly important. But if you are letting any particular subject stand between you and your students you won't have any fun, you'll be frustrated all the time, and teaching will get worse each year instead of better. Get on the students' side; you can still give the "A"s to those who do best on the subject; but you can truly like all your students regardless how much they like what you are teaching. --You have spent your entire life getting clear on your likes and dislikes, preferences and peeves. Now FORGET those distinctions! Now you must learn to appreciate differences; it will be especially useful to cultivate an appreciation for the odd. Not one kid in your classroom will be like you think a person should be; the most odd kid is potentially your most difficult problem. If you stick to your own time proven biases, you will be one unhappy turkey. --Somewhat to my surprise I have found every kid is interested in something that I could find interesting. I was so surprised by this that I developed a theory that it was true for every kid. And then I met Spanky. Spanky was a real test. Mostly he was an incredibly boring person, taking up space. My initial efforts to prod him into doing something, anything led me to discover that what few personality traits he had were all negative. He was disloyal to his few friends, had a negative attitude towards seemingly everything, was absolutely the prototypical party pooper. After several weeks I even mentioned to a colleague that my theory about all students having at least one redeemable quality was wrong. And then, to my astonishment, because I had decided Spanky had the I.Q. of an amoeba, I found out that Spanky could quote long sections of dialogue from classic movies on TV. Seems he stayed up very late at night watching old movies on TV. When I started teaching a film class, my wife told me it was a good idea, that since I can't go five minutes talking to anyone without talking about movies, at least my students could get credit for it. And here, to my great surprise, one of the most disagreeable people I had ever met, had a love for movies, and even knew the old ones better than I did. It was a starting place. I was the kind of kid whom if you yelled at me I presumed you didn't like me. All kids aren't that way. As Herbret L. Foster points out in his book, Ribbin' jivi' and playin' the dozens, (and he is quoting W.B. Miller)
The guilt squeeze tends to work with middle class kids and specific sanctions/punishments with working class kids. But as with all generalizations, they aren't much help in figuring out your 30-40 students per class. From my experience you cannot predict which kids respond to which kind of discipline except through trial and error. But as a kind of discipline except through trial and error. But as a beginning teacher I found it hard to be tough in the face of vociferous complaints until I realized a lot of kids equate such tough/fairness with caring. --Games (Some) Faculty Play. Although teachers' lots are generally better than they have been for the last 4000 years, working conditions have deteriorated for the first time in history over the past 10-20 years (salary, class size, seriousness of student problems). But even before the slippage there is something about teaching that has attracted many chronic complainers. They especially enjoy sharing their complaints with new teachers and do so ad infinitum. I have found only one way to make this interaction tolerable--I play a game I call "It's really a Lot Worse Than You Realize." It is a variation of a routine Monty Python has where the tuxedoes discussants argue on who really had it worse growing up and the "winner" lived under the hole in the road. No matter how bleak a picture your chronically complaining fellow teacher paints, with a little imagination and real or imagined data you can explain why. Since wizened and grizzled veteran teachers will invariably think you, as a beginning teacher, will be too easy on kids I highly recommend that you give them the respect that is their due and periodically seek their advice publicly, ordinarily in the faculty lounge, on whether, indeed, you are grading too hard, giving too many assignments, and lecturing too much, regardless what you actually happen to be doing. This goes over much better than your explanations of how well your "new" ideas are working in your classroom.
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