Joins a Faculty and School
As a teacher, it's vital to realize that you're part of a team. The school sets up policies and it's important to support those decisions every day in your individual classroom for the sake of consistency. If you don't buy-in to the goals and ideals set by the school, how can you expect students to play along with the guidelines you set up?
I've found it rewarding and effective to adhere to my building's policies, from cell phone use, to Wednesday morning department time. When teachers join a community of other teachers, the rewards range from control of student behavior to having other teachers to discuss your ideas with. It's not always perfect, and of course there will be moments when teachers have to make their own decisions with regard to policy. As long as those moments are few and far between, though, classroom instruction is heartily benefitted by joining a faculty.
I've found it rewarding and effective to adhere to my building's policies, from cell phone use, to Wednesday morning department time. When teachers join a community of other teachers, the rewards range from control of student behavior to having other teachers to discuss your ideas with. It's not always perfect, and of course there will be moments when teachers have to make their own decisions with regard to policy. As long as those moments are few and far between, though, classroom instruction is heartily benefitted by joining a faculty.
Respect Lesson (8th Grade)
At Holt Junior High, I was lucky to be in a building, and a district, where they're encouraging positive behavior, through a program called PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports). This program emphasizes the positive actions a student can take to be successful in school, and deemphasizes the constant focus of so many schools on what students are doing wrong. They lined it up with their core school character traits: Respect, Responsibility, Accepting, Motivation, and Safety.
Throughout the year, teachers teach mini-lessons to the students that encourage discussion around core principles and demonstrate to students what behaviors are expected.
This lined up perfectly with the way I teach, and was a blessing throughout the year. On the second day of school, I taught a lesson on respect, which happened to be one of the core traits emphasized by the Holt PBIS program. I explained to my class that my only rule is that they treat each aspect of our class with respect, and then I had students work in groups to examine what that meant. They filled out a graphic organizer which asked them to define respect, and then explore and identify examples and non-exampels of that character trait. Then, as a whole class, they shared out their findings. Lastly, we made goals for our class as a whole.
Throughout the year, these posters have been hanging as a reminder and I've referred back to this central idea when students aren't living up to it. On the whole, it's been a successful, positive way to ensure that students are kind/polite to one another, serious about the class work, and careful in their treatment of class materials. Things aren't always perfect in my class, but I think that showing the students that this is what I value most in terms of rules and regulations has been an effective way to earn their respect and trust, but also to join a school community and buy-in to a school-wide initiative aimed at improving student behavior.
Here are copies of the blank document I used, as well as the completed version of 4th hour's respect poster.
Throughout the year, teachers teach mini-lessons to the students that encourage discussion around core principles and demonstrate to students what behaviors are expected.
This lined up perfectly with the way I teach, and was a blessing throughout the year. On the second day of school, I taught a lesson on respect, which happened to be one of the core traits emphasized by the Holt PBIS program. I explained to my class that my only rule is that they treat each aspect of our class with respect, and then I had students work in groups to examine what that meant. They filled out a graphic organizer which asked them to define respect, and then explore and identify examples and non-exampels of that character trait. Then, as a whole class, they shared out their findings. Lastly, we made goals for our class as a whole.
Throughout the year, these posters have been hanging as a reminder and I've referred back to this central idea when students aren't living up to it. On the whole, it's been a successful, positive way to ensure that students are kind/polite to one another, serious about the class work, and careful in their treatment of class materials. Things aren't always perfect in my class, but I think that showing the students that this is what I value most in terms of rules and regulations has been an effective way to earn their respect and trust, but also to join a school community and buy-in to a school-wide initiative aimed at improving student behavior.
Here are copies of the blank document I used, as well as the completed version of 4th hour's respect poster.