The Exact Steps You Take When Your Classroom Feels Like Chaos

I think every teacher has been in a situation where they wanted to run from their own classroom. Perhaps, if you are reading this, you want to currently bolt. Leave the keys on the desk. Grab your cold coffee and dreams of teacher inspiration and speed out of the parking lot. Tire tracks left behind you. This would be more than easy to do on many days throughout the school year.

But, the thing is you really, really care.

The fact that you care so much is the perfect starting point.

Teacher burnout is evident and almost inevitable, and sometimes we have particular classes that are more challenging than others. In my time in education, the repeated conversation of “what hour” was your rough hour or what grouping of students seemed to present the most challenges, both academically and behaviorally. This one class or grouping can be a contributing factor for teacher burnout but also presents a challenge because there is a mental block to tackle when working with a hard group day in and day out. This post has 5 steps you can take to reset any challenging class or group of students. It is meant to serve as a place of inspiration and hope because sometimes all we need to do is figure out some sort of a game plan to come back and try again tomorrow.

25+ Tips for Teaching Your Toughest Class

I have been talking to my teacher friends about something that naturally occurs each school year: Each of us will end up with at least one tougher class than the rest of the classes. This might be an advanced class that is really concerned about grades, a class that struggles with engagement or behavior, or a class that seems to constantly be at odds with each other. We have all seen the teacher memes or posts that highlight many of these ideas:

Your most challenging student will never be absent.

Dear teacher, I talk to everyone. Moving my seat will not help.

When a student asks to go to the restroom, just seconds after their best friend.

Welcome to teaching! When salaries are low, and everything is your fault.

When you find out that your worst-behaved student…has 3 younger siblings.

There’s no tired like teacher tired.

The sayings are true. We are tired. We are constantly making minute-by-minute decisions, and we are genuinely exhausted. Instead of dreading a class, I would like to offer some ways to turn that class into one that you love again. Nobody wants to be miserable. So, if some systems are put into place for both the teachers and the students, then the parameters are setup to safeguard your happiness as the leader of the classroom. You are no longer controlling chaos, but perhaps enjoying being in front of 30+ middle schoolers (at least in my position) again. This post offers 25+ tips that are designed to revise and edit classroom systems, reframe negative thinking, and insert more love and joy into your classroom for each and every hour. Take what you need. If you are struggling with a particular hour in your day, maybe you try one or two of these tomorrow or next week.

14+ Posts with Strategies to Tackle Grading

During this past week of school, I had a realization that the newness of the back-to-school season was starting to wear off. I found myself getting used to routines with remote teaching, and I felt like I finally had some organization to my day-to-day schedule again. With this feeling, almost always comes the anticipated dread of the stacking up of the paper pile. Whether this stack is in-person or virtually in a Google Classroom, this pile can feel draining. I can insert other words all associated with burnout. I wanted to do a round-up of posts about grading in general on the blog that I have used throughout the years. Some of these posts are more general posts about grading categories, reflections on blocking out time, and trying to manage the load. Some of these posts are about specific ways that I work through larger assignments to give feedbacks (Hello, conferences and using rubric codes). You will also see a vulnerable post that started the blog in 2017 where I admitted that working through the giant stacks of paper is one of the reasons I would ever consider leaving teaching. As teachers, managing the to-do list and paper load is one of the most important points we make in our own self-care. My hope is that you find a strategy that lightens the stack you have growing on your teacher's desk or in your inbox. Check out these 15+ posts to inspire your grading routine.

14+ Posts That Will Help You Feel Ready for Back-to-School

The end of August and the beginning of September marks the official kick-off of back-to-school. Many of you have probably been planning for a while. Some of you may be still working out the first few weeks of plans for your classroom. Wherever you are in the planning process, this post is designed to give you some sparks of joy and added creativity in your planning and in your adjustment in the closing out of summer. If you have reached a dead-end, (like I had earlier this week) browse the posts below to find one that may help insert some much-needed inspiration into your plans or your own personal routine. You will find some posts about teaching including ideas for classroom activities, literacy instruction, and how to structure your class setup. You will also find mindset posts about anxiety, stopping negative teacher talk, and remaining uncomfortable as you approach this school year with a focus on anti-bias and anti-racist teaching. I know this school season of 2020-2021 is unlike any other we have faced in the world of teaching; however, I know we can do this through the collaboration of ideas and helpful reminders to see the good in all situations.

We can do this. I promise.

Show Up for Young Readers with Diverse Texts in Classroom Libraries

Recently, I got the privilege of talking to a group of educators in Kalamazoo, MI about diverse texts in classroom libraries. The district had worked at providing small libraries of 25-50 books to elementary teachers, and the goal was to move this initiative to middle schools. I am always a fan of giving books to teachers; it possibly is the best resource we can give all of our classrooms. However, the training I was asked to give was intended to be more than what to do with these books, it was more so how to grow your own library and then show up for reading with your students. Books are simply materials or objects if we don’t show students how to use them. Thus, the term “show up” surfaced in a lot of my preparatory work for this training. Tricia Ebarvia in her blog post, “How do we show up?” cites a moment of epiphany when a fellow teacher stated: “Your racial consciousness determines how you show up” -Tony Hudson, an Equity Transformational Specialist from the Pacific Education Group (PEG). In addition to our racial consciousness and discussing the inclusion of voices, how does our consciousness as a reader determine how we present ourselves to students?

The training’s theme was really focusing on the idea of the teacher as a reader. Equipped with the mindset that the teachers in the room may or may not identify as readers themselves and they may or may not have a classroom library, I began to form my goals for the training based on what they do have: a starter set of books, experiences in the classroom that have shaped them as educators and people, and a passion for children and learning evident in their decision to be in the field of education. While naysayers might say that some teachers are not able or willing to change their mindsets, it is with a strong conviction that I know teachers can do better and be better for the students in their classroom that struggle with reading. We all want to help kids, we just need different avenues of the “how.” This post outlines the three objectives covered within training on diverse texts in classroom libraries. It is a calling to assess the materials in our own classrooms, build those materials to create diverse texts #bookflood, and reminders on how we “show up” for reading every single day.

My Weekly Teaching Routine

I love swapping weekly routines with teachers. It shows what we value and what we prioritize for each day of teaching. I talked about my planning process in my back-to-school bullet journal post in August, but this plan can be a candidate for change based on the group of students each year. I always like to review my weekly routine each year when I do my reading each summer. Reflecting on these practices is one of the ways that I like to feed my own creativity and keep my teaching practices fresh for students. I know teachers always like to have established routines “that work,” but I would argue that the new things we try to keep our student-minds working like new. I got into teaching because learning was something that appealed to me; the nature of the weekly routine is something that begs to be refined over and over.

Let’s #swaproutines. I would love to know how your classroom runs and is organized with different activities and lessons.

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