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7 Days to a Perfect Classroom
Special Report Series
How a Simple Poster Can Help You Create a Better-Behaved, More Productive Classroom
by Tom Daly |
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Let me start by saying that it can be easy to take your students for granted. After all, they’re required to show up for school, right?
Technically and physically, yes.
But in every other way, no, not really.
If school is boring, or if kids don’t feel welcome, or if you are just going through the motions, your students will either start tuning you out or begin finding things to do with their day other than sitting in your class in rapt attention.
I’m not talking about letting your kids study whatever they find interesting. That would be misguided and neglectful of our first priority to teach the “3 R’s.”
However, too often we require nothing more from our kids than passive compliance.
What do I mean by passive compliance? Well, let me tell you a quick story to illustrate:
When my daughter Brooke was in the eighth grade, she was having some difficulties and I decided to do something completely “out of the box” to better understand the situation.
Here’s what I did: I spent the entire day literally sitting through each one of her classes.
That’s right, I wedged myself into one of those undersized desks for six straight classes.
I kept to myself in the back of the room, took mental notes, and was a little shocked at what I saw.
You see, even though I had been a teacher for several years at that point, I still came away with several revealing insights.
At the end of the day I realized
six important things:
1. Not much was required of my child except passive compliance. As long as she kept her mouth shut, the teachers considered her a good student.
2. Only the “bad kids” heard their names spoken out loud. The teachers droned on and on without asking questions to make sure the kids “got” the material. When the teacher did ask a rare question, they tended to only call on the same two or three students who often volunteered.
3. On the whole, the teachers did not know my child very well. They knew her name from the seating chart, but almost nothing about her test scores, her likes and dislikes, or even her personality. Her teachers knew the names of about 30 percent of the class, and those were the few troublemakers along with the two smart kids who always volunteered in class.
4. School is boring! I found myself fighting the urge to fall asleep. It was hard to pay attention. Sitting in the class from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. was, in many ways, an excruciating experience.
5. The teachers “aimed at the middle” of the class. The smart kids were on their own, and so were the kids who struggled. I could see the frustration and resignation in their eyes.
6. When students finished their worksheets early, there was nothing for them to do except tune out or chat with other kids. There were supplemental books in each classroom, along with interesting technology, but the students were not encouraged to use that extra time to read those books or rotate into the computer stations. Sometimes, when there was only one computer in the classroom, the teacher claimed it as her own and prohibited students from using it.
During one of the classes, I noticed that my daughter had finished her work early and just sat at her desk doing nothing for at least 12 minutes until everyone else was finished.
I also noticed an entire row of interesting-looking textbooks sitting unused in the classroom.
Later that evening, I asked her, “Brooke, how come when you finished early in social studies you didn’t check out one of those cool-looking books from the bookshelf?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think we’re allowed to do that. I’m not even sure.”
I found this amazing, and a then a little light bulb went off in my head . . .
What if students had an available set of activities to do instead of just sitting there doing nothing or causing trouble?
This would seem to prevent all sorts of problems. For one thing, as any teacher knows, kids with ADHD or other attention-deficit issues don’t “do nothing” well. They don’t handle unstructured free time wisely.
The "What To Do When I'm Done" Poster
That’s where the “What To Do When I’m Done” poster comes in.
The “What To Do When I’m Done” Poster is just one great way to reduce passive compliance in your classroom.
Here’s the rationale for this simple idea: One problem we teachers have is that we’re required to aim for “the middle” to reach most of the class. Then, during independent practice, the gifted kids finish early and yell out, “I’m done!”
Don’t let them simply sit there and do nothing! Remember to tell your students that life is made up of time. When you waste your time, you waste your life.
Of course, enrichment and accelerated activities are a regular part of the gifted student’s calendar. However, on a day-to-day basis, it is often difficult to plan enrichment activities for each lesson. So when our speedy students cry out, “I’m done,” we often ignore them or scramble for some kind of assignment while we assist their peers.
Here's a Great Solution . . .
Create a “What To Do When I’m Done” poster! There are countless sources of material you can use for this poster – just make sure the students are not rushing through their assignments to move on to these extra activities.
Make these enrichment activities relevant to the instructional subject matter. You could create ongoing Internet projects they can do. Or you could have a list of extra credit assignments they can select from.
I like to introduce the “What To Do When I’m Done” poster to the class by giving a quick lesson on the value of time and using their time to their own benefit while in my class.
I often start out with this brainteaser quote:
“Life is made up of time. When you waste your time, you waste your _______?”
I ask the class this exact question and half of the students will respond immediately with the correct fill-in-the-balk answer: “life.” And I say, “Right. When you waste your time, you waste your life. So, if you are done with a class activity, and you did your best work on that activity, don’t just sit around or ask the teacher to entertain you, take charge of your life and go to the “What To Do When I’m Done” poster.
The benefits to using an
approach like this are many:
- It increases the amount of time your students are on-task.
- It decreases behavior problems.
- Parents like seeing them in your class because they can see you are organized and serious.
- Your kids will learn to take responsibility for their actions instead of falling back on passive compliance.
- It will increase attendance because your class will be more fun.
- It lets you help other students who may be struggling to finish the current assignment without having to put out fires elsewhere in the classroom or constantly deal with kids who are saying, ‘I’m done!”
Below is a sample “What To Do When I’m Done” poster. You’ll notice that it uses the acronym WORD to get across its message: “Write, Organize, Read, Draw.”
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What To Do When I’m Done
Write (Poems, Songs, Letters, Compliments)
Organize (your backpack/binder, the classroom)
Read (textbook, free reading book, magazine)
Draw (maps, pictures, art work)
Also consider these things to do:
Homework
Internet
Puzzles |
Here is another example
of a poster you can use:
For this one, you tell the class. “Listen, if you do your best work and you finish early, you have “FREE TIME.” During that time, you can select anything from the FREE TIME board.
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FREE TIME
Find a book
Research on interest
Explore manipulatives
Enrich your passion
Tidy-up
Invent!
Make a drawing
Entry in a journal |
These are just two examples of such posters. You can get creative and come up with countless other ideas for more posters.
Day 1 Bottom Line: Find ways to reduce passive compliance and begin watching your kids become more engaged and responsible students!
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24 Additional Posters, All Ready to Go . . .
If you would like to see 24 other ready-made poster ideas, you will find them in one of my recommended resources, “The ADHD Solution for Teachers: How To Turn Any Disruptive Child Into Your Best Student.” This 202-page book comes with a companion workbook that contains ready-made handouts and worksheets.
To learn more about this recommended resource, click below:
Click here  How To Turn Any Disruptive Child Into Your Best Student
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Copyright © 2008 by Tom Daly / Smarty Pants Publications
All rights reserved |