Good Teaching sessions offer research-based tips

By Trudy Stephenson Willis

Once upon a time, students would start school knowing that they needed to be respectful of their elders. "Nowadays, a lot of them are unsocialized and unaware of the expectations," say elementary school teachers Katie O'Reilly and Emily Hamp.

It's not wise for teachers to assume that students necessarily know how to behave or that desired behaviors are already in their repertoire, they told participants at a workshop on classroom management at CTA's Good Teaching Conference.

The secret to survival is teaching students what your expectations are, say Hamp and O'Reilly, members of the Waugh Teachers Association in Sonoma County and the Evergreen Teachers Association in San Jose respectively. "If not you, who? You have to be proactive. We have to stop students from draining teachers' energy and throwing us for a loop."

They were among the many teachers sharing what works in their classrooms during the two Good Teaching Conferences, one in Oakland in January and one in Hollywood in March. "This is professional development at its best — teachers sharing what works," says CTA President Barbara E. Kerr, who served as the keynote speaker at both conferences. "These important conferences give our members a chance to share and learn exciting ideas that they can bring back to their classrooms to keep public schools improving."

In one workshop, Upland Teachers Assocation President Andy Megaw and his wife, Shari Megaw, a member of the Ontario-Montclair Teachers Association, showed how to employ novelty, humor and theories about learning styles to get students focused on learning. "The brain seeks novelty — it refocuses attention." Even when they're required to use scripted learning, they say they can "still be the teacher" and reach into their bag of tricks to get students back when their attention wanders.

In another workshop, Beth Andrews, a member of the Irvine Teachers Association, showed participants how to teach the rules of grammar by disguising them as food for a "Grammasaurus." She also put participants onstage to demonstrate how dramatic improvisation helps students make the link between their emotions and learning. Brain-based research always returns "to the emotional part of learning," she says. "You have to enjoy it to learn."

In their session — "Disruptive Students: Always Early, Never Sick!" — Hamp and O'Reilly shared some of what they've learned through Center for Teacher Effectiveness seminars and the landmark book, Time To Teach! Both devote a considerable amount of time at the beginning of the school year to teaching behavioral expectations just as they would the academics — explaining what's acceptable, getting students to model the behavior, and then quizzing them on it until it becomes second nature. Even though it takes time away from their studies in the beginning, they say their classes are able to accomplish much more over time.

Hamp and O'Reilly advise setting up the classroom environment so the teacher is not always "bouncing off of students' behavior." Teaching rules, routines and expectations not only gives students a feeling of security and reinforces the skills they need to be successful learners, it also helps the teacher to be a fair disciplinarian. "You can't punish them if they haven't been taught what you expect."

Hamp and O'Reilly maintain there's a difference between being authoritarian and being in control. Teachers have to remain cool and respond correctly when being challenged. "Kids will challenge you no matter what," say the teachers. "There has to be conflict for them to find their sense of self. Conflict is an essential part of growing up."

But that's not to say it won't try the teacher's patience in the process.

Self-control is critical. There's no percentage in getting into a power struggle in front of the class. "If you win, you alienate the rest of the class because you won in the struggle against their friend. If you lose, you're considered a weak teacher."

The best advice is to pick your battles. If a child is misbehaving, the teacher has a choice to make. Hamp and O'Reilly suggest posing three silent questions: Am I able to teach? Are others able to learn? Is the student able to learn? If you can answer yes to all three questions, ignore the behavior. If the answer to any of the three is no, they suggest giving the student a chance to "refocus."

Having laid out the process for students ahead of time, the teacher simply says, "Mary, refocus." The child then knows to move to a seat at a back table and fill out a refocus form, which requires reflecting on questions like: What did I do? Why? What problems did it cause for my classmates? Meanwhile, the teacher moves on with the lesson. The student signals his or her readiness to return to work by standing up and waiting patiently for the signal that it's okay to return to his or her desk. The teacher quietly ends the incident with a passing comment like, "Good job. Now, get back to work."

"Kids get it," say the teachers. "They're not being punished. It's impulse control. It's not about placing blame."

Quoting an anonymous sage, they added, "If punishment led to improvement, then many of the kids we work with would already be geniuses."

In the beginning a problem child might have to refocus many times during the day, but the number diminishes with time. If it doesn't, the teacher has documentation of the problem without having to take time away from the class.

Strategies like refocusing, say Hamp and O'Reilly, take care of 80 to 90 percent of the lower-level classroom discipline problems.

In the end, the strategies all involve common sense. "It's all just good parenting stuff."