Fast Llamas!
We are back for our final part in our 5 part series on how to be and act like a slow llama! I hope that you have gained some insight and reflected on yourself. Sometimes we see ourselves and we are like, "yes, I am doing it right!" and sometimes, we feel that twinged of doubt and we know we can work on getting better. Doug Curry says, "your classroom will be whatever you want it to be", but it takes courage and effort. Be willing to ask for help too.
Here's Doug:
Inconsistency and Lack of Follow Through
I bet that on the first day of school your class was great. Now that we are about 100 days in, are they a little less than great? Gee, I wonder who changed! Y
our classroom will be whatever you want it to be.
Do you have exceptional systems and routines in place?
Do you want these fabulous systems and routines to continue? Then it is 100% your responsibility to make it happen, which means that no matter what happens, you still expect students to follow your routines and procedures.
One big trap that a lot of slow llamas fall into is the thinking that once they teach their classroom management plan, that the students will automatically remember it without any prompting. Don't fall into the trap that your classroom management plan is no longer working simply because you have to keep using it. It's called classroom MANAGEMENT, for a reason. You manage the class culture, the students behavior, the content delivery and the learning that is happening. You are in control.
When you do a classroom visit and see a fast llama in action (I highly recommend this), you may think, "wait, they didn't have to nag and the kids were complying!" Don't think that the teacher is ignoring behavior or that they just got all the "good kids". Behind the curtain, that teacher has been working on training and teaching those kids their expectations, routines, procedures and agreements. Also, probably, the teacher has taken time to do two things:
1. get to know their students
2. works hard at finding meaning, relevance and authenticity to their lessons
Just like recapping content 10/24/7 (every 10 minutes, 24 hours and 7 days), we recap our classroom procedures and management plans often too.
Warning: Say you go into another teachers classroom and you like what you see. That teacher put on a "recap hat" when they did their recap, she stood on a chair when she wanted the kids attention. They clapped to a song at the beginning of class, you loved her "call to attention - Holy Mole - Guacamole" and when the kids left they said a mantra. This was amazing, so fun, the kids engaged! She did get all the good kids!
The best teachers think about their classroom, what they want it to sound like, look like and feel like. You need to do that too. An important aspect of this is authenticity. You have to be willing to do something with fidelity, and that aligns heavily with it being strongly tied to your willingness to do it in the first place.
I have always thought mantras are really cool. The more you say and hear something, the more you believe it. Sounded good to me! However, I am quite shy about certain things, and I just couldn't get out of it what I wanted. I didn't have my heart in it and failed. By November, I wasn't asking the kids to participate anymore. I guess I just didn't own it as it needed to be. While trying something out and it not working and needing tweaking is a normal part of our job, the bad part of this story is some kids asked me why we didn't say the mantra anymore. They called me out! It made me think of the message I was sending and the importance of my follow through. So, choose your procedures, traditions, systems and agreements with care.
This wraps up our discussion from Doug Curry's free resources page. But, we are not done with being a fast llama! Until next time!
