Choirwire | Episode 1 - How to Begin Your School Year Part 1

This episode focuses on how to start your school year off right! From procedures, to expectations, this episode is one you don't want to miss!

Transcript

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Welcome to the first episode of Choir Wire. My name is Alex and I'm your host. This week we're going to be talking about how you start your school year. Everyone does it differently. So let's talk about it. These are some ways that I start my school year and this is just what I've been following for the past 15 years. First of all, we want to set a positive environment in the classroom. You want to make sure that the students feel safe when they enter your classroom. That could be making sure that your classroom is set up in a safe manner so that way there's an easy flow from getting into the classroom to where they're going to put their bags down to where they sit down, et cetera. They wanna feel safe in your classroom. Another thing is trust. Make them feel like they are safe and that they can trust this adult that's in front of them as well. So that also goes with making sure that we set strong expectations no matter what. If you see that you might possibly have that one child that could be a little bit unsafe, we all have those children, then you want to make sure that you talk to that child and make sure that they don't get out of hand and that they know that you are handling those issues that could arise with those unsafe children. And also to have fun. Show them that you are human. You can laugh. It is okay to laugh. I promise you, it is okay to laugh. I laugh on the daily and my kids think I'm the biggest goofball because I am, but it also just helps with the environment that you set in the classroom. Here's a story. So going back to my first year of teaching, I don't know where I picked this idea up from, but for some reason, someone told me, don't smile your first year of teaching at all, which I Thinking back, I'm like, okay, maybe you were right. Maybe I should not have smiled at all. But I think that there's definitely a case to say, show them that you're human, at least. So here's why I say that. My first year of teaching, it was brutal. It was, it wasn't brutal. It was tough because I thought I knew everything. I went in thinking that I knew everything. And those kids, I was their third teacher in three years. So they had some major turnover, and those kids also did not want to hear from me. I came in strong and very, very, very studious. And yeah, I was just... basically being a jerk now that I think about it. So don't be a jerk. Don't be this, you know, trying to be so hard on them, you know? And it definitely gave me some issues. So I definitely had discipline in order, for sure. I just remember... Anytime a kid was out of line, this is crazy, don't do this. But anytime a kid was out of line, I had my filing cabinet full of referrals. And so anytime that I needed to get them back in line, I would just stop talking, go over to my desk that was in the classroom, and I would just rip the drawer open and pull out a referral and say, who wants it? And yeah, don't do that. So it did not work in my favor. Did it help at the moment? Yes. But that was definitely a survival technique. So, um, yeah, I, I think that I, I didn't know what I didn't know. So I will say children were a lot different back then, uh, compared to 15 years later. Um, but I, I would not use that as a technique. Okay. So always lead with love. Also, uh, like I said, show them that you're human, And don't be afraid to be yourself. I was trying to hide a lot of myself, even in my internship. And I would see my friends have these great relationships with their students. And I was like, why don't I have that? Why don't I? Have the students that are, you know, wanting to know about me because I never approach them to learn about them. So that's another thing, too, is you have to approach them to learn about them, to get to know them. We'll talk about that in another podcast. But your job is to make sure that they feel like they are important in your class. Even if you're not interested in talking to the 180, 200, 250, however many kids you have in your program to personally get to know every single one of them, yes, I think that's wise to do. But sometimes it's just unrealistic. And so if you at least know everybody's names at the start of the school year, that's a plus. That's a win. And when they walk in that classroom, call them by their names. Greet them. Give them a compliment. Start out small if you're like, oh man, that's overwhelming. The small things matter. So going away from my story now, make sure that you also read the room. I can't tell you how many times that I did not read the room in my past, but you have to read the room with those students. You can kind of tell who's gonna be your best students. You can kind of tell from the get-go who's gonna be the needy child who's going to be the problem child, all those fun people and personalities that we have to deal with as choir teachers. So you have to use some reverse psychology sometimes. You have to use those psychology skills that we learned in psych class. But you have to be able to read the room and see what you have. You have to see who hangs out with who, who has the potential to have a conflict, who has the potential to be needy, all of those things you want to check that out in the first couple of weeks so that way you can strategically place those students where they will have the best success in your classroom. Another thing, procedures. That is so, so important. If you don't have any procedures and clear expectations set, oh my goodness, you're going to be in a world of trouble. I can't tell you how many times that I've either sat in on a classroom or I've been in a classroom myself where the expectations have not been set and it hasn't been clear and the procedures haven't been clear either. Those first couple of weeks, Talk about expectations and procedures till you are blue or purple in the face, because it is important for them to hear it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. So that way there's no issue of, oh, but you didn't tell us. Yes, I did. I told you 600 times. So they should know what the procedures are. So that way your classroom can be autonomous. It can run itself. It's such joy when that happens. Where you don't have to question. Things just happen. Kids know where things are. Kids know where to place their backpacks. They know how to enter the classroom. They know when to talk, when not to talk. I love that. It is a beautiful moment when it happens. So starting the year, that's just a little taste. There's more to how we start the year as well. But here's an idea that I want to share with you. It's a game that you can use to play in your classroom to get kids out of their seats and get them a little bit more out of their comfort zone. Obviously, this is probably not a game that you want to play on the first day of school because they're all scared. You're scared. We're all scared together. But this is probably something that you can play later on in the week or the week after that. But the name of the game is called Evolution. And so every Everyone starts out as an egg. There's an egg shape that they would make with their hands. So you make a fist with one hand and then put your other hand on top of that. And then you would have to go around and basically rock, paper, scissors until you win. When you win, that means you get to evolve. Part of your evolution is evolving into a fish. So then you put your hands together, palms together, and then you pretend that you're a fish. You can only battle other fishes. Get where we're going now? So battling other fishes, you win. You get to evolve into a bird. We all know what the bird looks like. Not the one with your middle finger, but the bird with your thumbs interlocked and you're flapping your fingers. So then you battle with other birds. Then after that, you... Transform into a dinosaur. We've got our T-Rex arms up. And then after that, you get to evolve into a human. And then you've won the game. There will be multiple winners. There will be only four losers. So you'll have a person that will still be an egg. You'll have a person that will still be a fish. A person that will still be a bird. bird and a person that will still be a dinosaur, unfortunately. So we clap for those people at the end. We don't boo them or anything like that. But the goal is to make sure that you don't become extinct at the end. So it becomes very competitive and kids get very excited about this game. But you can also check out the poster on my Teachers Pay Teachers. I have all the directions there. It's a and put it in your classroom so that way you have step-by-step instructions about how to play Evolution. I want to hear from you. This is where you get to share it with me. Tell me about how you start your school year or if you have any great tips that you would like to impart on our listeners. If you have any great games for team building, any ideas that you have, you can comment on my Instagram if you go to choirwire and you can just answer the questions that are there and I will share them on the next episode. Thanks for listening, y'all. Until next time.