Getting Started Right

How do you start your day? Some people begin with prayer or meditation. Others listen to a song to either hype or calm them On Thursday mornings, I scan in a couple of hundred people at the Y who begin with a workout. Whatever people choose to do sets the tone for their day. As people leave the Y on Thursday mornings at six, I say, "Have a great day. You got it started well."

The same is true of the school year. How you start matters. It sets the tone for your year, so be intentional about it.

What do you do on the first day of school?

Let's look at a few online stereotypes.

• Relationships First - There are the "relationships first" people. They spend the first weeks of school doing icebreakers and team building activities. They play a lot of games before they ever teach the first iota of subject area content. 
• Let's Get Started - Then, there are the teachers who jump into content with barely a moment of introduction. "In this class, we work." is the opening sentence. The kids in this room have homework on the first night of school.
• Procedure Practice - These are the people who came of age in the Harry Wong era. They spend the first days of school going over the syllabus and practicing procedures over and over again until they are tight as a drum.

Like all stereotypes, few real people fit neatly into these categories. Most of us have some blend of setting expectations, trying to learn kids names, and doing something fun that is also related to our content.

I did want to get to content quickly, but I knew procedures mattered to a smoothly functioning classroom, so I tried to get through the rules/syllabus stuff as quickly as was effective and move into a content based introductory activity. 

I'm not here to tell you which kind of person to be. There are many variables involved in what might make the best choice for your class. If you teach art, it probably looks different than if you algebra. If you teach an introductory class, like Spanish I, it might look different than if you teach AP Literature. If you feel like a fraud trying to do an icebreaker than you would hate doing in a faculty meeting, that's going to land like a lead balloon with your students. 

My advice to you as the new school year begins is to be intentional. Realize that the first day will set the tone. If you do not intend to move forward as "the fun teacher," don't set that expectation by doing fun activities. If you expect adherence to procedures for the rest of the year, you will have to teach them on the first day, but it might be wiser to teach them as you do them rather than attempt an isolated "procedures lesson." It is important that you know their names, but there are ways to do that without spending the first 45 minutes of your class time on it (Hint: HW Assignment One can be for them to submit a video on your school LSM in which they introduce themselves and tell you about their goals - which has the added bonus of them pronouncing their own name, eliminating the awkwardness of you mispronouncing it in addition to showing that they are properly enrolled and logged in on the system).

Those first days matter. They matter a lot. And they determine what kids will expect from the rest of their time with you. So sit down and give it a lot of thought. What are you trying to communicate? Make the days activities about that.

Have a great year!

The Power of Habit

There's a popular saying that says, "When you know better, you do better." 

Do you?  I mean, is that always true?

I remember saying to students, "You know better than that" an awful lot.

And it's not just kids.  I'm guessing you have had experiences where you knew a better way, but you kept doing something the way you had always done it.  I have a couple of recent examples.

I have been going to the same YMCA for over two years.  I had been turning on the same street for a long time.  A month ago, I realized that I could avoid an awkward and potentially dangerous intersection if I turned one street earlier and met up with the other street farther west.  I tried it, and it is objectively easier and safer.  Yet, I still find myself sailing right past that street if I am not making a conscious effort to remember. 

When I learned to set up memberships during training for my job, I must have missed a small step on the first screen where other family members are entered on the membership.  I didn't even know it was there as I have been regularly scrolling down to the "Continue to Order Entry" button for 12 months.  That meant going to the order after it was completed and adding a spouse and/or children after the fact.  I thought it was strange, but because I didn't know another way, I assumed it was the only way to do it.  I just thought the system was a little wonky.  A few weeks ago, I saw a co-worker doing it as a step of the set up and said, "Wait, you can do that before you place the order?"  She showed me where it is on the first screen, and I said, "Well, you've just saved me a ton of time."  At some point, that knowledge will save me a ton of time, but it hasn't yet.  I've processed quite a multi-person memberships since then, and I've only used the better way for about half of them.  I usually realize it just after I've hit the button and can't go back and think, "Crud, now I've got to do it the hard way!"

Why? Because the habitual way of doing it has a well-myelinated pathway of neurons (you will sometimes hear it called "muscle memory.")  The new way has some weak connections being made, but I have to do it that way a lot more times before those pathways are stronger.  Until turning the new way becomes automated, I will likely still find myself mindlessly passing the better street and the better button sometimes.

That's the power of habit. We engage in habits so often that we often aren't conscious of the fact that we are doing them.  Smokers who are trying to quit must actively try not to light up at certain times, not because they have a burning desire for a cigarette but because they are in the habit of having one at that time.  If you drive a car with the gear shift in the center console, you will find your hand going there even when driving a rental or borrowing a car from a friend. And, I can't count how many times I have walked into a room and hit the light switch during a power outage.  It's not that I am dumb enough to think the light is going to come on; it is that habit is automated, taking less energy than logic.

Teachers, harness the power of habit.  All over America, the school year has either already started or is soon to start.  Start instilling habits today!  Do the same thing over and over with them on day one. Make "This is how we do this in here" the norm. 

• Walking in and looking at the board for bellwork or announcements should be second nature by next week.
• Capping the marker immediately after writing an answer on their mini-whiteboard should be done without thinking within a day or two.
• You have to overcome their impulse to hop up as soon as the bell rings now, or you will be fighting it for the rest of the year (because that one is already habit, it's gonna take a minute).

Once something becomes a habit, they almost can't help themselves. It's going to feel annoying during the first two weeks, but it will save you all kinds of energy for the rest of the year.  Invest that time. You will be glad you did.