| |
|
|
 |
|
|
| Didax "Class Ideas" Newsletter Archive |
|
|
|
Welcome back to another school year and another year of Class Ideas! Classes are in full swing here in Massachusetts. It's a wonderful time of year. The kids are enjoying their first days of school, making new friends and getting to know their new teachers. The weather is beautiful and all of us here at Didax are busily working away at keeping great educational materials and service coming your way!
This month Class Ideas tackles the important and difficult topic of Early Childhood Character Education. From an early age, children can begin developing good character. Key elements of good character include trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and good citizenship. These are all character traits that we, as teachers and parents, can help children develop.
Our feature article focuses on a practical technique for teaching respect and self-control, both important parts of good character. There are downloadable activity pages for your students and on the lighter side, our new feature, Humorous Happenings. Also find links to some wonderful websites that relate to Character Education for all grade levels.
I hope you find this issue helpful and inspiring. I'd love to hear from you if you have any comments on this Class Ideas newsletter or ideas for future issues.
Happy Fall!
Anna Mullen, Editor |
| |
| Wait Time |
|
 Wait Time
by Gerard Gordon
No soon had the teacher and I stepped into the second grade classroom, than the new boy had rushed to the front of the room. He got about as close to the teacher as you can possibly get without making direct physical contact and yelled in her face, ?Yeah, well I hate school and I hate you too!?
I froze.
Time seemed to slow down.
The atmosphere in the room was tense.
Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a smile spread warmly over the teacher's face and she said, ?Well I don't hate you, sunshine. Now go and sit down, we're about to get started.? He must have been just as surprised by the teacher's response as I was. He turned quickly on his heels and, without muttering a single word, did exactly as he was told. Interestingly, all eyes remained on the classroom teacher.
Maybe the rest of the class had assumed the teacher would send the boy straight to the principal's office. I thought she might calmly but assertively say, ?That behavior is unacceptable in this room, go to time out now.? She took us all by surprise with her grinning and redirecting. Her gentle response showed respect to the student and demonstrated self-control.
In looking at this scenario from a behavioral management perspective, I am most interested in the time between the boy's shouting and the teacher's warm smile. I see this period as the key to the way the teacher handled the situation. It was the pause, the tangible few seconds in which the teacher appeared to be doing nothing, which in the long run made all the difference. These few seconds are called ?Wait Time,? and they play a vital role in effectively managing challenging situations. Wait time unfolds in the following stages:
Stage 1 - Pausing
Stage 2 - Regaining your composure
Stage 3 - Disengagement
Stage 1 - Pausing
Perhaps it's because the community still expects teachers to be ?decisive? and ?in control? of their classrooms, that many of us feel we have to deal quickly with inappropriate behavior, lest it develop further. Unfortunately, most of what happens when we deal quickly with inappropriate behavior is counterproductive and can actually make matters worse. More often than not, the best thing a teacher can do when faced with a challenging behavior is to pause, or as a colleague of mine likes to say, ?Take two aspirin and do nothing, at least you're not making matters worse.?
Teachers who use wait time rarely make matters worse. Quite the contrary, they tend to make matters a lot better by interrupting the negative cycles that so easily develop around challenging children like the boy in the story above.
Stage 2 - Regaining your Composure
Your grandmother gave you a great piece of behavior advice when she said, ?Take a deep breath and count to five.? All human beings have what is called a ?fight or flight? response. When we are confronted by a situation we perceive as threatening, our brains pump out massive amounts of hormone called adrenaline. Adrenaline is a hormone whose job it is to fine-tune your body in preparation for all-out effort. When you've got a saber-toothed tiger on your cave step, adrenaline is a handy hormone to have around. Sometimes fight or flight are excellent strategies. Unfortunately, neither of them work very well in the classroom. Challenging situations, like the one above, elicit a fight or flight response in most teachers. Physiologically, though, this is no state to be in when trying to deal with a child. By using wait time, teachers have a moment to take a deep breath and regain their composure. In doing so, they create an opportunity to think calmly about an effective response. In a situation like this, they are also modeling respect and self-control, which students will pick up on and learn from the teacher's example.
Stage 3 - Disengagement
There is no one best way to disengage yourself from challenging situations. Disengagement can take on a variety of forms, some of which include: planned ignoring, distracting, redirecting, surprise, and humor. Strategy mixes are appropriate, too. For instance, planned ignoring and redirecting work well together to deal with children who are ?off task.? In all cases though, the goal remains the same: to avoid strengthening a child's inappropriate behavior by reacting to it in just the way they want or expect. The new boy expected a confrontation with his teacher; perhaps he even wanted one. Instead, he was greeted with a warm mix of surprise, humor, and redirection, a mix that had a powerful effect on his behavior. By using wait time, his teacher managed to disengage herself from a potentially explosive situation. She managed to turn what could have been a bitter confrontation into a minor disruption. Disengagement was her goal, but wait time was the key to the way she achieved it.
Some of the most powerful behavioral management strategies available to teachers are often overlooked because they don't tend to be immediately apparent. Wait time is one of them. Because we see the world in simple, obvious terms, we tend to focus on the people and events whenever there are problems. However, some of the greatest changes in human behavior are often caused by subtle means, even ones that appear as insignificant as a few quiet seconds. |
| |
| Character Education Internet Links |
|
 To help you learn more about Character Education and bring you tips and helpful information, I've collected these great Internet links. From ideas for getting your students involved in making a difference in our world to background information about good character, these great resources will help get your program on it's way. |
| |
|
|
| |
| Early Childhood Character Education Activity Pages |
|
| Are you looking for some quick and easy to prepare Character Education activities for your students? Check out these pages from some of our popular reproducible book series. Just download, photocopy and watch your students learn. They are appropriate for younger students, grades K through 3. |
| |
|
|
| |
| Humorous Happenings |
|
 Welcome to our new feature, Humorous Happenings...funny stories straight from your classrooms. A big Thank You to all of you who have sent in stories for our new feature. It's been great getting a laugh out of the emails I've been receiving. Now it's time to share them with all of the Class Ideas readers!
A story from an anonymous reader:
During a weekly library visit to exchange books, one of my first graders had found a book she particularly liked. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to return last week's book and, in accordance with the library rules, was unable to take out another book.
Accepting the rule but, still determined to have the new book, she went to the librarian and asked, "Mrs. Bailey, could I please put this book on lay-away?"
And from K. Taylor:
During show and tell, my preschoolers are encourage to follow a who, what, when, where, and why plan. The other day Jason stood up for show and tell with a plastic baggie with a small white object in it. He then said, "This is my tooth. I got it yesterday. It came from my mouth. I like it a lot!"
Another, from C. Derkson:
My class was walking in line to the library past the staffroom. The door was open and a roll of butcher's paper could be seen on the table. One of my first grade students spotted it and exclaimed, "Boy, teachers sure have big rolls of toilet paper, don't they?" |
| |
| October Newsletter Theme: Math Assessment |
|
 Look for next month's issue of Class Ideas. It will be filled with resources, ideas, and tips for assessing math in your classroom. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
