How to Start a Successful School Year

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Hello and welcome to the September webinar for the equip for new teachers course here at the teaching channel. I’m Dr. Elizabeth Contreras, your facilitator and host, and we are joined today by master educator Heather R. Fisher, who has expertise in early childhood and education in general and is Montessori trained, which is very impressive.

So without further ado, I hand it over to you.

Heather Fisher: All right. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. As she said, I’m Heather Fisher. I have 13 years experience in education, everything from preschool up to seventh grade. So I’ve covered a lot of different ages. Today we’re going to talk about how to start a successful school year for new teachers.

It can be a very crazy time, especially if you’re new. First year new or the first couple years new, you learn something every year. So this kind of just focuses on what teachers are able to control themselves because your curriculum, is going to differ depending on what program you’re in, what school you’re at.

The first thing I’d like to focus on is the importance of setting the tone as soon as possible. And that means like the minute those kids come through the door, it could even mean if you have a meet the teacher night or something like that. That’s really, you got to start off with the right tone.

I always like to say be firm, but friendly having a firm, but friendly attitude because nobody really enjoys a teacher who’s super strict and angry and mean all the time. Maybe the kids behave, they’re not enjoying themselves. And then you don’t want to be on the opposite end of that where, Oh yeah, it’s fine, everything’s fine.

And then everything is not fine. Yeah. So we’ll be talking about the firm, but friendly attitude and how to create an inviting environment as well as setting clear expectations and consistent consequences, which is a tongue twister, but very important.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Yes. I like the consistent.

Heather Fisher: That’s very important.

Super important. All so first let’s start off with firm, but friendly. Students are learning about how to be a part of a group just as much as they’re learning about, whatever you’re trying to teach them in your curriculum, especially if you’re teaching younger students. So when I was in preschool, I had three year olds when I talk about the story, three to six year olds.

And of course, the three year olds, it’s their first time, usually outside of the home, and some of the kindergartners had not gone to preschool. And so that was their first experience of, oh, I’m not the center of the universe. Keep that in mind while you’re trying to set up these different expectations.

Something that I always think of is, an old grandma saying, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Again, you don’t have to be a doormat, but being friendly and being kind and using some humor, it’ll go pretty far when you’re teaching kids, especially when you’re trying to set that tone at the beginning of the year.

One thing that I know I struggled with, but I had to learn the hard way was don’t take children’s misbehaviors personally. That’s key. It’s difficult because you’re like I’m in the room and they’re throwing something at me. How is that not personal? For children, especially younger kids or even older kids who have behavior issues, behavior is a form of communication.

It

Heather Fisher: doesn’t necessarily reflect the way that they feel towards you. Maybe they didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast. Maybe they’ve got a lot going on at home and it just all comes out when they get into the classroom. That is very true. Yes. While I was writing this out, I was like, Oh, I remember that time.

Oh, I remember that.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Yeah. I remember that time. Yes. I had things thrown at me all the way up until 12th grade. So much fun.

Heather Fisher: And then another aspect is creating an inviting environment. A lot of this, I never thought about until I went through Montessori training, since there is such a huge focus on the prepared environment.

But even if you’re not teaching in Montessori environment. The classroom that you’re in, the things that kids are looking at and smelling and hearing, that plays a big part of how people are going to feel in your classroom. And it’s not just for them. It’s for you also. If you want them to be calm, it helps if you’re calm.

Yes. True. So I always try to appeal to the senses. Of course, we don’t all have, a choice of, you want to do. Wall color in our classrooms. But if you can have some calming colors I, again, from Montessori training, avoid cluttering the walls. There are some times that I’ve walked into other classrooms that I’m just like, whoa, where to begin?

There’s these motivational posters and we got the rules and we got this and, that can be great, for some people, but I feel like it’s a little much. I would suggest Skip buying any fancy decor, use a student’s artwork. You start off with a, not super extremely blank, but a kind of blank canvas.

And then when they start doing work, or maybe they make drawings, especially younger kids, always want to make drawings for their teachers. I love you. And put it up in the classroom. Again it seems like a really small gesture, but then when they spend a lot of time in this room and they realize, Oh yeah, like this is, I’m a part of this room.

That’s my letter. That’s my letter that I made for my teacher smells. Now again, it’s 2024. So I know what the, what allergies students might have in your classroom or what the scent policies might be. I know we couldn’t have diffusers, or certain things. But, check with administration and if you can spray a little lavender in your room or maybe just on yourself or something.

Lavender is lovely. It’s your friend. It’s calming. It is calming. And even the craziest children will at least be a little more calm. And then as far as sounds, if you can have calming background music, I know in most of the classrooms that I had in the last couple of years, we had our own computer with, hook up to a big screen TV with sound and so I would have varied the music, but always have something instrumental, something a little more calm, unless, you’re having like a break or something, and then maybe put on some jazz or something like that, but.

Just that’s the very first experience they’re having in the classroom. And so if they, maybe they don’t know what lavender is, or they’ve never heard, classical music before. But it sets the tone, which is what we’re going for.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: I always liked binaural beats music, like that brain relaxing spot music.

Heather Fisher: Great. Or they’ll have like videos where it’s calming music in the background. It’s like a lava lamp or something. Yeah. Whoa. I’m like, okay. Yeah, you’re

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: calm. Exactly.

Heather Fisher: Yeah. And I’m sure new teachers and even experienced teachers every year before teaching I’d be up waking up in the night. Oh, I still have another idea of something.

Oh, I got it. So take the time before the first day of school, because if you meet the kids and it’s just Oh, we’re fine by the seat of our pants. And then you’re like, Oh, which that might happen still. But if you take the time to think about these things, what expectations do you have for your students?

How do you want things to work during the time that they’re in your classroom? And what are reasonable consequences if they do not meet those expectations or, meet those procedures? So the first thing we’ll talk about is expectations. I had, there were times when I had class rules and then eventually I got away from that and I just called them class expectations because some students When they hear the word rule, they’re like, I’m going to break that.

I break that. I don’t listen to rules. Rules are not for me. And so I take time to talk to them about, what is an expectation. An expectation is what I want to see you doing or how I want you to act. It’s what I expect for you to be doing in class. Of course, this is going to vary based on the age of the students, the subject you teach, and even from teacher to teacher.

Some teachers are a little more relaxed, some are a little less relaxed. But whatever your mode is, make sure to cover emotional, intellectual, and physical aspects. Because, again, in school it’s very easy to just focus on the intellectual but children are whole human beings. And they are not just little brains, they have things and, physical safety is important.

So everyone wants to be treated with respect, teacher included. Everyone wants to be able to ask questions share answers and be heard and to feel safe, not only emotionally, but also physically safe. Because I know, again, it’s a little different than whenever I was in school. I don’t think there was ever a time I didn’t feel physically safe.

But nowadays That is something that we’re dealing with. We’ve got a lot of behavior issues and a lot of those, especially for younger kids, comes out physically. This is an example of elementary classroom expectations that I personally use I kept it to three things. And again, I feel like they cover that intellectual, emotional, physical, all those aspects.

So the first one was, I follow directions quickly. The second expectation, I raise my hand before I speak or leave my seat. And the third expectation, I treat others the way I want to be treated. Because I, of course, I’ve made lists of many different expectations, and I’m like, okay, this kind of goes with this one.

Tear it down to something simple. Three things is pretty simple.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Yes, and easy to

Heather Fisher: remember.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Yes. And I like that they’re I statements.

Heather Fisher: Yes, that, that part’s really important, because, again I have dealt with a lot of students with very, Intense behavior issues. And whenever it’s an I statement, they start internalizing it, even if they don’t want to maybe subconsciously instead of command, I’m commanding you will that some of those kids they’re done as soon as.

You’re telling me what to do? No. So as long as we make it, no, this is just, this is what you’re choosing because this is the expectation. Of course, we’ll get into some of that a little bit. So I always found that it helps have gestures to accompany each expectation. If anyone has ever looked into whole brain teaching that’s where some of this has come from.

I was trained on that a very long time ago. And, you know how different things are. Sometimes it’s in, sometimes it’s out of everything. But what we would do is we had gestures to go with it and we repeated the expectations daily. So again, at the beginning of the school year, when I was introducing it I would just have it something simple.

If I’m pointing to my ear, they’re listening. If I’m pointing to them, they’re repeating it. And so we’d say expectation number one. I follow directions quickly, just a little, they thought it was like a fish or something for them or expectation. Number two, I raise my hand before I speak or leave my seat.

And they love that part. Cause you will person walking on your, and then the third expectation, I treat others the way I want to be treated. That one was very important, especially in kindergarten, first grade. So also when you’re correcting behavior, you can repeat it or ask a student to remind you I’m noticing some of you are not meeting our second expectation, who can show me what that looks like?

And again, not taking it personally, not how dare you? Why aren’t you meeting this expectation? Just a very, it’s just you wouldn’t be screaming at a kid. Why don’t you know how to do this math problem? Cause they’re learning. That’s It is frustrating because I get it. It can be frustrating. But just try to stay cool.

Yeah, that helps. And then when it comes to procedures practice, and then practice some more procedures are just how things are going to flow in your classroom. This is not an exhaustive list. Again, it depends on maybe you’re working with students with special needs and so it’s going to look a little bit different, or maybe you’re working with older students so that’s going to look a little different.

But what I usually would focus on was, first of all what’s the procedure for entering and exiting the classroom? I’ve seen lots of teachers have maybe a sticker or something that marks different spots on the floor. Maybe you have a line order. It’s just, again, it depends on the teacher and the age of the students and, any other factors.

What’s the procedure for in the hallway? This may also be dictated by administration. If you have a School wide policy or whatever, but I always did just like peace and quiet. So peace sign and then quiet. Oh, that’s great. With younger kids, I’ve seen ducktails and bubbles. So they catch a bubble in their mouth, but sometimes kids think they have to hold their breath for that.

I would elicitly teach, look, I can put a bubble in my mouth and breathe through my nose. We don’t, cause then you’re on the hall pretending like they can’t breathe. And then the ducktails are just, their hands go behind their back. It looks like a little ducktail, whatever works for you. Have fun with it, especially with younger kids.

With the older kids, although, I’m sure high schoolers. I don’t want to catch a bubble or get a ducktail. That would not be fun.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: I made my high schoolers walk in a conga line. I thought it was funny and it was fun and it made it just fun to walk down the hallway in a conga line. It’s fantastic.

Or we’ve done like a,

Heather Fisher: Oh, we’re going to be super spies or yes, the node. So do ninjas make noise? No, they’re stealthy and quiet. And I’ll really get into it and crawl around. And I’m like, okay they’re being quiet. Then I would also take time to again, explicitly

teach

Heather Fisher: what the procedure is, what the expectations are during different times, because it’s again, it’s 2024.

It’s not like the 1970s where you come in, you sit down, you don’t move. Of whole group time. We have small group time. We have independent work time. And I taught at a school where we had a time where a tutor came in, or we would have times where certain students were pulled out for different things.

And so showing them exactly what you want and having visual reminders was helpful and it doesn’t have to be anything fancy and if some people are really cool and they have a little traffic light and it’s on red or yellow. That’s great. I did not want to spend money on a traffic light. Instruction paper.

And I put it in a little plastic sleeve, red on one side, green on the other. And I, again, taught them if it’s red, that means you need to be quiet. And if you need to say something or ask something, raise your hand. And then if it’s on green, I would say use bubble voices. And basically that just means put your arms in front of you, make a bubble.

If someone is close enough to be in your bubble, you don’t need to be talking loudly. Yes, great! Or I’d say, why don’t you bring your bubble to someone on the other end of the room instead of screaming? Yes. Walk your bubble over there. And they don’t have to carry a bubble, but first graders enjoy doing that.

They thought, you bring me my bubble, another important procedure, how to get the teacher’s attention, especially during small group or independent group time. Obviously during whole group time, you’re going to raise your hand because there’s some chaos. When I taught Montessori, again, it’s, there isn’t a lot of whole group time.

It’s usually small groups or kids working independently. And so I came up with just a very simple system, print out some card stock with each kid’s name on a card, make extra cards, lots of extra cards because everyone’s going to lose their name card at some point in time. I’d laminate it and they’d have a little work plan folder.

And so if they wanted me to check their work or if they needed, to ask me about something, they would just come, they didn’t have to say anything because I might be in the middle of the lesson with someone else,

just

Heather Fisher: hand me their card, take their card. I always wore an apron, stick it in my pocket.

I’d keep it in order. I’d try to. And then when I’m done with that person, okay, who’s the next name? And I take their card back to them and I know, okay, I’ve talked to that kid. Oh, wow. That’s really smart. I got, I didn’t come up with it all myself. I had seen, I observed in an older Montessori classroom. And again, when older kids are capable of doing different things, they would have a system where they just had a spot on the dry erase board at a marker.

They wrote their name. So there was a list in order of who needed to check in. And it worked for them. I’ve seen where people have individual little cards on desks and maybe they flip to a different color. For me, that didn’t work well because sometimes kids would forget they had flipped it or they lose it and so the name card worked well because I know exactly who needs help and I know when they came to

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: me.

And it’s also teaching them to advocate for themselves in a very grown up way.

Yes.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: And again, I would

Heather Fisher: teach, like we would practice, I would pull everyone over and pretend, okay, so and so Nora is going to be doing this lesson. Let’s say I’m working with her. And I don’t need you to interrupt me in a disruptive way because you do need to interrupt me.

You need to get my attention. You can’t just put your name card somewhere and expect me to know. So we would practice, okay, you come over and maybe gently put your hand on my shoulder. And then if I do this one minute okay, I see you. I know you’re there. Give me a minute. Or it’d be as simple as they put hand on the shoulder and they put their card out.

I grabbed the card. So there hasn’t been any sort of verbal disruption. And usually the kid who’s showing me something, they don’t even notice that another kid has come by and given me a card. So it worked pretty well. That

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: is a very good, I can see that working for all ages. And even on Montessori, I could see that working in traditional JEDID, yeah.

Heather Fisher: And for younger kids also, I would suggest taking pictures of them, like the first week of school, get a picture of, just a headshot, and then also put their picture on there, because not every little kid knows how to spell their name yet. And maybe kids who have developmental delays, they might benefit from that as well.

They know what their face looks like, they might know the first letter. Because sometimes I’d have kids who’d bring up and I’m like that’s not your name. That’s someone else. It starts with the same letter. So you were, ah, yeah. Teaching’s fun. Another thing would be how or where to turn in assignments.

I know nowadays, most of it is probably through, Google classroom or something like that. But we still,

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: that has to be taught.

Heather Fisher: That’s true. That is something that has to be taught. Pull it up, share your screen and show them exactly what to do. Cause I know kids nowadays are usually pretty tech savvy, but they don’t choose to spend their time on Google Classroom.

That’s not what they’re doing. Now, if you need to play Roblox or something, they’ve got you covered.

Yeah.

Heather Fisher: But I would always have a folder on my desk or, or a tray for them to put their folders in. And sometimes if I was collecting something like a test or something, I’d call them up, by their number order or whatever.

It made it really easy. And also have them write their number on the top with their name. Cause they’re not just a number and we’re not in some dystopian future. But it makes it a lot faster because then you can look through and you flip and you’re like, Oh, I’m missing number five. Okay. I know Mark is number five.

Hey Mark, you didn’t turn in your stuff. Oh, whoops. I forgot you something that simple. And then whenever you’re grading and you’re putting it in the grade book, it was a lot faster too. Cause you’re not going back and forth. Oh, which again, there’ll be times that happens. But anything you can do.

To make it easier on yourself. Yes. Do that. Teaching is difficult. It’s very rewarding. It’s so much fun sometimes but it’s a lot of work and so take the time to set these things up at the beginning of the school year and you will thank yourself. Yes. Another thing that I’ve taken from Montessori is called restoring the environment.

Your classroom is an environment. So again, explicitly teach what does that look like? Because then you don’t have to keep saying, do this, do that. You can say, I need everyone to restore the environment. So desks and floor are clean, chairs are pushed in. That’s usually all you really need.

Because especially if you have different class periods. And maybe, they don’t get to just keep all their stuff at one desk. You don’t want to leave your stuff behind. You don’t want your stuff on the floor. That’s a safety hazard. Plus it’s going to get lost or thrown away. And pushing in chairs, that is a lesson that some children learn the hard way.

Because they would maybe not be moving in a safe way in the classroom. And then, oh, there’s a chair that is something to be, and whoops, they’ve fallen over. I’m like that is why. We don’t run in the classroom and we push our chairs in. Yes. Yes. We’ll get the consequences in a moment, but sometimes nature takes care of the consequence for you.

And it’s lovely. And it’s, it’s one of those moments where most of the time the kids are like, Oh it’s okay. You don’t want to be like, Ooh, consequence. My students got really used to it where I’d hear them. That’s a natural consequence. I’m like, yeah, it did. Again, take the time to show them exactly how you want things to be done.

Then have them practice and show you that they’re able to meet the expectation. This comes in handy in the future because, I know this is shocking, sometimes kids I’m going to meet up with my patients. So if they’ve already shown you multiple times, it’s really easy to be like, Hey, I know, you know how to restore the environment.

I’ve seen you do it a million times. Can you show me again? And again it’s not a personal attack on them. You’re not in a power struggle. It’s just, Hey, you’ve already shown me, you know how to do this. Let’s just take care of it.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: I like how empowering your statements are because you’re like telling them, I know you have this capability.

Can you show it to me? Instead of being like, Hey, why didn’t you push your chair in?

Yeah,

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: it’s much more empowering and student focused. And I think that’s very healthy for the relationship.

Heather Fisher: And also they usually don’t have an answer for why you’re asking. And the answer is either I forgot or I wasn’t paying attention.

And no, they don’t want to admit that usually. And that would be a really good time to also, again, model yourself. I make mistakes. Oops, if I, sometimes you might do it on purpose, leave your chair out and then see if the student’s Oh miss, you need to turn. Oh, you know what?

You’re so right. I’m a human. I make mistakes too. Let me go push my chair in and restore my environment. Kids really like that. When they, you’re not just telling them what to do. You are. Also following the same, expectations, of course, within reason you’re the adult there’s certain times. So I’m like I’m not a student.

I’m not seven years old. I thank you. Yeah. Consequences consequences are a natural part of life. I don’t know why so many people are afraid of consequences because whether you create them for your students or not, they will have them. Let’s say you’re out on the playground and you climb up something that you shouldn’t be climbing and you fall and you hurt yourself.

That is a consequence. When you’re in line and you push the person in front of you, they may push you back. That’s a consequence. That’s just part of life.

It’s also a good time to talk about cause and effect. If you do this, then this might happen. You don’t want that to happen. Do you? So let’s avoid doing this.

And again some kids We need that lesson repeatedly. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to miss out on something. And other kids are like, let me hide. How many times can I do this? Yeah. Let’s see how bad the influence really is. Again, you may have a school wide discipline program or a system.

When I taught at the Montessori school the Montessori way of discipline, a lot of people were new. And so it wasn’t super cohesive at the beginning. And then towards the end of my time there, it was more, okay, we all understand because we’d have kids working in the hallway.

We had some really big activities, number chains with a thousand beads and that’s got to go out in the hallway. And so if you’re running in the hallway, you might mess up somebody’s work. I would also take the time to explain like why. And I know it’s frustrating because you’re like, because I told you but it really do need to know why should I not be running in the classroom?

Because this is a very small space with a lot of people and a lot of objects and that’s unsafe. You could very easily get hurt. I would also, one thing that I always said was play fighting turned into real fighting very quickly. So when I’d see kids play fighting, I’d say, Hey, remember play fighting turns into real fighting.

And it would happen, Oh, I was just playing around. I pushed him, but then he punched me. And it’s okay, that escalated quickly. Again, that is a consequence. Make sure whatever, your consequences are, they’re reasonable and age appropriate. Again, make sure they go together.

Let, let’s say somebody’s talking and not raising their hand. That doesn’t mean you take away the recess time. I don’t advocate taking away recess time at all. Unless that kid is an in school suspension and they’ve been removed from your classroom, they need to be outside. Because there are so many times, especially whenever I was back in traditional classrooms, where you’ve got, usually a little boy with lots of energy, and he’s bopping around the classroom, and the teacher’s frustrated.

All right you owe me five minutes when we get outside. Okay, so he needs to get energy out, and when it’s his time to get energy out, you don’t let him move. That’s not going to work out for anybody. Cause that is punishing yourself. Yeah, exactly. You’re punishing yourself because he’s still going to have all that energy.

If anything, you’re like, Hey, why don’t you go run some laps, come around, do something. Yeah. So age appropriate, all that. I always like to tie the consequences to the expectations. So again, using the expectations that I have a student’s not following directions quickly. I’d remind them, and again, I wouldn’t single them out.

Yeah. I would either come and say it quietly to them, not so and so across the room, Hey, stop that. You have to come to them, bring your bubble to them, same expectation you have for the kids. Or I would just make it a blanket statement. Hey I’ve asked everyone to put their markers away.

Remember that we follow expectations quickly. Follow our first expectations. Oh, that’s what was, yeah. So I’m like, what did I write? So you can remind them either hey, remember expectation number one, or you can just say, remember we, I follow directions quickly. I use the timer to motivate some stubborn students, like, all right, I’m putting 30 seconds on this timer.

Let’s see who can be the fastest. at putting their stuff away. Just again, use some light humor. Do not get in a power struggle, especially over something like markers. That’s not the hill you want to die on. It’s not a battle you need to be fighting. It’s a marker. Now there would be times where You know, someone’s really not listening.

And I’d have to come over and be like, Hey, I’ve asked you a couple of times. You’re not choosing to meet the expectation. You didn’t solve the problem. So now I’m going to solve it and I’m going to take your stuff. And of course there’d be a, and I’d always say, Hey, you’re getting it back at the end of the day.

But. You cannot have something like you’re throwing something at somebody or you’re drawing all over the desk. You’re not being responsible, so you’re not going to have access to that. For the most part, that would take care of it. If a student is interrupting, again, shocking that children sometimes forget to raise their hands.

Again, remind them, give them a chance to save face. Maybe something like, Oh, That’s so weird. I hear someone talking, but I didn’t see anyone’s hand go up and they’d be like, Oh it’s okay. Again, know your students. Some kids don’t respond to that. Gauge, gauge the room.

If the behavior persists, I would just ignore the behavior and redirect the energy. Hey, I can only call on students who raise their hands. I’m looking for someone with their hand up to answer this next question, and again, so it’s not a Johnny. You should raise your hand, yes, they know you’ve said it.

It’s, they forgot. So give them a chance to save face. And if for whatever reason, they’re just in a mood, then Oh you’re not meeting my expectations. So I’m not, you’re not going to be able to talk. There’s a way to do this. Yeah, again, none of your students.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: I like your theme that you’re firm, but friendly.

Heather Fisher: Yes. It’s again, cause it’s not a power struggle. It’s not a, I told you so you better do it. It’s a, it’s your choice. You choose what you’re going to do. But every choice has a consequence. And so I would always tell them, you can choose to fix this or I’m going to fix it. You may not like the way that I choose to fix this because I may need to contact your parents or you may need to come and talk to me while everyone else is doing centers or whatever it is.

And usually that takes care of it. And then for my last expectation, this one, you really need to know your students and be aware of what’s going on because physical safety is the issue. So if a student’s not respecting others, remind them of the expectation or remove them based on the severity. So for example, I’ll have asked you to stop touching your hair.

We treat others the way we want to be treated. If you told someone to stop touching you, wouldn’t you want them to stop? You’d want them to listen. And of course, you will always have a child who’s I don’t care. I love when people punch me. And you’re like, okay. And then I walk away. I’m not going to get into a power struggle.

You what? No. Of they’re reaching for something. They’re trying to get their power. And I’m like, oh, okay. Walk away. Yeah. Of course if the behavior escalates or it’s something, they’re trying to stab somebody with a pencil remove that kid. I know, I worked in schools where we all had walkie talkies, especially if we had certain kids in our classrooms that had behavior issues.

I tried to avoid that . I tried to take care of it myself before calling other people in. But again, you have to think about. the situation and safety. I prefer removing the behavior issue versus evacuating the entire classroom. But if someone’s throwing a desk, I evacuate the classroom, always.

I did have a cool down corner. I would suggest having a minimal amount of objects there because for some students, I noticed it turned into I’m going to do something that I shouldn’t do. And then I get sent to the cool down corner and then I don’t have to do my work. I get to play. Again, know your students, some kids I know, okay, he’s just really struggling.

He’s going to go back there. We practice different breathing techniques. Maybe he’s got a little sensory toy he can use, and then he can come back. There were other students where before I sent them there, I would go back. Because I had a box of, fidget toys. I’d pick up the box, I’d move it, I’d pick up their workbook, put it there.

You’re working here now. You’re showing that you can’t handle working with your table mates, so you’re going to do your work over here. You’re not getting out of doing the work. It’s done, but we’re not going to be hurting other people. Yeah, first grade, it’s so much fun. Hey, it goes all the way up to 12th grade.

I’m sure it does. It’s just like my most recent teaching experience was first grade. Yeah,

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: it’s just amazing how everything that happens in first grade. Every single teacher relates to like it doesn’t matter if you’re teaching seniors in college. It’s yeah, exactly. I think first graders are just the truest form of us as human beings.

Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Fisher: Which is why it’s important. Again you’re teaching them curriculum, teach them how to calm themselves. Behavioral issues will arise. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher. You do not get to choose. Everything that your students are going to do or how they’re going to act, you don’t choose what happens to them whenever they’re not in your classroom.

So I always practice calming techniques with them from the very start. And then again, model it like, whenever you’re teaching reading or writing and you’re modeling. Oh, this is what I think. Model your inner thought process, and I would tell them and they, I’m sure they could tell sometimes I’m getting frustrated and I’d say, you know what?

Yeah. Pause, freeze, whatever, macaroni and cheese, everybody freeze, whatever you say, and then I’ve got their attention, and I’d say, I’m feeling really frustrated right now, and they’d be like, oh, what? And it’s I’m not gonna scream at you, but I’m saying I’m a human, I have feelings.

I’m frustrated because I’m trying to hear what Heidi is saying, and I can’t hear her. I wonder why I can’t hear her. And someone would be like, because we’re being too loud? Yeah, that’s right. You’re not meeting the expectation. You’re screaming or you didn’t raise your hand. And so I would model, whenever I’m feeling frustrated, my brain gets Oh, scribbly on the inside.

So then I just, I smell the flower, let the candle do that a couple of times. And then a lot of kids will start doing that too. Some of them don’t want to do it. My own personal child at home, when she was younger, I’d be like, I don’t want to smell that flower. I’m like, it didn’t work for you. Great. There’s, box breathing, whatever you need to do something, some sort of physical, do something to help them.

And then again Hey, breathing like that really helps me to feel calm again. Or sometimes if they’re a little bit older, you can tell them like, scientists have done research. If you take the time and maybe name a couple of things you can see, name something you can smell, do some breathing, it really does.

It helps your nervous system to chill out a little bit. And I always tell them, like, whenever you are in a fight or fight situation you can’t be thinking properly. Your body is in survival mode. Your brain is in survival mode. You’re not going to be able to make a rational decision. Get calm. And then we’ll go from there.

That’s one of the hardest parts is just to get calm. So again, give them some time, give them some space, make sure they’re somewhere where you can see them, but they cannot bother others. I, there were, I had to move my cool down corner a couple times until I found the right spot for it. I had some students who would tip the chair over and they can just almost reach someone and I’m like, making me work extra hard today.

Once you see that they’re more calm, talk them through it just like anything else. It’s not a timeout punishment. It’s a technique that they will be able to use. For the rest of their life and think about adults if we have more adults in this world who instead of reacting to something and resorting to physical violence or whatever, if they had been taught, hey, I’m really upset.

I need to go somewhere else or hey, I need to breathe. And again, it’s not going to fix everything, but it’s a good start. It’s a really good start. I feel like yeah. And then, especially with some of my younger boys, but again, this could go for anybody, it’s not just boys redirect that energy, replace whatever their target is.

So I would have students who got to the point where they knew, and they tell me, I feel like hitting somebody, and I’d be like, okay, we’ve got a big pillow, go punch the pillow, or, Do some pushups up against the wall, do some bear crawls on the floor. Cause and it’s called like the caveman brain.

You’re not thinking clearly. And sometimes you just need to get it out. And people who suffer from anxiety, a lot of times the best thing to do is if you’re having a panic attack, do some jumping jacks. Because in your brain, again, we are not cave people anymore, but in your brain’s thinking.

Oh, no, I’m in danger. I need to run away from the danger. You can’t run away. You’re in a classroom. And there isn’t a physical danger coming towards you, but something else getting that energy out. A lot of times that’s going to diffuse the situation, because you don’t want them hurting themselves, other kids or destroying materials.

I don’t know how many different pictures I took over the years of. Hey, you have to send it to a parent. Hey, this is what your child did in my classroom today. I’m going to need you to have someone from the family come up after school and you’re going to have to help them take care of it. And again, that is a big conversation that you have with administration and hopefully you have support.

I had it happen a couple of times and it helped a little bit. Sometimes they just they’re going through a lot. They’re going through a lot more than what you can. Help them with, but you do the best you can. And again, letting them know, Hey, you, you chose to, let’s say you chose to take all the art supplies and throw them all over the floor.

No one else is cleaning that up. You made that choice. This is your consequence. You’re going to clean it up and it might take a while and maybe you’re going to have mom or grandma come and help you. That’s fine, but I’m not doing it. And the kids aren’t doing it. That one gets tricky sometimes, but again If you have parent support, that’s also

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: great.

I think that’s good because you’re teaching them. That when they are older, and if they do something they’re not supposed to, there are consequences, right? You get, the police are involved, or you are ticketed, or you’re sued and it teaches them those consequences in a safe place.

Heather Fisher: And unfortunately, there were students that I taught who had family members who were in prison, and it wasn’t a conversation we had in front of the entire class, but I might.

I had to pull a kid aside and say, because I had a student who was, they had backpacks out in the hallway and the student was, Oh, I need to go to the bathroom and then taking snacks out of other people’s backpacks and their cameras. Again, it’s modern times. There are cameras. We caught you, bud.

We see you on the camera. And so I had to talk to him. I’m like, your mom told me what’s going on at home right now. Dad’s in jail because he stole something, right? Yeah. So that’s the road you’re heading down. If you’re going to keep stealing things, eventually it’s not going to just be me talking to your mom.

You’re going to be older and you’re going to have to deal with bigger consequences. So learn this lesson now. In the safeness of this classroom, the consequences get a lot harder as you. Yeah. This is another thing that I’m very passionate about intrinsic rewards versus extrinsic rewards. And again, this is a lot for Montessori, but I really, if every single traditional school would step away from rewarding kids for good behavior.

I know it seems. They’re doing the right thing, but you do the right thing because it is the right thing. Your reward is that you are making the right choice. You feel good about yourself because you are being good. Not I was going to punch somebody, but my teacher saw me and if I don’t punch them, she’ll give me candy.

When you do that, you’re setting them up to always expect something. Yeah, robs them of their ability to empathize, to have any sort of moral compass, doesn’t matter what your religious beliefs are. Everyone knows there’s right and there’s wrong. And I know it was, I worked in schools where they were doing, positive discipline and it seems like a great idea and maybe it could work for some people, but in my experience, again, trains children to either only do the right thing whenever someone’s watching them or go out of their way to get caught doing the right thing because they deserve a reward.

No, you don’t. You don’t avoid because you walked quietly in the hallway. You walk, guess what? Because of that, other students are able to learn in their classrooms. Just like whenever you’re in your classroom, if another class comes by and they’re really loud, we would have that talk of, man, that’s really loud.

That’s really making it hard to learn, isn’t it? That’s why when we’re in the hallway, we’re not going to act like that. Hard because it’s every teacher and not every teacher is going to be on the same page. You’ve got new teachers, even some experienced teachers who just don’t really have the management part down.

It’s hard. So again, it’s not a they’re doing it. No, we’re going to do our best because. That’s who we are. We do that. I like

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: that. Because it’s right. Yeah. Once again, you’re teaching them how to be responsible citizens. And generally good people. I gave up on extrinsic rewards because we gave candy for good behavior at one of my schools.

And there was trash on the floor and I asked the student, can you pick that up for me? And he said, I’m going to get a piece of candy. And I said, okay, we will never use this again. And we had a big talk about it. Like I said, great. But I was like, I messed up because I’ve been teaching you guys the wrong lesson.

It’s two years into my teaching years and everybody was doing. So I was like, I messed up because I’ve taught you guys the wrong lesson. And so there’s a good, yeah, that’s when I gave up on it. I was like, yeah, they don’t work. And because

Heather Fisher: It’s a short term. solution that it doesn’t work long term, I, again, I’ve seen it multiple times.

It just, it doesn’t work. It’s not setting them up. It’s not realistic because, I would always tell them, I’m a teacher. Do you think that every time I do something right, the principal gives me a piece of candy or gives me a pass for jeans? No, she expects me to do my best because she hired me to do a job.

I’m doing my job. I don’t get extra things. Now, if she wants to give me a shout out, that’s cool. It feels good to have someone say, yeah, you did a great job, but I know I did a good job, so I don’t have to have, all that. And that’s where you can get into all the praise stuff. Praise needs to be. It needs to be specific, not just, Oh, you’re good.

You did good. Just, I always praise the effort,

And if they’re trying to work towards something, if they progress not Oh, you got an A you’re good okay, you’ve got an A and then punch somebody in the hallway. Oh God. But if you gotta be, you’re still good. Yeah, exactly. Like you can be good and make mistakes.

Humans make mistakes. Now, if you just have to give them a reward because everyone’s giving rewards. That’s how it was at one of my last schools. Every single teacher was giving out candy or had toy chests. And we even had a school wide policy where we were given, teachers were given little paper slips.

And we’re supposed to write down names of kids, not in our class. And then you give them the slip. And then at the end of every single day, when we’re trying to pack up and get calm, they’d make an announcement. If you have a positive reward card, come down to the computer lab for your blah, blah, blah. And then kids who got a piece of paper for walking in the hallway are running in the hallway.

And I’m like, so I would see them. I’d say, Oh man, that’s a really big bummer. I’m going to hold onto this for you until tomorrow, because you’re not going to run and scream in the hallway. To go get a prize for being quiet in the hallway, 10 minutes ago. That doesn’t make any sense. So I would make the reward be an experience, maybe, we, Oh, we’ve had a really great week.

We didn’t have a lot of issues with whatever, if anyone who wants to bring in a stuffed animal for a read aloud on Friday, go ahead and do that. Cause again, As a teacher they’re doing a better job of paying teachers now, at least in Texas. But I have my own personal children. I have, I’m on a budget.

I don’t want to be going out and buying toys. I don’t want to be buying candy. That’s the last thing these children need is more sugar. Dyes and all that stuff. Dye and oh my gosh, everything. It’s funny. Cause my personal youngest child, I’ll hear her talking to her friends. Oh, you eat those. Oh yeah.

No, I don’t eat that because it has red dye 40. And that’s not good for your brain. And I’m like, yeah, there you go. Not passing judgment. Oh, that’s what you eat. Yeah. I don’t eat that because again, we’re not perfect. We eat junk food from time to time, but group punishment. Don’t do it. I’ll say it again.

Don’t do it. I know that my kids and I’ve seen it in my classrooms and with my personal children, It’s a pretty quick change for, from kids who are well behaved to realize, what’s the point? Why am I behaving whenever one or two kids over there can goof off and then nobody gets to go to recess. What’s the point in doing the right thing?

That’s frustrating. And I remember being a kid cause of course, I was a little goody too. She is teacher’s pet. And I would be so angry if I had a teacher who would say, Oh one of you isn’t listening. So now everybody doesn’t get to do this. Why? Again, not realistic. If I’m driving on the street and someone else is speeding, they don’t pull every single car over on the road and say, Oh, you all get a ticket.

No. No, you don’t. I was going the speed limit. I don’t get a ticket. So what I would do is, for example, you’re getting lined up for recess and one kid is refusing. I had students who I’m like, I don’t know why you don’t want to go to recess. But again, it’s a whatever power struggle they’re trying to have.

I I wouldn’t talk about it. I ignore it. Okay. Everybody else line up and I’d stand in the doorway and, especially again, it depends on your school situation, but I was right at, we were all in one hallway, all first grader classrooms with five classrooms in one hall, and we all went to recess at the same time so I could see another teacher and say, Hey, can my class follow your classroom out?

I got to talk to somebody in here. And then I would stand in the doorway because again, In this day and age, you don’t want to be hanging out in a classroom by yourself. They have cameras in the hallway, but not in the classroom. So I would stand in the doorway where I am visible on the camera.

So if some, that’s to protect me. And also if something happens, it’s on camera. If a kid is doing something, I’ve had kids physically assault me. I’ve had kids, threaten me, which they don’t get on camera because they can’t hear it. But at least there’s something there to protect you. And so I would just, you Wait with them and try and try to talk to them.

Hey, why don’t you want to go? Because maybe it’s, I don’t feel good. Okay, then let’s go to the nurse. Sometimes kids are just weird about stuff. They don’t want, oh, it’s embarrassing. I have a tummy ache. That’s fine. Go to the bathroom, whatever. But yeah, like I said, behaved kids start to act up when they realize it doesn’t matter what they do because one class is going to mess it up.

And then it also causes an issue with the dynamic and relationships of the kids in class. Then that kid becomes ostracized. Nobody likes you because you ruin everything for everybody. It’s that kid’s struggling too. They’re five. Give them a break. Here’s some closing thoughts that I have. Children are individuals with different personalities.

Take the time to get to know them. Again, I had some students that I could joke around with and they loved it. They thought it was fun. We joke around other students. I wouldn’t joke around with them because they didn’t like it. They didn’t get it or they took it personally. And I’d be like, okay, that’s, I wasn’t trying to be mean, don’t just tell them that you care, show them. I don’t know how many times I would hear another teacher screaming at her class, You know I care about you! That’s why they’re good! And I’m like, your words and your actions are not, those don’t line up at all. How confusing. Yeah. You’re screaming at me that you care about me.

So what I would do is, again, especially at the beginning of the school year, you’re I would do every Friday or, maybe a couple of days, depending on what your schedule looks like. I do lunch bunch where I just randomly pick three to five kids. They can either come eat lunch with me in the classroom, or again, depending on, how much freedom you have at your school, maybe go out to the playground or sit down and eat, whatever.

And just take the time to talk with them Oh do you have any pets, whatever, which you may have already covered in some, like getting to know you thing, but again, when they’re in a smaller group, you’re going to get more out of them. And then again, they’ve spent time with you and they’re building that relationship.

That doesn’t mean they’re always going to listen to everything you say, but at least they know there’s a connection there. My teacher took the time to invite me to eat lunch with her and a couple other kids. Oh she wants to spend time with me. She wants to be mobile. About, what my life is like outside of school.

That makes a big difference. I had a student who he was in Taekwondo. He ended up at the same Taekwondo place that my daughters were taking Taekwondo. And that was like, he thought it was the best thing he could guys. I saw Ms. Fisher. She don’t, I was like, I remember I saw you there. So anytime I’d be like, Hey, how’s it going?

Yeah. They didn’t have the exact same class time, but just something to make a connection. I also live in the same. Neighborhood is a lot of kids. And so like I had a kid who just randomly stopped by my house on Halloween, they didn’t know. And so it was a funny thing. We go, Hey, we live in the same neighborhood, but you’re a human.

Yeah. I’m human. I go to the grocery store. I don’t live at school. I wanted to live at school as a kid, but I don’t live at school. Another thing that’s really important is getting a positive parent contact in as soon as possible. Schools that I worked at where before the first day of school even happened, you were required to call.

And again, this wasn’t like, you’ve got hundreds of students. This was like, I’ve got 22 kids, you were required to call or email or text the family. And I would just introduce myself. Hey, I’m Ms. Fisher. I’m going to be your child’s teacher this year. I’m really looking forward to meeting them.

We’re having me the teacher on this night. Hopefully you guys can be there, and Not everyone answers their phones because, cell phones, but leave a message or sometimes I would say, you can text me or call the school. I eventually stopped giving out my Cell phone number. Yes.

I learned that lesson the hard way. Now you can get a Google number. Yeah, you can do that now. But again, like I started teaching in 2010. So it’s like technology was more, of a thing, but yeah, no yeah, don’t want every single parent to have my phone number because we’ll call you on the weekend.

And I’m like, no, I’m not answering my phone.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: I like one o’clock in the morning, right?

Heather Fisher: Yeah. And it’s no, I’m still a human. I have a family. And even if you don’t have a family, maybe you’re home with, by yourself, whatever, with your cat, you have your own personal time to yourself. Have that on here, but that’s important.

And I know it’s difficult because especially in education, I feel like there’s a lot of remember your why? Yes, of course. Of course, we all got into teaching because we care about children and we want to help them learn. But that doesn’t mean that you have to burn yourself out and work 24, seven and spend all your money.

And you don’t have to do that. I had an automated response. For people if they text me, and it was just Mrs. Fisher is not available right now. It’s after hours, you may try contacting again between, 730 and 430 during the week. That’s even 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after my scheduled work time.

I feel like that’s more than enough. So yeah, but getting back to my point that I was making originally, getting a positive parent contact. Within the first day, usually, but usually within the first couple of minutes, this person’s I’m a radar. Now they got a lot of energy or really having a hard time keeping their hands to themselves.

And so I would make a point to find them doing something the right way and then tell their parents a lot of times. The only, especially during COVID, it was crazy because parents weren’t on campus. You didn’t see them. You weren’t able to talk to them. So the only, the only thing they knew about their kid’s teacher was what their kids telling them.

And some days it might be really good. And other days, maybe they got in trouble and my teacher just hates me. And no they probably don’t. Yeah. So I’d make a point to reach out and be like, Hey, so and so was doing such a great job. He got in line really quickly today. And I know he’s been working on that.

I just want to let you know. And so that, that was so important because I had some parents who, they’ve never had a teacher contact them about something positive. They’ve had plenty of contact and principles and behavior aids and everything else, but it’s never anything good. And again, you do have to reach out when kids are doing things they shouldn’t be doing.

That’s important. But also take the time to think about their viewpoint. The only time the phone rings from school, Oh, what they do. Oh, what they do. You can’t control what your kid’s doing at school. So that was really helpful because I had certain parents who, other teachers, Oh yeah, they’re going to be so disrespectful and they’re not going to, and I’m like, Oh, I’ve never had a problem with them because I took the time to let them know, Hey, and you may even have to say to them, Hey, I’m not here to get on your case.

Your kid makes their own choices in my classroom. That is not a reflection of you. I’m sure you’re doing a great job at home, I want us to be on the same page. We’re both here to make sure they’re the best person they can be. So yeah. And then again, praise effort and improvement.

I would always say, poebody’s nerfect. And they’re like, what? I’m like, nobody’s perfect, but I messed it up. Get it.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Oh,

Heather Fisher: Everybody makes mistakes. It’s going to happen. And I think schools are getting better now with the whole growth mindset. Because I know when I was a kid, I didn’t want to make a mistake.

I didn’t want to admit that I’d made a mistake because then I was bad or I wasn’t smart. And it’s no, that’s not realistic. Even the smartest person, even the nicest person is going to make a mistake from time to time. So I had that talk with my students. I make mistakes too. You’re going to make mistakes.

Now, when we make a mistake, the best thing we can do is admit it and learn from it. Yes, don’t beat yourself up. Oh, I didn’t get in line quietly. Okay. There are other things we can worry about. Yeah, you’re gonna be next time. Next, next time you’ll do an even better job. I know you’ll show me. I think that’s all I have.

I’m handling me. Okay. Look at that. So if I can stop sharing. Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Contreras: Wonderful. Thank you so much. This was, I really like how realistic it is that it, cause teaching is not all dogs and puppies and rainbows. And it’s a tough job. And I think that your tips are really great and they’re going to help our new teachers.

So thank you so much for being with us today. And I hope. Those of you watching, take these tips and really think about how to apply them because I think they’ll make a huge difference. So thanks again.