Top Sixteen Tips for Teachers

My son cried every night of the first month of school that year. He was being punished frequently and often couldn't understand what he had done wrong. He felt like his teacher hated him, even though he tried hard to do what he thought was expected of him. After a while, I also believed the teacher hated him.

You might think I was that parent, the one who thought her child did no wrong. You’d be mistaken. My son was in the other section of a class I co-taught the previous year, and I knew he could be challenging for a teacher who didn't "get" him. He was wiggly and impatient. He struggled with handwriting and with focus. He was bluntly honest – no filter. But he was also an avid reader, an enthusiastic and curious mathematician, and the kind of kid who made every person in the school community feel welcome and important. He might have been the only kid at our school who – in addition to knowing the names of almost all of the teachers and students – knew the names of most of the guards and cleaners and cheerfully greeted them on a daily basis.

The previous year, I’d watched my co-teacher – a second year teacher – masterfully support and engage my son, helping him to have his best year ever in school. She is  a natural born teacher, and did most of what I share below instinctually. She and I both offered to share strategies with this teacher for how best to work with my son and other children we’d taught. Our suggestions weren’t welcomed, to say the least.

After a conversation with the teacher and head of section about how my child was missing recess almost every day, making it harder for him to sit still and be quiet (more on that later), I shared a Responsive Classroom article about Punishment vs. Logical Consequences. Neither the teacher nor the head of section was pleased. How dare I think I knew enough that I could teach them anything about teaching?

I didn’t bother to remind them of my 17 years of teaching experience, my master’s degree in Special Education, or my 11 years of experience parenting my child. Instead, I began writing this list – for that teacher and that supervisor. I hope you’ll find something useful in this Top Sixteen Tips for Teachers.

1.     Find something to love about every child. Yes, every child. Even that one. Especially that one. You can be infinitely more patient and supportive if, in your moments of frustration, you can remind yourself how kind Amin is when one of his classmates is sad. The more challenging a child is, the more important it is that you find at least one amazing about him. (Shout out to my first co-teacher for sharing this nugget of wisdom with me in my very first year of teaching!)

2.    Know your age group. I highly recommend the book Yardsticks by Chip Wood. When my first graders were falling sideways out of their chairs on a regular basis, Yardsticks explained this was typical of six year olds. (Five year olds tend to fall backwards.) And nine year olds are often complainers. You can stop getting frustrated with age-appropriate behavior and instead, help kids grow past it. Especially if you are not a parent or have not parented kids of your age group before, ask someone who has about children’s physical needs. I’ve seen too many kids have bathroom accidents because teachers demanded they wait until the end of a lesson or activity at age 5 or 6! 

3.    Keep your back to the wall. Management 101. Make sure you can see the whole classroom most of the time.  If you have tables set up for small group work, place your seat in a corner, facing outward. Scan the room regularly. Stop any problems before they start by redirecting kids firmly and kindly. Teach an attention signal and use it when you need everyone’s attention. And make sure you get everyone’s attention each time you use it. Ideally, your attention signal won’t consist of clapping and/or yelling loudly and repeatedly. Melodic (sung) attention signals are my personal favorites. Many educators like to use a simple chime. 

4.    Be clear with your language and limit the sarcasm, even with older kids, or explain what you mean. And cut it out completely with little ones. They take what you say literally. Be explicit and don’t assume kids know what you meant to say. I’ll never forget the puzzled expression on one little boy’s face when a parent volunteer handed him a worksheet and joked, “Go on, knock yourself out.” (He later came back to ask if she really wanted him to knock himself out!) Or when a teacher told a row of children – none of which spoke English as a first language – to “move up.” Not one child moved. He repeated himself to the point of frustration and walked away muttering about how dumb the kids were. I later asked those children if they knew what “move up” meant. They guessed, “Sideways?” I explained that sometimes we say, “move up,” when we mean, “move forward.” Now they know.

5.    Stop trying to intimidate children into behaving. Establish a strong rapport with your students. Respect your students and talk to them like real people, even the little ones. Make the expectations in your classroom explicit and reasonable and then support children to meet those expectations. If you're asking young children - or even bigger kids - to sit still for close to an hour and be quiet, (read long assemblies with no interactive anything) your expectations are not appropriate, so don't get angry at the kids for not being still and quiet. If your only strategy for getting kids to work is threatening them with punishment, something’s wrong. Start seeking out other methods. 

6.    Build community. Take the time to greet your students and teach them to greet each other. Teach children how to support, respect and cooperate with their peers. No time? I promise you the learning goes faster and better if your classroom is a safe, welcoming space. Children have to feel safe enough to take risks and make mistakes if they are to make progress. (Responsive Classroom has useful, researched, tried and true methods packed into easy-to-read articles, books and DVDs. Check them out!)

7.    Share a genuine love of reading, writing, numbers and everything else and the learning will come easier. I have, a number of times, had several students in a class make 2+ years growth in reading in one school year, mostly because together, we found books they loved, and they read non-stop for the first time in their lives. Mo Willems, Sharon Creech, Christopher Myers and Walter Dean Myers, Louis Sachar, Christopher Paul Curtis and Gail Gibbons are just a few of the authors who have grabbed kids’ attention and made them want to read non-stop. I’ve watched children who hated writing become prolific writers because of the excitement Writing Workshop generated as we wrote with them and helped them to coach each other. (Check out Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Workshops for a great model to get kids loving literacy and taking ownership of their work!) Teaching That Makes Sense is a phenomenal free resource when you're stuck for inspiration or need subject-specific, grade-appropriate ideas, handouts, and posters! (No, I'm not getting paid to say that, and seriously, go look!)

8.    Wait. And teach children to wait. Many children need time to formulate their thoughts. Don’t assume the child doesn’t have something to say because it’s taking her a while to get it out. Silently count to ten – or twenty. Teach children to listen with patience. Have them keep hands down while someone else is speaking. Teach a wait signal (like a waist-level thumbs up) and wait for most children to have an idea or answer, rather than always calling on the children who raise their hands first. Pay attention to which children you call on most and, more importantly, note the children who rarely get a chance to answer. Then work to make the speaking in your classroom more equitable. If you find this difficult, keep a checklist of names in front of you, and tally the number of times you call on each child. When you’ve gotten better at this, pay attention to how frequently you call on children of different genders and cultural backgrounds during specific subjects. I promise you, you’ll be surprised.

9.    Get enough sleep and plan properly. It took me about two years to figure out that there was a direct correlation between the class having a “bad day” and me not getting enough sleep or not planning thoroughly enough.

10. Be human, unless you think robots should be teaching children. I don’t know who decided teachers should avoid smiling for the first month of school, but that person was clearly not a good teacher. Smile, laugh, cry and let children do the same. (I can never read aloud Patricia Polacco’s book, The Junkyard Wonders without getting choked up!) And help children learn language to describe how they're feeling.

11.  Build bridges between home and school. Learn to greet children and their families in their home languages. Welcome children’s home languages and cultures into your classroom. Welcome family members into your classroom to share their knowledge about the world: to build, to cook, to read, to sing, to dance, or be interviewed. (Check out Paula Rogovin’s book, Classroom Interviews for fantastic ideas.)

12. Understand that families want the best for their children. You might not always agree with what families think is best for their child and that can be frustrating, and yes, sometimes infuriating. So it’s good to know that mostly, families want to know that you know their child, like their child and have their child’s best interests at heart. Be honest with parents, but be tactful, and don’t forget to share the positives, too, frequently. And remember, families do generally know their children well, so listen to what they have to say. Knowing more about your students is helpful!

13. Know that every child wants to succeed. I’ve heard children labeled lazy, not that bright, spacey, difficult, defiant, rude, only to find upon working with them that they were some of the kindest, hardest-working, most brilliant, cooperative children I’d ever known. One child had severe dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed for his first six and a half years of school. Another turned out to have a severe hearing impairment, and another, a possible undiagnosed seizure disorder. Several “not that bright” children spoke English as a second or third language. A number of “rude” children were on the autism spectrum. One five year old who spent the first month of school climbing onto tables, throwing things at other children and running away, finally broke down and said he needed to go home so he could make sure his mom, sick with Lupus, was okay. Once he knew mom was taken care of and that he wouldn’t get sent home for his behavior, he became a joyful and caring member of our classroom community. Kids want to learn. You are the teacher. It is your job to figure out what a child needs to learn and then do your best to provide it. Ask for help if you need to.

14. Be an advocate for families that need support. I'm not talking about telling families what they need. I'm talking about helping families when you know they need help. If you can access certain privileges and connections that might benefit families, use them. If you need to fight for services for a child, or seek out community organizations, do that. Ask for help finding the support families might need. Speak up. Call that person you know.

15. Be an activist against racism. And if that sounds too extreme to you, you're not paying attention. Racism impacts on our classrooms every day. We see it in our schools and on the news. We have to work against it truly give all children a chance to be successful. We have to be able to say BLACK LIVES MATTER and mean it. And we have to know, that even in classrooms where there are no children of color, racism is harmful. Be an activist in your own classroom by making your books reflect our beautiful, diverse world, focusing on identities represented in your school and community. Be an activist at the school level by calling out racist behavior and educating the perpetrators. Be an activist in your community by working to make school zoning fair, by supporting public schools. We have so much work to do.

16. Don't be too hard on yourself. This job is hard. Do your best! 

Have a great year!