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Sandy

State Teachers'
Magazine Article

Teaching Smarter
by
Sandy LaBelle

Editor’s note: Teaching Smarter is a classroom management model designed to provide specific techniques one can use EVERY DAY to reduce stress and fatigue, while producing more responsible students. We hope you enjoy this sampling of ideas from Sandy!

A phrase I learned from a time-management course kept ringing in my ears - “DO THE BEST JOB YOU CAN IN THE TIME THAT YOU HAVE.” It has been my experience that teachers do not have a problem with the first part of this sentence. We are doing the best job we can! The place we have trouble with is the second part, “in the time that you have.” I want to share with you, we can do a quality job without coming in early, staying late and sacrificing our private time. A quality job can be done by changing the way we “do business” in our classroom. Classroom management skills are very teachable, but seldom taught in a specific take-back-to-your-classroom-and-use-tomorrow form.

Just keep in mind, there is much much more than what I can share with you today! So, I will “do the best job I can in the time we have.”

Set the stage for a calm class start. Play music before class starts. Find some calming music you enjoy, and play it during between-class breaks. The purpose of the music is to help the students transcend from the hub-bub of the hallways to the environment for learning.

One more suggestion about the music idea, buy as big a boom box as you can afford (perhaps from a thrift store?)—because big radios do not fit in book bags! Also, label your radio in big print with white-out.

Buy a Rubbermaid wash tub. They come in many colors, and the bottom measures about 9x12 (just the right size for papers to fit). Place the tub near the front of the room and make it the turn-in box. All papers go in the turn-in box. Responsibility-moving-over-manship, if you collect the papers and a paper is not picked up, who’s responsible? If the papers are to be turned into a box, and it is not turned in, who’s responsible?

Keep the box in the same place all year long. A consistent turn-in spot will eliminate the requirement of always having to instruct students where or how to turn in papers. One more thing, I put a teddy bear next to the turn in box. Yup, a teddy bear. It seems that students sometimes do not hear, “Put your papers in the green tub” but they always hear “Put your papers in the green tub by the teddy bear” I don’t know exactly why, but it works!

Responsibility-moving-over-manship for administrivia. Go to the thrift store and buy a brightly-colored plastic bowl. Put the bowl at the front of the room. When students have an admit slip, or any other paper that needs your signature, they put the paper in the bowl at the start of class. After you sign the slip, put it back in the bowl. That way, you are not searching for that admit slip, buried under other papers - and the student also knows where to look after the class ends. Remember, if you take the paper, who’s responsible?

Part of reducing our stress is engineering our classrooms so students are more responsible, and that frees up more time for us to do the teacher-business at school and not take it home!

Sandy LaBelle lives in Covington, Washington. She has been teaching workshops and seminars to districts and state conferences for the last several years. She has also presented and keynoted at national conventions. Her first book “Teaching Smarter” was published in 1999, and her second book was first printed in September 2004. If you would like to order a book or arrange for a presentation, Sandy can be reached at her web site at teachingsmarter.net or by calling 253-630-2907.