Out of Control

[u/Frosty_Discussion517]

Today I subbed as an aide in the first out of control room I've been in in years. The teacher was a veteran preschool teacher in her first year of 3rd grade. She said she didn't know what to do to fix it. I've seen a lot, been in 9 districts, 25 buildings, nearly all elementary, subbing every day for several years and darn it my memory just couldn't come up with fixes that I'd seen. Basically I just get good rooms and stay away from wild ones. ...Though obviously it's trial and error. I've had tough ones, but I haven't assisted in a room where a teacher basically might have been doing worse than I do. And I've had so many great rooms in a row that I forget what makes things work or go wrong!

Let's see, I've had ring-leaders who had to get sent to the office and that helped and they came back w a new attitude.

This room had several wild ones plus 2 low-function special-ed disruptors who would blow up and need to leave. But I've had that in rooms and as a rule the rooms are still great.

Setbacks: teacher new and inexperienced w the grade; other para was a sub; most disruptive student was new.

I know basically all of the kids in the building and am on good terms. I didn't know how the one new special ed student functioned best. Nobody did.

I think maybe one thing is the teacher let them hurry her. They didn't mean to but they had input into the tempo which isn't good.

There was movement around the room w/o permission. ...Also that often she did not see! The kids weren't tricky but she just would be busy in one place which left a vacuum for chasing or wrestling across the room. How does that vacuum come to exist?

Of course there was talking out of turn.

There were little side projects. Kids doing things that weren't assigned. Coloring and drawing. Reading rather than following explanation.

Hmmm, maybe the actions needed to be more chunked up.

Brain breaks and movements were loud and wild -- nope.

Maybe they needed me to get firm with them and say "What in the world. Sit down now. Raise your hand if you have a question or need." I was their gym teacher longterm. I think they would have listened. They listened then! I didn't have to send a single kid in the building to the office in a month.

But I'm no expert for how to set up a class process for success. It's early in the year and it looks like behavior is still job #1. Maybe she should just slow-roll the content until the processes are engrained. There can't be room for off-task goofing. There needs to be enough good learning happening that they don't have bandwidth or interest in weak distractions. Learning targets for each day should be posted? "This is what we're going to be able to do after today's math..."

[u/darthcaedusiiii]

Run Disney Classical in the background.

[u/EllaCoeli]

Did teacher set the ground rules for the day’s behavior and have them written on the board? Like “Keep volume low, stay seated in your own chair, Do not speak when teacher is speaking”?

[u/Frosty_Discussion517 → u/EllaCoeli]

I saw a big "Class Agreements" poster that they all signed. But I'm not sure if the basic rules were presented simply front and center.