Back-to-School Frustrations

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Home : 2002 : February : 11

Back-to-School Frustrations
By It WILL get better

I had those EXACT same problems with my fifth graders at the start of the year. I made a few minor changes. One was that I got this sheet of paper somebody gave me that had all the dictionary definitions of a line. Kids
who are out of line have to copy all the definitions. That got them together pretty well. Another thing I did was have line stopping points. As in, we line up on our room number on the playground, and I let them walk, but they have to stop at two set points along the way. There are two reasons for this: (1) since they get out of line while walking, this forces them to get back in

line, and (2) for some reason they fall in line better at the first stopping point than they do right away at our room number, I think because they are distracted by all the other kids lining up back at the room numbers. Another thing you have to do is just accept that you're going to have to walk around and tell individual kids by name to get in line. (You can also stand and wait for kids to get it together, but some of them are oblivious or just don't care.) That's just the way it goes, although it is very frustrating to have to repeat yourself all the time like that. However, the only other option is screaming and yelling, which my neighbor does. That does not seem appealing.

As for getting kids' attention, this is a big problem. Again, you're just going to have to accept that you'll be repeating yourself. I have heard different teachers say things like, "1, 2, 3 eyes on me," or use signals like flicking the lights, ringing a bell, etc. Those are a good way. But for me it requires more that. I have to say, "Okay, I need your attention," THEN go through a list of names of kids whose attention you have. (As in, "I see Jose's eyes, I see Christina's eyes ... Okay, now I see all of Row 3's eyes.") It's kind of a pain, and I always wonder if the Powers That Be up at the state dept. of ed. know how many "instructional minutes" we spend doing things like this and other classroom management issues instead of teaching their impossible standards. But hey, it beats yelling all the time. (Not to say I haven't taken out that big gun from time to time.)

However, please don't worry too much about these situations. Although I did make some minor adjustments in my classroom management procedures, I would say that the main thing that changed was my perceptions and the kids' attitudes. In terms of my perceptions, I just accepted that I would be having to spend a lot of time getting kids' attention or waiting for the lines. In terms of the kids, somehow they just got it together more and got in line. I think at the beginning of the year they were either just testing me or they were on some kind of back-to-school high that prevented them from cooperating.

Now things are far from perfect, but now that I accept that and put in the effort to change them, everything's a lot better.