WHITE SNAKE, road markers & classroom procedures

Yeah... this time White Snake is teaching us something about the classroom, folks.  Routines and procedures help any and every lesson run more smoothly.  The more complex the task or pedagogical approach (like blended learning) the more you'll need to establish R&P.

But first, as my kids like to blurt out when they're excited to share some tidbit of information unrelated to anything I'm trying to talk to them about...

It's time for a... 

Did you know that we haven't always had stripes in the middle of our highways and roads?!  In 1911, the first striping of a road was done in Michigan.  A standardized approach placing stripes on roadways wasn't really agree upon by the states until the mid 1970's!  What the what?!  Yep... Before the 1970s, some states had stripes and other's didn't.  Some stripes were wide and some were narrow... Some stripes were yellow and reflective and other stripes were white and non-reflective.  Isn't that crazy?!  I mean... just from an observational perspective... it's kind of weird to think about.

What if you were driving from Michigan to Texas and, as you entered each state, there were missing lines or the lines were different colors or different shapes?  It would be weird.

Interestingly enough , studies have been done to look into how stripes affect driver's safety... and, guess what, butter cup?  Roads with stripes have few wrecks and people tend to stay closer to the speed limit than roads with no stripes. 

Turns out that the hashed lines help drivers gauge how fast they're going.  And the stripes themselves keep drivers on the right side of the road.  

If you don't Belize me (I'm already things about summer vacation, ugh)... then check out these two websites (I did the research for you, so you don't have to...). The first one is an article on the history of road markings and the second is a pretty dry research site on the topic. 

AND

So, what this really boring research does is address White Snake's (and your student's) need for direction.

Without routines and procedures, your assignments and activities may be perfect, in and of themselves.  There may be directions written on the paper or on the board, but what underlying set of elements important to the task have not been addressed?  Can the kids talk to each other? When? To what extent? Can they work on the floor? If they need a brain break, do they wait for you to tell them or can they take one on their own?  What is proper for peer to peer interaction? What is proper for peer to teacher interaction? Are these expectations posted so everyone can see them?  Have they been reviewed and, more importantly, consistently supported by the teacher AND the students?

Read the following lyrics, but from a student's perspective as they are lost in a lesson and looking for those routines and procedures in your classroom: 

Tho' I keep searching for an answer

I never seem to find what I'm looking for

Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on

'Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams

Here I go again on my own

Goin' down the only road I've ever known

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone

An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time

Man...the kid singing those lines above is lost and just needs something small to get back on track. I feel for them :)

So...

What do road stripes have to do with White Snake and routines and procedures?

Small lines on the road help save lives.  For the most part, they don't have to be enforced.  Drivers can gauge their own speeds and stay on the right side of the lines... as long as someone paints the lines and tell them what they mean.

It's the same thing in your classroom.  You don't have to create a giant encyclopedia of routines and procedures to get kids to follow them.  YOU don't have to be the only one to enforce them if you empower students to keep each other in check.  

How many times have you put together what you thought was an incredible lesson only to watch it fall apart in an implosion of confusion or a need for you to over-explain the expectations?  Maybe the lesson really WAS awesome, but the classroom routines and procedures were not.

David Coverdale pleads "Tho' I keep searching for an answer, I never seem to find what I'm looking for."  If he only had  "Ask 3 before me".

Poor, confused David Coverdale

Routines and procedures: not just an elementary need.

Tiny, supported shifts in expectations can do wonders.  This tends to happen more in elementary classrooms.  What we secondary level teachers tend to assume is that our students come to us as civilized  human beings fully equip for our lessons.  Fill in this blank space a story from your class. 

 Yes, we need routines and procedures in secondary as well. 

Resources

What are some resources, Charles?  Glad you asked! 

Though this list isn't exhaustive you will certainly find some food for thought here.   Is there currently an issue in your classroom you can’t solve? Rethink the issue through the routines and procedures lens. 

Mull over R&P for everything from how students interact to how do they turn in assignments to what to do when they have some free time to...

Checklist for R&P

30 routines and procedures to think about (Elementary) 

40 (yes, 40... sorry) things to consider regarding R&P

12 Classroom R&P for secondary ELA

Highschool R&P for several items including substitute teachers 

Helpful tools for R&P: 

• timers
• R and P charts
• colored coded folders for tasks 
• in and out boxes for work
• key words to signal transitions 
• music to signal transition
• Listen to 1980s music to revisit our glory days (this one is mainly for me)

Hey, boo! Don't ghost your students!

If there's something weird

and it don't look good

Who you gonna call?

GhostBusters!

 

Speaking of which (or is it witch?)...

Did y'all hear about the one where a dude picks up a drenched girl off the side of a road? She sits in the back seat and directs him to drive her to her house.  He gets there to drop her off, turns around to tell her they are "home" and she's gone with only a puddle of water where she was sitting.  Curious and confused, he goes to the front door to see if the girl somehow walked into the house without him seeing her.  One of the parents opens the door... he relates his story... and the parent(s) reveal...

THAT WAS MY DAUGHTER, BUT SHE DROWNED 10 YEARS AGO THIS VERY NIGHT!!!!!

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and then we're all like... 

The girl was there and then she wasn't.  It happened without any communication or reason.  The ghost ghosted the guy.  UGH... so traumatic!!!

Ghosting is such a crazy and traumatic event that when someone has been dumped out of the blue with little communication or explanation as to "why"... we call it ghosting.  We expect something that doesn't materialize and, so, we get very very lost and disoriented.

When we expect one event, but are left with a dead end with no communication as to what to expect or do next... you've been ghosted. 

Friedrich Nietzsche once said that human beings need "horizons".  That is, we need boundaries to help limit our expectations and guide our actions. Without "horizons", we don't generally know where to go and what to do.  So we fill in the silence with negativity.  We're lost.  We're "ghosted".  We're annoyed at the lack of guidance in our thoughts and actions. 

In this new online COVID education world there is a need to redouble our efforts to not "ghost" people in our lives, including our students. Here are some suggestions we have to help your students feel more guided and less "ghosted":

• Set up your online course with bread crumbs
• Where do students start?
• Where do they move to the next item or activity?
• Do students have a map in case they get lost? Do they know where they are?
• Do students know how to get back to home-base?
• Where do students end?
• Use more than words to communicate
• Create buttons to navigate your pages
• Use super short videos, GIFs, and images to guide
• Colors and shapes can help guide (think of red octagons and what they mean)
• Bullet points like these help organize a list on a page
• Send out regular communications
• Email or reach out every Monday to let students know what to expect
• Tired of typing emails? Use a video instead.
• Communication can happen via Insta or TikTok... be creative 
• Wrap up your weeks with a summary communicaiton
• LOOP YOUR PARENTS IN AS WELL!!!!
• For every negative email you send... send a positive one (to save your sanity a keep a positive view on what you do every day)
• Answer your students as quickly as possible, but within agreed upon times
• Tell students when you tend to read emails so they know when to expect a reply
• Try to reply within 24-48 hours
• Even if you can't answer them... reach out to say "I got your email.  Give me a moment"
• Fill in that "ghosting" with some sort of information so they don't fill in that silent gap with false assumptions 
• personalize... start the communication with the student's nam
• "Hey MacLamore!  Great to hear from you..."
• DO NOT allow yourself to be accessible 24/7... you'll get burnt out
• By that same token... be accessible when you say you will be accessible
• Reach out to socialize
• Don't be afraid to send images or short comments that help build your culture
• Ex. Hey guys, I went shopping this weekend and this picture I took at the mall reminds me of what Lauri said last week in our discussion!!!
• Need more tips? Check out a previous post concerning the new Educational Land of Confusion world that we live in... and some tips to work around that confusion! 

If there is something weird in your online 'hood 

and it's confusing or don't look good... 

Who are your students gonna call?  

Hopefully, you.