Classroom Management: General Tips

I am mentoring several new music teachers in my district this year. The biggest concern of every single one? Classroom management. I was right there with them my first year; if you are a veteran teacher who had amazing classroom management right off the bat, then please let me know who you are… so I can grovel at your marvelous feet.

Management is nearly impossible to master as a student; you can learn Fred Jones until you are blue in the face and yes reading can help, but it just can’t be mastered until you have experience. A lot of it. But what do you do until then? What do you do when 19 2^nd graders are doing their absolute best, but 6 have checked out due to the one who is hiding behind your instrument storage, singing “Twinkle Twinkle” as loud as they can because “half notes are evil and I won’t learn about the devil in school”? (Yes, that really happened.)

This was me, the next morning.

We have all been there. While it’s hard to have ironclad “you must do these things” in management because every teaching style differs, here are some general tips that I’ve found helpful in establishing my classroom.

1.) Don’t take it personally.

If you’re brand new or even new to a school, it can take time for students to trust you. This is especially true for your at-risk students. At first, students are learning much more about you and what your limits are than your actual subject. They will push, and sometimes they will say terrible things that they don’t mean. It doesn’t mean the kid is bad. It doesn’t mean you are bad. Most likely, you’re both just adjusting. Clear rules help this adjustment. That way, when that 4^th grader is using a mallet to annoy their buddy, you can calmly point out that they made the choice to break rule whatever, and can now sit out. Then, it isn’t personal for them either; it’s simple cause and effect.

2.) Stay calm.

For some students, getting a rise out of the teacher = VICTORY. Use extreme volumes only in extreme situations. This can also apply to getting flustered. If I make a mistake? Hurray, I am officially human and not an alien. I always acknowledge the mistake quickly and move on. Do I still get flustered? You bet. I just don’t make a huge deal out of it. The goal here isn’t for it to never ever happen, the goal is for it to not be a part of the culture of your classroom.

3.) Find the positive.

This should be easy, because if you weren’t freaking awesome you wouldn’t be teaching. But the truth is, our culture is currently quite focused on rooting out the “bad apples” and education can be very overwhelming. It is easy for teaching to become an oppressively negative experience. I absolutely, completely guarantee: EVERY SINGLE LESSON you teach every single day has at least 3 things about it that were good. Maybe they were small, but they were there. Find a few of them. Sure, you need it so you don’t go insane, but it is also helpful to know what is working so you can build on your strengths. If you can’t find them, call in reinforcements from a colleague or video-tape yourself teaching your best management class.

4.) Self-evaluate

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”

-Haim G. Ginott

Here comes the tough love, folks: if you are having classroom management issues, your kids are only half the problem. Hear me on this though: That does not, ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT mean you are a bad teacher. Do you expect kids to get a concept perfectly 5 minutes into a lesson? Probably not. Don’t expect the same thing of yourself, because you will make mistakes and that is OK. However, for most lessons you will have to take an objective look at the things you do and figure out what isn’t working so you can improve. Often, it is a behavior that leads to the escalation of a negative situation. What were you doing before a normal situation got bad? If you aren’t sure, bring in a video camera to your toughest class and tape yourself. That can also help you spot escalating voice inflections, like sarcasm.

5.) Be the positive

Kids are incredibly sensitive about the “s” word: stupid. I have kids who aren’t great at one subject, and become absolutely convinced they are stupid and terrible at school (despite being geniuses in other subjects.) Humans tend to focus on the negative, and one of the best parts of teaching music is our ability to find that one thing kids are great at and highlight it until you can see that sucker from space. We can’t do that until we establish our classroom as a place of mutual respect. Using positive language like “please walk” instead of “Oh God DON’T RUN ARGH” (I’ve totally caught myself saying that exact sentence before) helps you establish a safe space where kids can fail but continue on to succeed. I also use positive reinforcement whenever possible. Word to the wise: stickers are magic, and Dollar Tree has foam music-themed ones.

6.) Balance novelty with procedure, and insanity with structure.

I know I’m getting through to a kid when they laugh and tell me I’m crazy. Because guess what? Kids pay attention to the crazy lady. (Or crazy dude. This tactic works well for anybody willing to be nuts.) They want to see what I’ll do next, so they give me the benefit of the doubt. One of my best engagement strategies is being an unpredictable crazy lady. My students no longer blink twice when I show up in a wig and frock coat to be their substitute Herr Mozart, and even my jaded 5^th graders put up with my antics because they know something good is coming. They also know exactly what my rules are, exactly where my limits are, and exactly what the consequences are for each action, both good and bad.

7.) Be consistent

Yes, I know that one first grader is stinking cute. But if they break a rule, they need to have consequences. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t differentiate; several of my kids have deals with me for specific behaviors I am looking for, or a hand-sign for when they need a chance to cool-off. As a whole, though, be clear about your expectations and stick to your guns. If playing out of turn on drums, recorders, or tone bars means two minutes of silence in your class, then you need stick to the that consequence. Only set consequences you are willing to follow through with. Do this with positive actions as well. For keeping track, I have individual systems as well as a class-wide system using Class Dojo.

8.) Get them moving

Music teachers have an advantage with this, because so much of what we teach is naturally kinesthetic. But even if you are doing a lesson focusing on theory, find a way to get kids up and moving. If that means they jump while reciting a definition, cool. Braindance at the beginning of the lesson? Word. But you don’t want kindies to sit criss-cross-applesauce for 40 minutes if you want to keep your sanity. (Let’s be real, it’s probably hanging by a thread anyway.) If you have longer classes, consider taking quick one-minute brain breaks. I also let students earn dance breaks if they finish what they need to get done in a lesson. Go Noodle is a great resource for this.

I hope these tips will help you. I plan on going into more detail with certain things, like procedures, soon. Have a great day!

Using Memes in Music Class

This year, I am mentoring four new music teachers in my district. When asked what my favorite trick for teaching hard concepts was, my immediate reply was, “Memes!” That may seem strange, but I swear these things are magic. A few years ago, a class was really struggling with the concept of DS Al Coda. We tried stories. We made up a rhyme. We looked at visual examples, audio examples, visual AND audio examples… nothing stuck. I made a silly meme (Grumpy Cat, I believe), suddenly every kid got the check-in questions right, and I got a new tool in my toolbox.

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Bah humbug for the holidays! 

I love posting memes outside my door. If a class is early, the kids will find memes they like and talk about them. Some are rather silly, but others tie directly to concepts I will be teaching. I also went a little meme-crazy for my holiday board this year. No regrets. I highly encourage any opportunity for students to think about musical concepts, even if they are just giggling at an unfortunate T-rex as they walk by.

The first meme is mine, the second is from here. There is a PTP posting, too.

At the beginning of the year, I used memes to help explain the rules. Kids were more willing to deal with procedures when Spongebob and Grumpy Cat were involved. I have two rules: Respect and Participate. Both were explained using the memes above. 

 

Piano and Forte cat are always helpful!

I like to use memes to introduce concepts. It’s a good hook, and provides a visual aid you can bring up later if you need to. I have my favorite memes in a Pinterest board and use them all the time.

Are you're kids struggling with slur vs. tie? NOT ANYMORE.

Memes can also help to serve as review. I have review questions for my older kiddos as they come in. Posting a meme or a comic and asking the kids to explain the joke is an easy way to review a concept while getting students to use academic language. 

Yup. Spongebob memes galore. 

I have a Pinterest board of my favorite memes here, and use them constantly. I hope you can find one that will help a concept stick for your kids! Happy meme-ing!

Using Class Dojo in Music

I love Class Dojo. I love Class Dojo. Have I mentioned that I love Class Dojo? …’Cause I do.

When I saw gen. ed. classroom teachers use the program, I thought it was so brilliant. Instant point system that is easy to correlate to classroom money? An instant record of behavior to show a parent at conferences? Completely free? Rock on!

I love you, little green dude who does flips when the page is loading.

As useful as I could already see that it was, I almost immediately decided that I could never use it. I have over 400 students; keeping track of them all would be a NIGHTMARE. I already used a whole-class incentive system and a compliment system with behavioral differentiation when necessary, how would all that fit in? Nah, cool but not for me.

Over the summer I began to reconsider, and boy am I glad that I did!

It was easy once I realized I could use Dojo as a tracking tool for the class-wide system I already had. I have a “BRAVO” system. When every single student in a class is following my two rules (Respect and participate) they earn a letter. The goal is to earn five letters to spell the word BRAVO in one class. When they do, they earn a certificate and stickers for the school-wide PBS reward system.

This is what it looks like when students earn all 5 letters.

In Dojo, I have each class as their own monster, instead of each student. It is easier to keep track of, and the individual reward systems I already had in place weren’t changed. I post the updated points every Friday afternoon outside my door, so teachers can see how far along their class is. I track the points for a quarter, and reset the points for the new quarter.

Teachers like being able to see how many points students earn, too.

One of the best things about this website is that now I have a way to reward classes for behavior on the long term. The main downfall of my system before was if a class never earned a BRAVO, they never realized how cool it was and didn’t feel motivated by it. But with Dojo, they can earn stickers for every 25 points they earn in total, even if they never get a BRAVO. It allows classes with more behavioral issues to still be motivated by a positive behavioral system. I also allow them, with 50 points, to earn a mini-bravo party and with 100 points, to earn a full bravo party.

A bravo party is when I allow students to choose their own instruments for a full class. (A mini-bravo party is 10 minutes on instruments of their own choice.) Students also get a small treat, like a baggie of fruit snacks, when they leave. I still have objectives and focused teaching, but students get choice and find it to be motivating. I chose this reward because I figured with so little time to teach kids so much music theory, I didn’t have any extra to spare on a free choice day or a pizza party.

Students really seem to like knowing how many points they have, and students K-5 work hard so they can earn another letter/point. It also helps that the art teacher in my building found and loves Dojo too, so they see similar systems in more than one class.

Class Dojo has been a very useful took for me so far. I plan on giving out this certificate each quarter to the class in each grade with the most BRAVO points. I found it here. What a fantastic idea!

This Teacher had such a great idea!