A Lesson My Mentor Shared That Changed My Teaching

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Coaching session

Early in my career, my Director/mentor mentioned to me during a conversation how she hated hearing people telling children “I don’t care”.  Like, “I don’t care if you were there first, we don’t hit”. She felt the child may only hear the “I don’t care” and not the rest.  Most of the time, the meaning would remain the same if the phrase were removed.

Her words had a profound impact on how I viewed what I said to children. I’m not sure how often I actually said, “I don’t care”, but I removed it from my vernacular. I’ve removed other phrases such as “I don’t want to hear..”  as I feel they may also convey an unintended meaning.

Children are literal. And, like most of us, dwell often on only a portion of what was said. Most of the time the focus is on the negative part of the message. The lesson I took away from the conversation with my director was that words matter. Even if the phrase is a well known saying, the children will pick out the literal words and not the more abstract meaning. After all, they only have a few years of experience and their brains just aren’t ready for the more abstract meanings in sayings and colloquialisms. 

Has a mentor or colleague shared something that made an impact with you that you could share with a newer teacher?

For A Predictable Classroom – Routines

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If you’re anything like me, you have your daily ritual or routine for getting ready in the morning. For me, it’s my coffee, watching the news, then shower, dress, etc. And, if anything interrupts my routine, I may forget to do something or leave something (like my phone) at home. We go through these routines without really thinking.

Routines serve a few purposes in our lives. They create a comfortable structure to our day. They help us complete daily, repeating tasks without much thinking. And they make our day (or at least their portion of it) more efficient. I know in my life, my day runs so much smoother when my routines and rituals have gone smoothly. It’s when something disrupts the routine that things start to fall apart. The phone call right before I get in the shower, the train on my way to work, or the unexpected visitor when I arrive at work. After these disruptions, it takes me a minute to get back on track.

Children benefit from predictable routines as well. They control so little of their world, that the predictability of the day brings comfort. Some of the ways we can create a predictable world in our classrooms include:

  • A consistent good-bye routine when the parent is dropping off the child
  • A consistent classroom schedule so the child knows what happens first, next, etc.
  • Consistent teachers in the classroom – being greeted by the same people each day
  • Consistent ways of doing things; such as transitions, bathroom, meals, etc.

There are many things that happen every day in your classroom. Your classroom schedule determines what those things are and when during the day they occur. The schedule guides the teachers throughout the day so all know what is happening when and next. The daily schedule also lets parents know what happens in the classroom while their child is in attendance. And though a child may not be able to read the actual schedule, they become familiar with the routine of the day.