Support in and out of the classroom

5/1/16
I was recently talking with a younger, TFA colleague about the struggles and woes of teachers, especially TFA teachers, and he asserted that his friends and TFA cohorts do not need more disparaging information about the LA educational system (that they get enough of that in their day to day struggles) but they need more structure. I asked him what that meant, and he felt that our new, young teachers could use more resources and more structure in the classroom. Despite the many observations by mentors, our youngest teachers still feel ill-prepared and ill-equipped to tackle the academic and emotional hurdles in teaching urban/suburban students.

I began to think of the things that were helpful to me over the years, especially as an English teacher. Some of the things that I developed in elementary and middle school are still effective for running a structured high school classroom. The two major components of this development came in the following areas: behavior management, my time management and academic resources that are appropriate for my students' levels of ability.

Behavior Management was best developed by having very few expectations- only ones that can easily be tracked or documented- a documentation sheet and procedures.
 The First Days of School by Harry Wong is a useful resource for developing these things; however, I found the videos of Chelonnda Seroyer to be more useful and realistic. Wong's work is, like Lemov, designed to be implemented in its entirety but much of it is not effective or is, honestly, a waste of time for our community of kids. I found the following chapters to be most useful:

• Unit C page 85,165- how to teach classroom procedures

Many people quote Wong and Lemov as gospel but my experience with schools who follow the entire book/directives are schools that subjugate its students rather than cultivate them. My current school does neither and the most effective teachers are those who use these elements in part.

Time management is incredibly important in a profession that requires at-home work.  I learned to manage my time on paper; a huge mistake was attempting to just remember all of the things that I had to do throughout the day. One major issue with doing this is that your tasks will change throughout the day (for instance, you may need to call student parents based upon incidences in class, or you decide to change components of your lessons or your weekly plans). I've found the following ways helpful to managing daily responsibilities:

• Keep a copy of your school's academic calendar. On your school's calendar you can also write bill due dates, social engagements, and deadlines. This way you are always aware of when things are due and it can help to prioritize your responsibilities. 
• Keep a "To Do" list in the same place as your calendar. As things pop up during the day, write them down as soon as possible. On your planning period, lunch or afterschool, go through the list and prioritize tasks by amount of time that they will take to complete and most important. 
• What items are a priority? Another colleague stated that she felt she had to prioritize tasks but what tasks she was prioritizing actually weren't pressing. I have found that grades are not a priority every day. This depends on your school's policies and expectations on grades-the more grades that they require, the more pressing the priority- however, if your lessons are not well structured, those grades that you are rushing to complete will not be good.  Pressing priority goes to lesson planning and behavior management follow through, such as phone calls to parents, managing consequences like checking to ensure students attend detentions, etc., and behavior/ participation grades are up to date. Students must know that what they do in class is of utmost importance.
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•  Pace your lessons and use a timer. As you are mastering your content area, it is hard to know exactly how long a particular task will take. Letting students linger on tasks that don't take long will suck up your class time and cause your lesson pacing to swell. Conversely, not giving enough time may frustrate students and cause them to lose motivation. Planning adequate independent work time can free you up to assist students and manage small tasks that might otherwise end up with you at home.
• Avoid social media on your down time! We all know that social media is a time suck and creates a wormhole in the space time continuum that will leave you wondering how your entire lunch period is gone or that worksheet that you planned to create isn't done but 30 minutes of your life have disappeared. It is best to power through the day and then have more relaxation and down time when you get home.

Academic resources are deeply lacking in many schools, especially urban schools. Why does this happen?  Many schools choose to cut costs by not purchasing textbooks or not use textbooks because the students are reading two to three grade levels behind. Instead, many schools choose to have teachers find or create their own resources. This is a benefit because it allows every teacher an opportunity to individualize the work for students as well as the ability to customize the work to exactly and only what they are teaching. Great for experienced teachers, not great for new teachers.  How do we find the right resources? Google them! However, you have to know what to look for before you look for it, so I have found the following to help me break down my content and look for appropriate work:

• Go through the standards and find the subskills that are required to complete the task. For English, that means that if we are learning how to edit sentences for fragments, students first need to know what are and how to identify independent and dependent clauses. I would search for middle school-level worksheets or assignments on clauses so that the work is accessible to students. Some great resources for English are: 
• http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/    A plethora of PDF worksheets and answers that are leveled by difficulty
• https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/    You can search by topic and filter by grade level. There are many FREE resources and even more pay resources, many by whole semesters and can be used for your entire course.
• https://laurarandazzo.com/       Teaching strategies and resources. She also has a TPT store with incredible resources.
• http://www.k12reader.com      A variety of resources for all subjects, leveled by grade level. 
• https://www.havefunteaching.com/    
• https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/