Articles

Where are you when students arrive in the morning? At your teacher desk looking at paperwork from the office? At the projector setting up a video you'll be showing later that morning? I like to station myself in my customary position at the door, ready to greet each student as…

That's how long it took for school to start feeling normal to me this year. Up to then I was in full-on back-to-school mode, and so were my students. Kids' shoes were shiny, voices were either loud or silent, faces were sleepy, eyes were peeking into other rooms in hopes…

A few years ago, at dismissal time at Four Corners Elementary School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, 229 students in grades K through 5 would leave their classrooms simultaneously and head for the school's front door, where a bottleneck formed each day. School staff, recognizing that this situation often left children feeling…

"Mr. Anderson! Kelsey cut in line!" calls out Nicole. "No I didn't! I was here a second ago. I just had to get my lunch ticket!" Kelsey retorts. The fourth grade girls glare at each other and then look at me, waiting for my response. I don't want to spend…

Are you looking for a strategy to help your students navigate particularly tricky times of day, such as transitions, recess, lunch, or dismissal time? Try making a "looks like/sounds like" chart (often called a T-chart) or a "looks like/sounds like/feels like" chart (aka a Y-chart) with them. This activity and…

When Rita White stepped into her first principalship at an inner-city school in Memphis, Tennessee, she faced daunting challenges. The school of 980 students was on the state’s “needs improvement” list, students were not making adequate yearly progress, and discipline referrals exceeded 1,000 a year. The approach to discipline was…

A step-by-step example of how it might look and sound for a teacher of younger students to use Interactive Modeling. 1. Describe a positive behavior you will model "When we walk in line, it's important for us to get where we're going safely and quietly, so other people in our…

School Spotlight: Dame School, Concord, New Hampshire When the morning bell rings, Linda Stephenson, the guidance counselor at Dame School, steps out of her office. A moment later, children start coming through the front door of the school. “Good morning, Parker,” Linda says to one first-grader. As children walk into…

A whistle blows, signaling that the day is about to begin. The children scamper to organize themselves into grade-level lines. On an adult’s signal, one line moves toward the building, pausing at the door. “We are about to go inside. What kind of waves will we use?” the adult asks…