So Many Plans

How many plans/procedures have you had to create or learn  so far this school year (even though the school year hasn’t officially started for kids yet!)?

• Opening Day procedures
• Dismissal procedures 
• First Day Plans
• Emergency Sub Plans
• Active Shooter Plans
• Lockdown Plans
• Late Work plans and procedures
• Lesson Plans
• Restorative Circles plans
• Assessment plans & procedures?
• Computer lab reservation procedures
• Behavior management plans

This week before kids come is full of a billion different plans -- and that doesn’t even COUNT when you’re trying to desperately make plans between meetings for your new notebooks procedure and a bulletin board and the rest of your syllabus.

Well, sorry, folks. I’d like to ask your brain to plan for one more thing.

One. More. Thing.

What’s your plan for getting to know your kids?

No, really! The fastest way to start your Best Year Ever is to get to know your students really quickly.

Stay with me. Here is one way to increase your likelihood of having an easy (or easier) year.

Step One: Figure out what you want to learn about your kids. Before one or more of them tunes you out, get them to open up a little. Ask about their interests, personality, and learning preferences.

Try some questions asking about ...

• Whether they have an after-school job
• What clubs/sports/activities they are a part of
• How they learn best
• How many adults in the house  
• What they do in their spare time (hobbies, etc)
• What they do and don’t like about school
• Something you-the-teacher could do to help the student be successful
• Something they are good at
• Something they want you to know or think you should know about them.

Step two: Ask these things to your kids. It’s a whole lot easier when you do it on Survey Monkey or Google Forms or something digital that drops it all in a spreadsheet for you. But it’s also great to have kids do a “Fakebook” page or a mini autobiography or a About-Me one-pager, or any of a million getting-to-know you strategies.

Step Three: Read what they write. I would probably spend a little time reading them the first time. THEN, I would probably pick a couple each day, each period and use them to help me learn students names/personalities.

Why bother? I mean, we all have a ton of procedures and rules and Codes of Conduct  to get through -- nevermind getting to content as quickly as possibly.

SOOOO. MANY. REASONS!!!

• So students learn on day one that you care about them  
• So that you can actually start to get to know them
• So you can actually start to care about them
• So they can start to learn that you aren’t the enemy but an adult who has their backs
• So you can include their learning styles into your instruction, intentionally
• So you can start to identify and grow their talents
• So you can identify needs immediately and not wait until October (or March!)
• So they will work for you
• So they will behave (better) for you

All culturally relevant educators need to build relationships with students. Start on day one. They don’t need the sixth syllabus read-aloud of the day. Take the time literally on Day One and get to know them. Build that relationship and knowledge every day and your year will be so much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Questions? Thoughts? Cool ways you do this? I love to hear! EMail me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy