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I will use this to help me understand the TPA

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I will use this to help me understand the TPA

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I will use this video to help me manage my classroom

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Eleven-year-olds running a classroom? That could sound outlandish to some elementary school teachers, but not to Joe Jamison, or "Mr. J" as he is affectionately called by his fifth-grade students at Lawrence Intermediate School in central New Jersey.

"I learn from my kids," says Mr. J, as he dips his hand into a Philadelphia Eagles football helmet - otherwise known as the "helmet of fate" - and pulls out the name of the next group of students to give a presentation on Mercy Otis Warren, an American playwright and poet, not to mention one of the few female propagandists of the American Revolution, which Mr. J's class is studying.

There is a feeling of excitement in the small classroom, decorated with inspirational quotes and bright educational paraphernalia. The kids sit at the edge of their seats, waiting in anticipation; they are eager to show their findings after spending an hour researching and putting together a presentation about a quote that Mr. J projected on a whiteboard at the front of the classroom: "The rights of the individual should be the primary object of all governments." In groups, they were asked to figure out the significance of the quote, using only their critical faculties and a few laptops.

This activity is part of Mr. J's bi-weekly SOLE session, a freestyle learning period revolving around a topic, quote or question. SOLE, which stands for Self-Organized Learning Environment, is a concept drawn from 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra's wish in which he offered up a new vision of education that combines the vast resources of the Internet with children's innate sense of curiosity. The School in the Cloud, as he calls it, is a global experiment in self-organized learning. SOLEs let kids puzzle through big questions and ideas on their own, teaching each other in the process.
More from the TED Prize Blog: Karachi's youth paint "pictures of peace"
"The biggest thing for me is to prepare my students for the real world, to teach them essential skills such as critical thinking," says Mr. J, who was inspired to action after watching Mitra's 2014 TED Talk. "I believe in taking risks. If you're right all the time you're not going to learn anything. I believe in pushing my students out of their comfort zones, because that is where the real learning and personal growth happens."

Mr. J was recently awarded the 2013-2014 New Jersey Governor's Teacher Recognition Award, given to one teacher at every school in the state. It's a testament to his popularity among his students. He strikes a precious balance between providing gentle instruction and mentorship, and giving students the freedom to explore on their own. "I'm trying to teach my students how to think. This is a process: learning where to find good, quality information and determine how relevant it is to the question being posed. How do you boil it all down to a two-minute presentation? This is what I call critical thinking," he says.

His students are flexible and receptive to working in different ways. "I usually work independently, so for me it is a good opportunity to work in a group," says Madeline, 11, who admits she was skeptical of the SOLE concept at first. "I like the Internet because you have access to a lot of newer things. In books you can't get things that are going on, like, yesterday because books take a long time to be written," she says.

Hadi, 11, also enjoys SOLE sessions. "I like how we get to be independent and collaborate with our friends and talk it out instead of the teacher teaching us," he says. Hadi, whose favorite subject is math, has his own laptop and plans on being either a doctor or lawyer.

"I think computers are faster and more efficient, especially when you know what you're doing," says Natalie, 10, who envisions a career as an architect. She is a big fan of Mr. J. "He is more open to social media and I think that's very interesting because not a lot of teachers are like that. He is more open to our generation," she says.

Mr. J knew he wanted to be a teacher since he was a sophomore in high school. His passion for teaching, love of social media and curiosity about educational trends drive him to explore new options like Mitra's School in the Cloud platform, which helps students conduct research and create presentations. "There is no single formula. Every teacher, every situation is different. I have to set it up in a way that I know is going to work for my kids," says Mr. J.
More from the TED Prize Blog: Calling documentary filmmakers...
Other adults in the school notice Mr. J's willingness to try new teaching techniques, and have been experimenting with self-organized learning in their classrooms as well. It is clear that technology is a priority at the school. "This is all about the 21st-century learning," said David Adam, principal of Lawrence Intermediate School. "We've got to get on board now, otherwise our students will be behind."

Wikipedia and Google are two of the go-to websites for students as they conduct their research, but they are quite adept at navigating their way into less familiar terrain too, clicking on a series of hyperlinks that pull them into offbeat historical websites or down into the bottomless pit of YouTube. As they go, there is a sense of camaraderie and unity. Together, each group decides what snippets of research should feed into their presentation, taking turns using a shared computer. While one clicks on the mouse, another takes notes, and another student perhaps will ponder the meaning of the quote and make a suggestion.

As each cluster of kids delivers their presentations, the diversity of content is striking - they use multimedia add-ons and offer philosophical musings, memorable for their uniqueness. From finding a quirky, informative, YouTube video where students from another school impersonate Mercy Otis Warren during the American Revolution, to making statements like, " Mr. J gave us this quote because in the olden days women's opinions never really mattered to people but hers did," it's clear that the kids enjoy the limitless creative leverage.

While textbooks are clearly not obsolete, schools like Lawrence Intermediate School are learning to adapt to the impact the Internet is having on students - and figuring out how to take advantage of what it has to offer. In the end, there is no single right way to get kids engaged in learning, but it's clear that these kids, at least, who are working in a SOLE environment feel a sense of empowerment, confidence and maturity. Perhaps teaching a child to how to think critically is the gift that keeps on giving.
This post originally ran on the TED Prize Blog. Read more "

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What happens when 5th graders run the classroom: A SOLE in action

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Eleven-year-olds running a classroom? That could sound outlandish to some elementary school teachers, but not to Joe Jamison, or "Mr. J" as he is affectionately called by his fifth-grade students at Lawrence Intermediate School in central New Jersey.

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I can use this idea to engage my kinetic and visual learners while teaching students about decimals and place value

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Oh my gosh, I love this! Kinesthetic activity for teaching place value. Ball as a decimal point. | Learning kids | Pinterest | Place values, Math and Math place value

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Oh my gosh, I love this! Kinesthetic activity for teaching place value. Ball as a decimal point.

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I can use this to help me differentiate my teaching across subjects for ELL students

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The Second Grade Superkids: Differentiation Across the Subject Areas | Differentiation and UDL | Pinterest | Classroom, Differentiated instruction and Differentiation

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The Second Grade Superkids: Differentiation Across the Subject Areas

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Social-emotional learning has taken on a new level of importance as schools and districts adapt to meet the increasingly complex needs of students. SEL informs how educators approach culture, climate, management and discipline, and how they deliver the supports needed across schools and districts. There are many aspects to creating a robust system of supports that ensures schools and programs in the district not only speak the same language, but also have a shared understanding of resources and expectations for success.

The community contributes

A year ago, our district partnered with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health to train staff on trauma-informed practices. Small teams of educators from seven schools learned to better understand the impact that adverse childhood experiences have on students. We now recognize the impact that trauma and certain disciplinary actions have on students' decision-making.
This training now includes all 52 schools in the district. School-based teams have served as leads in providing hands-on support for their colleagues.

Another partnership in the tiered support system is telehealth services for parents and students in a rural area of the district. In the district's urban center, the United Way provides health services, job training and related assistance to families to help boost student attendance and academic success.

Each school has created a mentoring or support program for students who may need additional interactions with positive, caring adults. One of the most important resources for assisting schools with this work is the partnership with community and state agencies, as some issues can be greater than districts and schools alone can handle.

We recognize the impact of trauma not only in students' decision-making and actions, but also the impact certain disciplinary actions may have.

New views on behavior

As a district with a poverty index over 74 percent, we needed to equip all of our certified staff with classroom strategies to cope with the neurological impacts of poverty and the associated trauma. Administrators and teachers now understand the science behind certain student behaviors, and how educators can create a healthier social landscape.

Over the past two years, the district has aligned programming and other activities in a tiered and strategic approach to SEL. School communities are different, but their ultimate goals are engaging students and staff, maintaining a positive school climate with high expectations, and ensuring that students know that caring adults work in every building.

That said, we had to look systemically at the approach to certain aspects of SEL. We revised the student code of conduct so that level 1 offenses (minor infractions) now lead to activities such as mediation, community service and restorative justice, as well as training and information sessions for parents. At the elementary and secondary levels, schools now have the ability to tailor level 1 interventions to meet the needs and circumstances of the student.

A big difference

We are in the early stages of aligning the many steps and activities required to be a trauma-informed district, as it relates to meeting the social-emotional needs of our students. Trauma-informed practices are an important tool embedded in our SEL activities and our tiered support mode of operation. We find that these activities and training make a big difference as we strive to improve outcomes, options and opportunities for all students in the district.

Craig Witherspoon is the superintendent of Richland County School District One in Columbia, South Carolina.

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DA Op-Ed: SEL takes center stage | District Administration

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Social-emotional learning has taken on a new level of importance as schools and districts adapt to meet the increasingly complex needs of students. SEL informs how educators approach culture, climate, management and discipline, and how they deliver the supports needed across schools and districts.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

This must be on the minds of many teachers, because I came across two different studies via Education Week: one about how prior school experience is one of the largest predictors of the success that refugees will (or will not) encounter in a school setting, and the other about how important it is that teachers adapt to the culture of their newcomer students. Fellow TESOL blogger Nathan Hall also provided some ideas for helping ELL students acculturate to a new context, as well. While not every ELL is a refugee or a newcomer, both of these studies and Nathan's blog support the answer that I gave in class, which supported the necessity of including culture in the language classroom for both students and teachers. For TESOL teacher educators, though, I think there is one more step that teachers should take, and that is to go so far as to integrate students' culture and background knowledge into your instruction to be more effective.

In one approach to culturally-inclusive education, González, Moll, and Amanti (2013) stress the importance of using students' , which are created by the out-of-school life experiences that students have. For example, it may be tough for a beginning ELL to express his knowledge of fractions, but he may be well-versed in portions and ratios as he helps his parents cook. Thus, it isn't that he doesn't understand fractions; he might not understand them as presented in a book, but is well aware of the concept in real-life. A math teacher who is aware of this would try to incorporate more of the familiar context to support the classroom learning.

It seems the more we know about the role of students' funds of knowledge, the more important they seem to be. Even if you are working with English learners in a foreign language, rather than a second language environment, drawing upon your learners' life and cultural experiences as they learn language can strongly impact their language learning. In addition, if you're a teacher trainer or teacher educator, teachers' life experiences and beliefs should also be taken into account, as Johnson (2006) put forth in her discussion of the sociocultural turn in L2 teacher education. Teachers who are learning how to teach in a preservice university setting, as well as in-service teachers with their own career experiences, have their own funds of knowledge that effective teacher educators will account for as they facilitate coursework, professional development, and reflection.

Some practical ways of beginning to learn more about your students' cultures and funds of knowledge, in addition to web-based research, are:

conduct home visits;

have students create photo essays of a typical day or weekend in their home/family life;

have students create a collage of hobbies/pastimes;

interview your students/students' families;

invite guest speakers from various linguistic communities to share traditions, celebrations, or slices of daily life;

attend public events in your students' communities;

host an event at your school where students and families can contribute food and/or music; and

advertise events from your cultural community that students/families might enjoy.

Then, don't stop there-challenge yourself or the teachers that you work with to take that cultural knowledge and integrate it into teaching via texts and activities that place language and content in contexts that tap into those valuable funds of knowledge.

Feel free to add ways that you've integrated funds of knowledge into your language teaching in the comments below!
Reference
González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2013). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Routledge.

Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 235-257.

About Kristen Lindahl

Kristen Lindahl holds a PhD in linguistics with a specialization in L2 teacher education from the University of Utah. She is currently assistant professor of bicultural-bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she teaches pre-service ESL/TESOL educators at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Dr. Lindahl has taught K-12 and college ESL, and actively pursues consulting and coaching teachers of English learners in public and English language schools around the globe.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

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Please [contact us](https://www.ted.com/contact) and let us know what happened.

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The California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) computer-based test will be administered as three separate subtests beginning June 7, 2021. Learn more about this update at the CBEST Assessment web page.

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The California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) computer-based test will be administered as three separate subtests beginning June 7, 2021. Learn more about this update at the CBEST Assessment web page.

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Hey there, new teacher! Is behavior management on your brain? As a new teacher, a well-managed classroom is the first step to a successful year.

"In an effective classroom students should not only know what they are doing , they should know why and how."
Harry Wong

The secret to a well-managed class does not lie in any clip chart, token system, or prize box. While there are tons of classroom management techniques out there that utilize these (I'll discuss some today), they are sort of like the sprinkles on top of a cupcake- it's a nice touch, but not necessary if the cupcake is really good quality. Ya get what I mean, here? If you've set your students up for behavioral success, you find that you won't end up relying on the "sprinkles" quite so much.

You know I love a good formula! Remember post and one? Here is my "formula" for behavior management:
Specific + Consistent + Kind
Be specific with what you want and don't want. Be consistent with your consequences. Be kind in your delivery.

Let's start with part one- be specific:

You build a strong foundation through routines and procedures, explicitly taught.

Begin with general classroom rules. I use the Whole Brain Teaching Technique in my classroom, (additional info at bottom) and I use the 5 rules that go with this system. Teachers today are highly encouraged to include the students in the process of creating classroom expectations. Even with the ready-made rules, I still do this! For each rule, we talk about the meaning, and list examples and non-examples of each rule in action. The non-examples are important and powerful, because you are showing them what you don't want to see. (Thus eliminating the, "well, you never said NOT to...) I post these along with the 5 Rules so we can easily refer to them.

Not only should you be specific in your instruction, but also in your feedback! For example, when a student chooses to complete a activity to practice skills he needs, instead of playing the math game he doesn't really need with his friends, praise him for Making Smart Choices! (rule #4) Conversely, when little Johnny interrupts little Susie, remind him that interrupting was something we discussed as breaking Rule #3 (Respect Yourself, Respect Others, Respect This Place)

Set your students up for success!

Show and tell exactly what you expect from your class, and most of the time they will give you that and more! Oftentimes, misunderstanding is confused for misbehavior. When children know exactly what to do, when to do it, how to execute it, and what NOT to do, it leaves little room for much else. (Now, there are always outliers here, those who don't comply for the sake of it, and we will discuss them later in this post- we are starting with general management first 🙂 )

Implementation

There should be a procedure or routine for EVERYTHING that happens in your classroom. And each of these procedures should be explicitly taught to the class. There is no time better spent all year than the time you invest setting up your classroom routines.

Some of the most important routines you should be specifically teaching during the first few days of school are:

1. Whole Group Instruction Time

2. Independent Work

3. Small Group Instruction

4. Morning Procedures

5. Work Completion Procedures- where does it go? Then what?

6. When Work is Complete- Idle Time

7. How to Line Up

8. End-of- Day/Pack Up

Listen, between me and you, your administration is going to ask you to immediately launch into teaching the curriculum on day one. It's tempting because you are afraid of falling behind on the pacing guide, plus you don't want to be left in the dust of the other teachers on your team. Please learn from my mistakes! It is so. much. harder. to teach behavior later on. I often joke that once I have my routines in place, I could teach my class Swahili if given the time. (And, if I knew Swahili.) You get the idea though. You will make up the time later when you don't have to repeat and redirect 14 times during a lesson because your students know what to do!

Consistency

"There's a difference between trying to control students and establishing control of your classroom. Rules are about compliance. Procedures are about coherence."
David Ginsburg

The second essential part of this formula is remaining consistent. If behavior management begins with routines, it ends with consistency. And your management will end if you aren't consistent, I can guarantee you that! From the moment you set up your class rules/routines/procedures, there should also be subsequent consequences for not following the outlined expectations. Obviously, these will differ based on grade level. The consequence in itself, however, is not as important as the consistency of the follow through. Especially in the beginning! It is so easy to bend and give a little smile, maybe let a few things slide during the first few weeks. Resist the temptation! It is during these first few weeks when your students will be learning the most- not about math or science, but about YOU. Are you a pushover or no-nonsense? They will decide for you based on how you react to every situation.

When your best, sweetest, quietest student lines up incorrectly- you STILL have to administer the same consequence as the girl who does it every day. Never pick and choose who gets what consequence or reaction from you- this breeds confusion and creates an unsettled/unsafe space. Your students feel safest when they know what to expect both from you and from the daily happenings in your classroom. Remember that the consistency they experience in your class may be the only consistency they get. Knowing what to expect each days lessens anxiety and boosts confidence.

Kindness

"If kids come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important."
Barbara Coloroso

This is what will set you apart from many other educators. This is often the most difficult step because human nature is to react to disobedience with frustration and anger. Take your emotions out of the equation and don't take bad behaviors personally. It really has little to do with you. Now, there are entire textbooks dedicated to the analysis of bad behaviors in students, so I am going to try to sum up my philosophy as succinctly as possible.

Redirection or administration of consequences should be swift and specific. Then, move on. Do not continue to bring up any incorrect behavior. As soon as the child behaves correctly, praise the corrected behavior and, again, move on. By doing this you are focusing on the behavior itself, NOT the person. When you refrain from embarrassing a child you are showing kindness and teaching forgiveness. I often joke with my students saying, "It's a good thing I like you!" They learn pretty quickly that you will always love them personally, but you don't accept certain behaviors (and those behaviors have consequences!) That's an important and powerful message! The student and their behavior are not one and the same. There are consequences for our actions, but learn from your mistakes, don't live in them.

So...May I Be Frank For a Minute?

"...often the students who are the most demanding get the most help and attention ...the most demanding students are not always the ones who need the most help."
Jon Bergmann

You learned in college that "there are no bad children, only bad behaviors," right? They also probably drove home points about positive discipline and reinforcement. Listen, it's all good stuff, but - I'm being honest here- there are totally some kids out there that are just bad to be bad. All the positive reinforcement in the world will not change their behavior. THESE kiddos need consistency, consequences, and -you guessed it- kindness. Again, we can analyze the behaviors and try to determine if it's stemming from a poor home life, traumatic experience, etc., but really, they need you to provide the structure they are missing.

You won't succeed with them right away, it may even take months until you see the smallest of change in their behavior, but stick to it. The formula works, and I've taught some tough kids with rough lives. My first few years were in a Title 1 school and when I was absent the first time (for my own wedding), the principal and security guard both had to sit in my classroom with the sub in order to keep control. Now, my behavior management was FAR from perfect (still is!), but my kids responded to me because I showed them kindness, and they knew there were hard and fast lines. This takes a while to find the balance of, but if you stick to the formula you will find your own style as the year(s) develops.

Now, About Those Particularly Tough Students...

If you have taken the Classroom Setup E-Course, you already know what the general feel and flow of your room will be. Decide on a concrete management system that best fits your classroom. Think grade level/age/classroom type i.e. inclusion, SPED, gifted, team teaching, etc. What makes more sense for your classroom? Some basic but effective option are:

Weekly Parent Contact Behavior Updates: Class Dojo Reports, Weekly Behavior Logs

Daily Parent Contact Behavior Updates: Teacher signs students' planner, student colors in each day where they fell on the behavior chart, notes, Class Dojo message, etc.

Upper-elementary students may not need daily updates, but the primary grades tend to respond better to this. That said, choose what works best for you! I actually use a mix of both, and modify as the year goes on. Typically, I can use less daily feedback as the students understand more of what's expected.

Implementation

I have used both a behavior clip chart AND a Weekly Behavior Sheet with success.

The clip chart is simple, just have students move their clips up and down throughout the day depending on what you are observing. Wherever they end up by 2 o'clock is what they write into the parent contact box at the bottom of each day on their planners. I sign everyone's planner every day using this method. It is time-consuming, but for a difficult class it has proven effective. When the students know that their parents see how they behaved each day, they are more inclined to behave better!

For that particularly challenging class I mentioned above, I also used a daily behavior chart. There are tons of options for these, but here is how I set mine up:

I literally made a tally mark for every infraction. On Thursdays, I sent home the weekly total in each category home in their folders for parents to sign. This may sound intense. It probably goes against every positive-reinforcement technique you were taught in college, but it worked for me and what I needed that year. Each class will be different! This past year, I actually didn't use either of these! My students were pretty chill and only needed the Classroom Economy system that I use, plus the Scoreboard, to maintain good behavior. (They were an easy bunch, behaviorally speaking! )

And on the topic of the Scoreboard...

Here is my final tip for you today! This technique changed my management game, plus it is all about positive reinforcement! The Scoreboard comes from the Whole Brain Teaching system and works like this:

As you are teaching, you award points to either the class or to yourself (the teacher). It's YOU against THEM and they eat it up! If they are off task, say, "Woohoo point for ME! Give yourselves a mighty groan," and award the "teacher" a point as the class goes, "ughhhh". When the class is on task, say, "Have a 1 second party!" The class yells, "yes!" and you award them a point.

I have no set number of points that they have to reach per day, but in order to win, one side must have at least 3 more points than the other. We work for Fun Friday recess time, freedom to sit with friends during class, game days, etc. Make it work for you! The best thing about this is that there is never any "taking away" of points from the kids. Instead, YOU end up gaining points and "beating" them! They respond by working hard to behave correctly so that they can get more points than the teacher. It discourages those who may want to act out from doing so because he/she knows the class will be upset if anyone causes them to miss out on points! I have witnessed this work for ALL grade levels, K-12, and it is extremely effective!

There's a link at the bottom for more information on Whole Brain Teaching that explains this in more detail if you're interested! 🙂

Whew! Can you tell I'm passionate about behavior management? It's because it can truly make or break your year. I totally missed the mark my first year and I struggled because of it. Looking back, it shaped the teacher I am today and I am thankful for those experiences, BUT I'd like to save you from them!

For more TIPS and IDEAS for your first year, check out the New Teacher Survival Series!

In conclusion: ROUTINES! Make em, Love em, Keep em! 🙂

Until Next Week ~ Stay Inspired!

Love this post? Your e-book is waiting for you!

Check out the other posts in the New Teacher Survival Guide!

Read more about Whole Brain Teaching!

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Behavior Management in the Classroom: Find Your Style | First Belle

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Hey there, new teacher! Is behavior management on your brain? As a new teacher, a well-managed classroom is the first step to a successful year. "In an effective classroom students should not only know what they are doing , they should know why and how."

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This year, I had, hands-down, the most difficult class I have had yet. 19 students in an intermediate-level ESOL cluster, mostly boys, who love nothing more than getting under one another's skin. I had trouble managing them in even the most basic of ways - come in the classroom and I have a "don't yell" policy, but, I yelled. They wrote for 15 minutes
If you are a new teacher, perhaps one of the most daunting tasks can be mastering classroom management. It takes time. Every Professional Development session that you attend on this issue includes some combination of strategies to increase and maintain student engagement, and pointers for creating a consistent classroom management plan that addresses students who have difficulty adhearing to classroom expectations.
Because an engaged clasroom is a well-managed classroom.

But what do you do if it's not? Even the most seasoned teacher can be blessed with that one class that just cannot seem to stay engaged and follow classroom expectations. They challenge your management plan, scoff at your PBS plan, and make you dread that class period every single day. You fear an impromptu observation from administration during that class period. I hear ya, I've taught that class.
And then, I've taught the class from hell who surpasses all of that.
My classes are clustered, meaning that my students travel together all day to each of their classes. A lot of times this means that whatever drama, issues, or arguments that they had in a previous class get drug into my classroom. Most of the time, keeping them carefully grouped and engaged in student-centered activities aleviates some of those issues, but sometimes the combination of students in a cluster is chaoitic no matter what you do.
This is SO frustrating.

And then one day mid-lesson, I raised my hand to quiet the class for probably the 25th time in 10 minutes, and I stopped class.
sit down. Nope. They wouldn't do it. Bell work? Forget it. They came in screaming every. single. day. Touching each other. Hitting each other. Throwing things. Every. Day. I told students that we were done for the day and that they were going to spend the rest of the period writing a letter to their parents detailing their behavior in my class. I told them that not only was I going to give them a grade for this assignment, but that I was going to send them home to every one of their parents. A lot. Because I didn't know what else to do.

Later, I read through the letters and I learned a few very important things:
The students were aware of their behavior. They wrote that they were disruptive, disrespectful, that they were not following rules and procedures, that they were rude to their teacher, and that they were not doing their best.
They apologized. They told their parents in their letters that they were sorry and they knew that they were letting them down. They knew that they weren't doing their best and they would try to do better. in silence.

The next day I discussed the letters with students, and I told them that they clearly were not raised by wolves, and they had good parents who taught them right from wrong and had high expectations for them. I reminded them that I had high expectations for them as well.This was fixable.

Then I told them that their parents would always forgive them for making mistakes and that I would, too. If you are facing an unruly class and feeling frustrated,
After that experience, I had significantly less issues with those students. I do not dread that class anymore. We still have some difficult days, but it is much easier to wrangle them now than it was.
Sometimes the best prescription is a little self-reflection. Putting my students in a position where they had to spend time reflecting on their behavior and take ownership of it made a world of difference.
I have been able to return to my no-yell policy and be the teacher that my students deserve.

Most importantly, hang in there. You are doing good work, you are important, and you are appreciated.
do not give up. Classroom management can be a tricky thing, even for a well-seasoned teacher. Not every classroom management problem is directly your fault, so don't internalize the problems and view them as a reflection of your incompetence. Think outside of the box. Kagan and Marzano and the dozens of other bottled-packaged-and-sold student engagement programs can be wonderful, but YOU are the one standing before your students every day - figure out what makes them tick and capitalize on it. It might be the most unconventional thing that none of the books touch on. Do not be afraid to go off the beaten path!

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how i turned around the most difficult class i ever taught

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teacher mom 101: how i turned around the most difficult class i ever taught

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Teacher Mom 101: How I Turned Around the Most Difficult Class I Ever Taught

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This year, I had, hands-down, the most difficult class I have had yet. 19 students in an intermediate-level ESOL cluster, mostly boys, who love nothing more than getting under one another's skin. I had trouble managing them in even the most basic of ways - come in the classroom and I have a "don't yell" policy, but, I yelled.

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classroom seating arrangements - Google Search

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Victor Rios: Help for kids the education system ignores

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Define students by what they contribute, not what they lack -- especially those with difficult upbringings, says educator Victor Rios. Interweaved with his personal tale of perseverance as an inner-city youth, Rios identifies three straightforward strategies to shift attitudes in education and calls for fellow educators to see "at-risk" students as "at-promise" individuals brimming with resilience, character and grit.

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Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, “They don’t pay me to like the kids.” Her response: “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

This must be on the minds of many teachers, because I came across two different studies via Education Week: one about how prior school experience is one of the largest predictors of the success that refugees will (or will not) encounter in a school setting, and the other about how important it is that teachers adapt to the culture of their newcomer students. Fellow TESOL blogger Nathan Hall also provided some ideas for helping ELL students acculturate to a new context, as well. While not every ELL is a refugee or a newcomer, both of these studies and Nathan's blog support the answer that I gave in class, which supported the necessity of including culture in the language classroom for both students and teachers. For TESOL teacher educators, though, I think there is one more step that teachers should take, and that is to go so far as to integrate students' culture and background knowledge into your instruction to be more effective.

In one approach to culturally-inclusive education, González, Moll, and Amanti (2013) stress the importance of using students' , which are created by the out-of-school life experiences that students have. For example, it may be tough for a beginning ELL to express his knowledge of fractions, but he may be well-versed in portions and ratios as he helps his parents cook. Thus, it isn't that he doesn't understand fractions; he might not understand them as presented in a book, but is well aware of the concept in real-life. A math teacher who is aware of this would try to incorporate more of the familiar context to support the classroom learning.

It seems the more we know about the role of students' funds of knowledge, the more important they seem to be. Even if you are working with English learners in a foreign language, rather than a second language environment, drawing upon your learners' life and cultural experiences as they learn language can strongly impact their language learning. In addition, if you're a teacher trainer or teacher educator, teachers' life experiences and beliefs should also be taken into account, as Johnson (2006) put forth in her discussion of the sociocultural turn in L2 teacher education. Teachers who are learning how to teach in a preservice university setting, as well as in-service teachers with their own career experiences, have their own funds of knowledge that effective teacher educators will account for as they facilitate coursework, professional development, and reflection.

Some practical ways of beginning to learn more about your students' cultures and funds of knowledge, in addition to web-based research, are:

conduct home visits;

have students create photo essays of a typical day or weekend in their home/family life;

have students create a collage of hobbies/pastimes;

interview your students/students' families;

invite guest speakers from various linguistic communities to share traditions, celebrations, or slices of daily life;

attend public events in your students' communities;

host an event at your school where students and families can contribute food and/or music; and

advertise events from your cultural community that students/families might enjoy.

Then, don't stop there-challenge yourself or the teachers that you work with to take that cultural knowledge and integrate it into teaching via texts and activities that place language and content in contexts that tap into those valuable funds of knowledge.

Feel free to add ways that you've integrated funds of knowledge into your language teaching in the comments below!
Reference
González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2013). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Routledge.

Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 235-257.

About Kristen Lindahl

Kristen Lindahl holds a PhD in linguistics with a specialization in L2 teacher education from the University of Utah. She is currently assistant professor of bicultural-bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she teaches pre-service ESL/TESOL educators at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Dr. Lindahl has taught K-12 and college ESL, and actively pursues consulting and coaching teachers of English learners in public and English language schools around the globe.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"