I Like The Way You Move

My teacher training program drilled the moves of classroom management into my mind until I was dreaming in teacher-speak.  I mean moves in the most literal sense.  Plays like in Football, moves like in chess, calculated game at a bar.  It was a packaged deal: learn to control a classroom of hormonal adolescents in nine easy steps (no money back guarantee, though).  This precise method to managing the madness is progressive and mostly effective, a hallmark of the “no-excuses” classroom.   And for this method, my sanity is forever grateful.  Distill something massive into an exact, replicable science and practice, practice, practice until the impossible becomes second nature.  Like a puppet master, use non-verbals and hand gestures to make kids sit up, turn around, face forward.  Modulate your voice while delivering consequences.  Stop and stare.  Self-interrupt.  Be emotionally constant. 

I had a reunion dinner this week with several of the people who completed the teacher training program with me.  We talked about the endless perks of being a second-year teacher.  My friend Andrew mentioned that he lets his personality show through a lot more in the classroom—that he actually uses his personality as a management tool.  While this move was never taught in our teacher training curriculum, I got what he meant.  My teacher-self is no longer at odds with my normal-self, she’s just a slightly more-in-control version with frumpier clothes.  No longer a manic Sybil, my unified self is contented.  My classroom is also a much saner place.  This is probably not a coincidence.

This prescribed method of classroom management can look like a robo-teacher conducting a tiny military, but this doesn’t have to be the case.  What my program failed to emphasize—or maybe a nuance I failed to internalize—is that within this disciplined framework, there is ample room for personality and modification.  That, in concert with a firm background in these moves, your personality is the single greatest classroom management tool you’ve got.  Conversely, if you’re lacking in the personality department, these moves may lose their effectiveness. 

More than anything, kids long to see humanity in their teachers.  To know that you make jokes and laugh when things are ridiculous. To know that you do things (sub-free things) on the weekend, have interests and hobbies and brothers and sisters.  To know that you are quirky just like them. Kids respect personality more than much else.  A shared understanding of what’s happening around us makes the classroom a happier space.  I faulted my program for removing the humanity and personality from the profession.  It seemed to clash so irreconcilably with my West Coast sentiments.  I see now, though, that with a firm grasp of the moves, you free up space to layer on personality and use it to your advantage.  Within reason, imbuing your teacher self with your normal self yields great results.