Interesting article on Classroom Management in the Portland Tribune March 25, 2008

Title:   Attitude Adjusters: Schools take on behavior problems with new ideas

Link to article

Please comment below on our blog and let us know what you think about classrooms of today.

Guest Blogger: Sharon Sayler of www.impressionengineers.com

It is already midway throught the first month of 2008. I can hardly believe it!. Has that ugly word, procrastination found it’s way into your new year’s plans yet?  If you find it has, it is not too late to get started. Here are some tips to conquer procrastination.

Before you begin accept three things:

1. There is no perfection.
2. Expect some setbacks.
3. Everything will take longer than you thought.

And answer two questions:

1. Is this the best use of my time?
2. What do I need to really own what I’m trying to accomplish?

Procrastination usually happens because we don’t have enough information about what we are trying to do. One way to rein-in procrastination as we gather more information is to trick your procrastination "brain" by working backwards.

1. What do I want to do or what will the finished project look like? Describe in detail what it will achieve or change, including a completion date?
2. Break the project into tasks, working backwards, from the finished project to the current time.  Imagine the last thing you did to make it work? Write it down… What was it you did to get the last thing done? Write it down… What was it you did to get the second to last thing done?  Write it down… (you get the idea.)
3. Develop this list into small and easy tasks that can be accomplished quickly, no more than a few each day… 
   Do only one task at a time. Consider a thirty-minute plan—set a timer and work on something for just 30-minutes. At the end of 30-minutes, switch to something else if you want. (Chances are you are so involved you will keep going.) Reset your timer for the next 30-minutes.
4. At the end of each task, celebrate its completion.
5. Plan the next task and establish priorities for getting it done.

If you still find yourself getting stuck try modifying your environment, or enlist a friend to hold you accountable.

"There will always be reasons to wait…The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count."~Robert Anthony

Have a great day in whatever your adventure.
To success! To Life!� 

Sharon

More of her tips can be found at http://www.impressionengineers.com/blog/

Why are the two weeks before Christmas so difficult?
By Rachel Babbs 

I was talking with a teacher friend the other day, and, as is typical of most educators at the holiday time of the year, we started grousing about the usual seasonal difficulties we experience during the pre-holiday season. One of our key frustrations is regarding the class responses to certain individuals; individuals whom the teacher has spent a lot of time in the months prior, teaching the class to ignore. And, until very recently, the class had been doing a fine of job of just that.  But, in the two weeks before the holidays, even our most on-task and academically motivated students were getting hooked by these highly entertaining future HBO comedians. Instead of moan and groan about it as we do every year, we thought it might be more beneficial for us to try to figure out why this occurs and what can be done about it.

Seasons of the Classroom

We started doing some research and found that if we look at what Michael Grinder teaches us in the book, A Healthy Classroom, during certain seasons of the school year, students become more Right Brain-oriented. Even our so called “good students” become more random and kinesthetic. They all become more motivated by entertainment than by learning. There is an increased amount of attention towards inappropriate humor.

And, at the same time, when they are not giggling over some snide comment made by someone “in the peanut gallery” of the classroom, the students are breaking down in tears over something as minor and trivial as a broken pencil.  We’ve all heard of “Seasonal Giggles”. What about “Seasonal Sobbing”? They cry at the drop of a hat. And, since the relationship between the teacher and the class has shrunk to the size of a peanut, the teacher can no longer call upon the student’s ability to reason.

We find that if the teacher asks anything of the class during this time period, the response time is very slow or nonexistent. It is as if they’ve all been invaded by an internet virus that has slowed their programming to a crawl. We give the command and they have about a minute delayed response. Or, if they’ve really been infected, the command is completely ignored.

In order to better understand the teacher’s frustration over classroom behavior during this time of the year, let’s back it up to before the season begins. Let’s look at a regular day, in a regular classroom. If it is late September and early October, the students are more linear and logical. They are more academically motivated. Even if they are not, they will comply because the teacher is asking a favor of them. The relationship at this time of the year between the teacher and the class is strong enough that the class will do something because they want to please the teacher. The routines have been established and the students have a sense of the teacher’s expectations. The class hums along like a well oiled machine.

Fostering--the Well-oiled Classroom

Now, please understand that this machine didn’t just build itself. No. The teacher starts putting together the parts of this machine on the first day of school. And, the key to the functioning of this engine is the establishment of relationships between the teacher and individuals in the class and the between the teacher and the class as a whole. Once these relationships are in place, by the time late September rolls around, the teacher is, for the most part, able to operate through something we all love, called “influence”.

And, one of the most important aspects of “influence” is a strategy the teacher utilizes to build a healthy classroom called “fostering”. With fostering, the teacher can utilize relationships to foster behaviors that the teacher values, values that may be missing from the class as a whole. So, even though individuals in the class might exhibit these behaviors, the desired behaviors are not present with the group as a unit. In math, we say that the value equals the sum of its parts. In group dynamics, we say that the value of the class equals the value of the class leaders.

For example, many of us have a high value in “working hard”, or “curiosity”, or “kindness”, or “appropriate humor”, or “ambition”, to name a few. If these values are not being exhibited by the class’s current leaders, the teacher looks for individuals who exhibit the desired behaviors and start to give these students attention in such a way that the class sees the teacher doing the fostering. The rest of the group sees the fostering being done and, if the group likes the teacher, the group will take on the same behaviors. They say, “Oh, that’s what I need to do to get the teacher’s attention around here.” Since a leader is anyone who is noticed, the teacher can increase the noticing of the individuals who have the values that the teacher wants to foster.

Class Culture

Now, let’s tie in with the idea of the sub-groups that make up the class culture. The teacher, once they have established a certain amount of rapport with the class has a tremendous influence over which students the class will notice as their leaders. A leader is anyone who is noticed, positive or negative. Each leader is a member of a sub group. A sub group is made up of a group of students who have the same values. Each sub group has a leader and each classroom is made up of several sub-groups. These sub-groups can include the “humor group”, the “likes to work hard group”, the “slow to grasp group”, or the “likes to help group”, to name a few. And, in the classroom, there is a hierarchy of these groups, a pecking order if you will. In other words, there are certain sub groups that influence the culture of the entire class, certain groups that are noticed, just like leaders are noticed.  The rest of the needs of the other sub groups in the class are subordinate to the needs of the sub group at the top of the food chain. The leaders of those sub groups are noticed by the rest of the class. And, that is why a smart teacher will find students who exhibit values that the teacher wants to foster and increase the leadership of those students. This will, in turn, cause the sub-group that those students are members of, to move up the hierarchal ladder. The more positive sub-groups will now have influence over the rest of the class.

The Right Brain Season

And, this brings us back around to the initial conversation and our frustration during the two weeks before any kind of a break. My friend felt like she had taken all of the above steps towards creating a very positive and healthy atmosphere in her classroom. She had squelched the negative sub groups that had dominated her class at the beginning of the year and had fostered the more positive sub groups that had the attributes that she wanted present in her class. So, what happens every time there is any kind of break? Since the relationship between the teacher and the class diminishes, the teacher loses his or her ability to influence which sub-groups the rest of the class is going to notice. The value of the entire class changes during the Right Brain Season. Unfortunately, before any kind of vacation comes, the sub-groups of entertainment, drama, and humor will emerge as the top sub groups in the pecking order. And, because the teacher’s influence is greatly diminished during this time of year, there is very little the teacher can do about it.

This phenomenon usually happens right around Thanksgiving. Suddenly this fantastically functioning, highly productive and motivated class, evolves into a different beast altogether. And, every year, even though we’ve been through it the before, we walk around scratching our heads, saying, “Who are these gremlins and what have they done our students?” They are no longer functioning as a unit. Their motivation is not towards academic achievement. It is towards the inane. Our ability to inspire or push them has gone down the tubes. We whine, we plead, we berate, we yell, we bribe. We will try anything to get them to return to the yesteryears of a class will stocked with students full of curiosity, productivity, and motivation.  

So, the question becomes, “How can we still manage to make this time period educationally productive when we have such little influence over the class?”  In our research, we spoke with many legendary teachers and looked at what they did during the difficult seasons of the school. We trust the some of the following suggestions will offer some tips that other teacher will find useful.

One teacher said that he aligns himself with the current class leaders. The teacher does this by showing the rest of the class that he or she has a relationship with these students, that he likes these students. The rest of the class sees that the teacher is part of the “in-crowd” and will associate positive intention towards the teacher. For example, this particular teacher said that in one of his more difficult classes, (he teaches at the high-school level) he has a student who has an audience addicted personality. The student, because his behavior is so belligerent and constant, quickly used up his tokens with the rest of the class. By early October, the class, along with the teacher, would just ignore this student when he would start doing his usual antics. But, recently, just before the holiday vacation was to start, the class started to give this student attention again. The teacher, seeing this newly established leadership with the class knew that he had to figure out how to align himself with this re-emerging leader. The teacher also knew that this student was a bit of a hypochondriac. So, one day in the middle of the right-brained season, just as class was about to begin, the teacher stepped away from his teaching area, looked at the student, and in front of the entire class, said, “J.R., are you okay? You look a little pale.” The student’s response was that he was fine, but did feel a little bit like he was getting a cold. The teacher then said, “Well, keep me posted. Let me know if I can do anything to help.” The teacher looked down, stepped back to his teaching area, and started the lesson. The rest of the class watching this interaction, noticed that the teacher was concerned and that the teacher liked the student.  And the student, who was normally such a problem, got the much desired attention he craved and was perfectly well behaved for the rest of the class period. 

Another teacher said that she changes how she teaches during this time period.  She shifts her teaching style in such a way that satisfies the needs of the current dominant sub group. For example, she will do more project based activities during this time period to meet the needs of the kinesthetic sub-group. Similarly, another teacher said that he uses humor more often during this time period or tells more stories to reinforce a concept. Another teacher said the she focuses on more review activities that reinforce previously taught concepts.

When Influence Doesn’t Work

There is one more strategy that may need to be implemented. Whether we want to admit to it or not, during this educationally challenging time of the year, we may need to resort to appropriate use of power to maintain the safety and functionality of the classroom. Influence is no longer effective. We would all like to be able to operate with influence throughout the entire year, but we know that it is just not possible. In order for influence to work, there has to be a relationship between the teacher and the students. And since, as previously noted in this article, the relationship between the teacher and the class shrinks during the two weeks before the vacation comes, utilizing influence during this time period is ineffective. So, what is our back-up to influence? We want to suggest appropriate use of power. We know that for most teachers, this is not our preferred mode of operating. We tend to shy away from it because we philosophically don’t believe in it. But, there are times, such as the two weeks before Christmas, that the students will need us to go to power to maintain safety and order in the classroom. So the question becomes, how do we use power in such a way that is effective for the students and lets the teacher feel okay about it?

In the book, A Healthy Classroom, the author, Micheal Grinder, helps us understand the difference between Power and Influence by using the metaphor of Flight Attendant versus Captain. The Flight Attendant is in service to and the Captain is in charge of. On days of the school year when the group is functioning as a cohesive unit, the teacher gets to operate as the Flight Attendant, also known as influence. On days of the school year when the group is operating more as a group of individuals rather than as one unit, the suggestion is that that teacher has to operate as the Captain, or with power. If we look at the behaviors of real flight attendants and real captains and adopt some of those behaviors, we find that we can operate with power in such a way as to not personalize it. Taking on the behaviors of a captain of an airplane when we go to power allows us to stay dissociated and not in touch with our feelings. Grinder likes to say, “We are paid to feel when we teach. We are not paid to feel when we manage.” Taking on the behaviors of a Captain gives us a way to do just that.

In summary, my friend and I both agreed that while right-brained days will always be a difficult time of year, it is no longer an impossible time of year. We now have some new strategies to implement and we will no longer take it personally when the students don’t respond to us as they did in early October. We learned a lot and trust that we can now approach Right Brained Days with renewed fervor. And, I’m sure we will continue to find time to moan and groan about the difficulties of our profession. At least now we will have one less moan to groan about.

Rachel Babbs is an ENVoY trainer and coach, is an Oregon school district staff trainer and teaches A Healthy Classroom.  You can contact her at rachelbabbs@msn.com.

HINTS FOR OVERCOMING RESISTANCE
by Toy Odiakosa, Director www.ela-consulting.com
Graduate MGA’s London Group Mastery Certification

A 52 year old sales director was sent to "get coaching" for his failure to interact efficiently with his line manager.  He was having meetings with the CEO and other members of the Project Board, however his inputs and interactions at that level had not been well received.  What to do… read the entire article

Further information on overcoming resistance can be found in Michael’s books Charisma: The Art of Relationships and his latest book The Elusive Obvious

Michael interviewed in the latest issue of Rapport Magazine.

Article from Rapport Magazine, http://www.anlp.org

…I saw Michael Grinder in action at last year’s NLP Conference where
he gave the Keynote speech on the first night. Appropriately for a
night when the rain was torrential, his subject was ‘Cats and Dogs’. In
a packed, and slightly steamy, hall in Regent’s College he demonstrated
his own ability to work with groups. He had us first engaged and then
involved. We’ll return to the Cats and Dogs theme presently, but first I
want to give some background on the man himself…

…I wondered if being John Grinder’s brother had been an issue as he
developed his career. Did people have expectations of how he would be?
“I suppose there is a certain notoriety to it but I’ve never experienced
prejudice or skewed expectations. I’m able to be myself as well as 
John’s brother.” … read the entire article

Effectiveness of ENVoY
Classroom management model sponsored by Knowledge Arts Foundation
Results of University of Houston study, 2006-2007*

OVERVIEW
Does it work?  Yes.  In a study conducted by Dr. Robert Houston at the University of Houston Institute for Urban Education, ENVoY is shown to be effective in improving classroom environment for students.  Data from seven local schools were collected before, during and after the program, then analyzed at U of H.*


FINDINGS
1.  Positive changes.  ENVoY resulted in positive changes in teacher classroom management procedures.

2.  Coaching helps significantly.  Best results showed up in classrooms where teachers received individual, job-embedded coaching after their group training.

3.  Program well-accepted by teachers.  Teachers like ENVoY because more curriculum can be covered when management is not a problem.   Job satisfaction is greater and stress is reduced when teachers can rely on written assignments and students can be more independent; teachers can manage a class without having to raise their voices.

4.  Test scores went up.  While not solely related to the implementation of ENVoY, 84% of TAKS scores in elementary schools and 66% in middle schools increased between 2006 and 2007 in the schools where ENVoY was used.

RECOMMENDATIONS
1.  ENVoY should be offered to all teachers in a school.  Provide training during regularly scheduled professional development days for new teachers as well as veteran teachers.

2.  Provide implementation support.  Workshops should be followed by individual assistance in the classroom by a trained ENVoY coach to provide encouragement and maximize implementation of skills.

3.  Implement ENVoY practices school-wide so students are accustomed to a uniform management system. 

4.  Continue the program for three years at each school.  With help from trained ENVoY coaches, determine if long-term experience with ENVoY can change the culture of the school.

*Effectiveness of ENVoY 2006-2007: Analysis of Observed Change in Classroom Management in Elementary and Middle Schools.  W. Robert Houston, Executive Director of the Institute for Urban Education, College of Education, University of Houston.  Dr. Houston is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Education.   For more information, contact Charlotte@knowledgearts.net.  

"Seeing it coming" is the essence of non-verbal intelligence. Imagine how many times things might have gone differently if you had seen it coming! Imagine now, what it will be like to not only see it coming but knowing if you need to respond…
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It has been a privilege to train and mentor thousands of people. "Model of Professional Development" is a four-stage template (model) I use to "know where someone is" in their professional development and where to focus next. The stages are:

1. Content
2. Process
3. Perception
4. Receptivity

Everyone starts at the Content. This is the level where one learns the information, data, policy, etc. Often, our college classes provide this level of our professional development. This level is best described as the "verbal" level of communication—"what we say". Perception and Receptivity are the "art of communication".
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What Classroom Strategies Foundation does:   
      Professional development of educators in these areas:
1.     Manage classroom behavior
2.     Handle group dynamics
3.     Establish relationships with the at-risk student
Our goal is to develop local leadership so that after three years the district can sustain programs independently. 
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by Vivienne Hines

Abstract

This is a study investigating the issue of timing in coaching.  It answers the question, “How do coaches know when the time is right to intervene (i.e. ask a question, make a request or remain silent) in a coaching conversation?”

A preliminary questionnaire identified that coaches have different ways of approaching the issue.  These range from various aspects of non-verbal communication and content to structured coaching methods and the client’s agenda.  Some were unable to be specific and cited experience or intuition.  The subject is not covered explicitly in training.

Click here to download the article