Choose Your Attitude & Make Their Day (Part II of "Mix it Up", a training with Cara Haaga)

So How do YOU Mix Things Up with Fun?

At the end of our last entry covering Cara Haaga's training "Mix it Up, Keeping the End of the School Year Fresh", we asked if there were any ways that you help curb negative behaviors or monotony in the classroom with fun. Here are some ideas from our teachers...

Vida at Raleigh Hills said that her students especially liked any excuse to incorporate a performance into their curriculum, and that they were currently working on their own staged version of The Voice. Using this type of model is a great way of allowing everyone to feel special and successful in his or her own unique role. You might also find that playing music during some activities can help to keep kids motivated (try Annie's 'A Hard Knock Life' during clean-up).

Tim at Bridlemile said that when his kids are not participating in activities, he employs the Foot-in-Door technique (not his words, but the general concept), by asking children to work on a personal project that can later be incorporated into the group's efforts. For instance, he might ask a child to just focus on making an artistic version of the first letter of his name. Once that is complete and the child has (hopefully) garnered some enthusiasm by maybe decorating and exploring his own creativity with the task, Tim might then show him how it could be used in a larger word or poetry project with the other students. In short, if you appeal to the child's individual efforts and skills before moving onto his role in a collective environment, you may have better luck with his participation.

Sherri at St John the Baptist mentioned that regularly changing her environment helps keep her kids alert and excited to learn. For her, this could be as simple as shifting furniture around to keep the space feeling fresh and new, or draping fabric in a corner to create a new little reading nook. Teachers often find that periodically altering their space or creating new themed portions of their room sparks imagination and encourages good attitudes. Regularly changing up the games/materials/supplies available has a similarly beneficial impact.


Simple Gestures of Thoughtfulness

When making an effort to ensure that your curriculum and daily schedule go to plan, you might find yourself forgetting the importance of simple gestures of thoughtfulness, and the massive impact that small actions like these can have in a lasting way on students. 

Outgoing children who regularly follow rules and actively seek positive recognition from teachers often find themselves the primary target of praise, while those who are quieter – but still follow rules - might find that their consistent positive behavior becomes assumed, or worse, goes unnoticed. Even more consequential are the students who display more difficult behavior or resistance to scheduled activities - maybe they are antsy to go outside, don't feel like doing their homework, or just having a bad day. In order for morale and motivation to remain high in the classroom, and for positive behaviors to increase, it is especially imperative that these children feel noticed and recognized for achievements (of whatever scope), just as their peers do. The following are some tips for boosting positive behaviors while also helping children to feel special and recognized:

• Greet every student who enters the classroom.
• Show an interest in students' progress during work periods.
• Make an effort to engage in one-on-one conversation with each student.
• Post a visual reminder to give timely (and genuine) praise.
• After praising one student, find another student to praise who is exhibiting a similar behavior.
• Acknowledge appropriate behavior creatively: gestures, tangibles, points toward a class or individual reward, talking to the parent about the child's success.
• Always positively engage a student that you recently had to interact with around misbehavior. This will show the child you have nothing against him, and that the negative interaction is in the past.

Here's a great TED Talk that Cara provided in her presentation about the life-changing impact small gestures of thoughtfulness can have on people - both adults and children:

How to address negative behaviors w/out being discouraging and while increasing mutual respect

With discipline, we all know that making thoughtful gestures and acknowledging positive behavior is only part of the process. How do we address negative behaviors directly while also preserving (and building) positive relationships? When reading the below tips for behavior correction - not including precorrection - keep in mind that the ratio of positive to negative interactions should always be kept at 3:1, or better.

• Provide precorrections - explain expectations before the negative behavior happens ("We're going to walk into the classroom calmly") and configure your environment in a way that does not encourage negative behavior (when asking children to take a seat you could call them over in an order that prevents rowdy children from sitting next to others who incite them).
• Ignore minor misbehaviors if they are attention-seeking. But actively 'catch' the students when they do engage in appropriate behavior and be sure to give positive feedback to other children engaged in appropriate behavior in a way that the misbehaving child can see.
• Decide your corrective consequences and implement them consistently.
• Make sure to put your emotions aside and implement corrective consequences calmly. 
• Make sure the consequence fits the severity and frequency of the misbehavior. 
• Make your corrective interaction brief and without arguing.

Now that we've looked at the basic tools for correcting negative behavior, let's look at some quick vs long-term corrective techniques that together yield powerful behavioral results:

Quick vs Long-term Behavior Corrections  

Quick 

• 'Proximity correction', i.e. standing close to the child and using eye contact or nonverbal cues as a way of letting them know you know they're behaving inappropriately.
• Provide students with a choice rather than a command for navigating out of a bad behavior situation.
• Use humor to lighten a sour situation (carefully and without sarcasm, which can at times be misinterpreted).

          Long-term

• Have planned discussions regularly to try and interpret the origin of negative behavior.
• Keep on top of behavior patterns by keeping a written record of them.
• Keep a behavior point system (with a certain number of points = reward) and dock points (diplomatically) for negative behavior.

Remember that the attitude you express will directly influence your kids, and because we are not always aware of our emotions' outward expression, we can keep tabs on this by asking ourselves to define our attitude several times a day. Here's one more inspiring video from Cara's presentation. Educator Rita F. Pierson explains the invaluable personal & interpersonal impact of forging a teaching career based on trying to make the best of all circumstances.

Get in touch if you'd like any more resources on this subject! We will happily provide them for you.