Undercover Boss - School Style!

Guest post by Michelle of Teach 1, 2, 3

I was watching one of my favorite shows, Undercover Boss, when I had a brainstorm! What if a legislator, congressman, State Superintendent or Commissioner of Education went undercover in the schools in their districts? They would see the impact of the decisions that they make. It would be first-hand experience, much better feedback than what they normally receive.

If you haven't seen Undercover Boss, you can click HERE to watch the first few minutes of an episode on YouTube. But be sure to return to Corkboard Connections to read how the undercover boss concept might work at school.

If you listen to many conversations or read many posts involving education, you will often sense a negative tone. Teachers are facing more and more pressures today. Critics of new curriculum and standards, larger class sizes, less resources, and the list could go on and on. Is it any wonder that administrators, school leaders, and the Sunshine Committees are often searching for ways to support the staff and improve the school climate?

Undercover Boss - School Style

While it might be a pipe dream to have our government leaders spend a day as a teacher undercover, I do think administrators could do a modified version of it. Everyone at the school knows the administrator, so the undercover portion of Undercover Boss would not work. But, the principal could go back to the classroom and walk in your shoes. He or she would gain some of the same valuable insights that the people on Undercover Boss do. What is a strength and weakness of the new curriculum? How are the students adapting to the school wide behavior plan? Can the class hear announcements? Is there enough time to get the class through the lunch line? He or she could also see the impact of other decisions that are made by the administrative team.

Choosing a Class to Visit

An administrator is a busy person so how would he or she decide whose class to visit? This can be organized in a variety of ways. Here are two suggestions:

• Reward - Put all of the names of the staff members who have perfect attendance for the month in a hat. Draw a name (or two,three . . . ) out of the hat. Those names are the winner of a 30-minute break when the administrator teaches a lesson. You may find that your attendance rate goes up which is a win-win for everyone! 
• New Teachers - I don't know about you, but when I began my first year of teaching, I was completely overwhelmed with all of the hundreds of details and decisions that I had to make in a day. I really wished that a mentor would had modeled strategies with my class instead of giving me a list of what I needed to work on before we met the next time. It would had been more beneficial if I could have seen these strategies in action rather than verbally telling me what to do or handing me a book or article. A principal would be the perfect person to do this since he or she knows these students, sometimes for years and shaping the career of a new teacher has to be (I would think) one of the more rewarding aspects of the job.

Undercover Story Time With Your Principal

An easy way to implement Undercover Boss - School Style is for your principal to schedule a Story Time visit with each classroom. One of my former principals visited each class at the beginning of the year to read his favorite book and talk about what school was like when he was in that grade. It was a great way for the principal to introduce himself to the students. Students found ways to connect with him through the story time lesson. I often saw them talking to him in the hallway or lunch about topics brought up in his lesson. He share things like: playing soccer, favorite cartoons, and his favorite subject in school. All topics that are an instant hit with students!

It not only built relationships with students, but those same children went home excited about how their principal who was so "cool" and played soccer like them. I had several parents comment on how impressed they were that a busy principal would take the time to visit classes and do something like this. These visits were scheduled during the first month of school because he knew teachers have endless amounts of paperwork. Although we were asked to stay in the classroom, we were allowed to work on paperwork or other work that did not involve the students. This was like a 30-minute gift of time for us when we needed it the most. This was a wonderful community building activity that I highly recommend.

Story Time Freebies
If you are a teacher and you would like your principal to bring story time to your classroom, be sure to share this post with him or her. If you are a principal and would like to try this activity, I have some free printables for you. Here's what's included:

• Signs: color and black/white
• Schedule your story time visit with the teacher
• Reminder about your visit
• 3 reading response assignments 

There are 3 variations of the reading response assignment that you can use in different grade levels or to differentiate in one class. If you don't want to assign them yourself, you can give them to the teacher after your lesson.

Are you on the administrative team or have an administrator who likes to try new things?  Does Undercover Boss - School Style sound like something you or someone you know would like to do? If so, try one of these ideas or tell us your how you did it in the comment section below.  Learning and sharing from each other is one of the best parts of the blogging community.

I enjoy writing about how to have a happy school. I have compiled some of my posts about this topic on a page of my blog and will continue to add to the list as I add more posts. Click on the picture above if you'd like to read more ideas about this topic. Thank you Laura for inviting me to visit your blog today!

Michelle is the creator of the Teach 1, 2, 3 blog where she shares her teaching tips and classroom management strategies. She's taught in a variety of schools, both large and small, as well as public and private, and this wide range of experiences is evident in her teaching materials. 

Creating a Caring Classroom Family

Guest blog post by Barbara Gruener

Now that it's time for a new school year to begin, life finds me increasingly eager for the first day to arrive. My students and I will be blessed with approximately nine months together; how do we want to spend that dash between August of this year and May of next year? Since we'll be spending so much time together, I believe it's important to take time to create a caring classroom community that works together like a family. Taking a look at the word "family" gives us insight into what's needed to create that kind of caring and supportive environment.

F is for Feelings 
Children need to be allowed to feel. They need to feel safe. They need to feel connected. They need to feel heard and understood. And they need permission to express those feelings. Let students know that feelings choose us and are neither right nor wrong. Our job is to learn to process feelings appropriately. Encourage students to keep a feelings journal. Chart their feelings whenever you can. Talk about feelings in morning meetings. Connect them to characters in literature and heroes in history. Practice “I statements” with your students for healthy feelings expression:  I feel _____ when you _____. I need _____.


A is for Appreciation
Gratitude and thankfulness aren’t inherited, they are learned. Author Ann Voskamp says our lives are richer when we’re thankful in all things and that “gratitude always precedes the miracle.” Keep blank thank-you note cards available in a writing center to encourage students to share their appreciations. How do you teach students to not only accept, but appreciate differences in each other? Use books like Unique Monique by Maria Rousaki to celebrate differences. Then discuss appreciation ritually. A morning meeting discussion might start like this, "I appreciate Laura for her willingness to share her resources and help people." Encourage your students to be on the look out for daily opportunities to appreciate classroom family members. Ms. Voskamp also suggests we make sure students write their appreciations down since naming something tends to authenticate it.

M is for Music 

Music is a unifying activity. We can’t all talk at the same time, but we can all sing at the same time. Music also tends to seal the deal because rhythms and lyrics stick with students. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience (Jan. 2013) from student research out of Concordia Universite in Canada suggests that early musical training has a significant effect on brain development, in particular creating stronger connections with gross and fine motor movement. According to John Ratey, author of the bestseller Spark, exercise is “miracle gro for the brain,” so combine meaningful movement with music and give students frequent brain breaks to grow their grey matter. Pick a theme song with uplifting lyrics for the year {Home by Phillip Phillips} then get up and dance. You know what they say; the family that plays together stays together!

I is for Integrity 

Integrity is all about being in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. But when students come to our school families with all different backgrounds, how will they know what the “right thing” is? It’s crucial to your caring classroom climate that you and your students work together to create a class family promise, or social contract, delineating the values that you all promise to practice. Connect specific behaviors to these abstract virtues so that students can better understand how the values you’ve agreed upon look, sound, and feel. Seize teachable moments, like when there’s a conflict, to have sensitivity circle time and talk through how they want to treat one another and what might need to happen before moving forward. Your family classroom will be an excellent training ground for lifelong social skills that your students will use for years and years to come. Make sure that the values aren’t simply posted on a cute contract that everyone has signed, but that they serve as the classroom code that you refer to over and over again as you travel through the days, months, and year.

L is for Love 
This one might seem way too obvious, but to use the words from an old Beatles ballad:  All We Need Is Love. When children feel loved, when they truly belong, when what matters to them is important to you, the world is their oyster. And as you read, that may sound cliché and way too simplistic, but it is, indeed, oh so true. Here’s the glitch; there are always going to be students that are {gasp!} hard to love. You know it’s true. So the challenge is to find a way to make each one of them your favorite. We know that what we focus on, we get more of, so we must love them where they are for who they can become.

 Y is for Yearning
One of your biggest tasks is to create life-long learners who hunger for knowledge and thirst for wisdom. How will you inspire passion in your little sponges? One way to do that is by giving them voice and choice, every day. When we give children choice in their learning, we step out of lecture mode and into the role of a coach. And guess what happens? Choices trigger the release of endorphins, the brain's optimal thinking chemical. Once ignited, these chemicals fire up motivation, create feelings of positivity, and foster an optimistic attitude. (Ornstein, 1991) Optimism might very well be our greatest renewable natural resource; who wouldn’t want that level of confidence and well-being in our future leaders?

While this list is by no means exhaustive, let it serve as a good starting block as you dash into another year and work at creating that all-important, family-like atmosphere where children feel safe, appreciated, respected, and loved. Here’s to a terrific time connecting in your character building.
  

Though she started her education career as a high school English and Spanish teacher almost 30 years ago, Barbara Gruener now serves a counselor and character coach at a PreK-3rd grade National School of Character in Friendswood, Texas. When she's not blogging at The Corner On Character, she enjoys public speaking opportunities, reading, journaling, knitting, and baking. 

Make Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Work for You!

Make this Year Your Best Ever!

For the first few weeks after a school year ends, it's hard to forget about your previous class and think ahead to the coming school year. But after a few weeks with plenty of time to relax and de-stress, your thoughts began to turn to your next year's class. What will your new students be like? Will you bond and have a great year?

When I was teaching, I remember that this topic was on everyone's minds as the school year approached. Once I heard a teacher joke, "I had a great class last year, so I guess this is my year to have the class from you know where." Everyone in the room laughed, but as I walked away, I wondered if a subconscious belief like that might actually cause a teacher to have a tough year instead of a great year.... not be because the students ARE more difficult but because we EXPECT them to be more difficult?

Think about it. As soon as we receive our new rosters, we quickly scan them to see who's in our class. We see names that we recognize, and we frantically try to remember what we've heard about these students. "Oh no . . . Johnny's the one who was always clowning around in Mr. C's class" or "Tameka is that nice quiet girl who helps Mrs. D after school." We've already begun to make judgments about students we haven't even met!

What if statements like these are no more than self-fulfilling prophecies? If that's true, then perhaps we have far more impact on the type of class we get than we ever imagined!

How to Make this Year Your Best Ever

Every year I said the same thing on the first day, "Class, I have to tell you that I had a really awesome group last year, and I'll miss them. But the amazing thing is that every year, my new class is even better than the one before! I don't know how it's possible, but it's true. I can't even begin to imagine how amazing this class is going to be! I know we are going to have a great year together!" I say this with absolute sincerity because it's true! Maybe I just keep getting more effective as a teacher, or maybe this statement makes them want to be the best class ever, but it works!

What do you think about your new students when you see their names on your roster? What do you tell your class on the first day of school? What subtle messages do you convey about their worth and their future success in your classroom?

When you scan your roster, be encouraged by the thought that another teacher's "problem child" may turn out to be one whom you cherish the most! That quirky sense of humor or that restless, inquisitive spirit is finally appreciated and the student just blossoms under your attention.

If the self-fulfilling prophecy is really at work in the universe, let's make sure it's working in our favor! Tell your students that you know they are going to be the most amazing class ever, and that's exactly what they'll become!

Free Back to School Webinar 

Sign up for the replay here

If you'd like specific strategies and tips for getting your school year off to a terrific start, sign up to watch the replay of my webinar, How to Launch a Super School Year! I'm excited to have the opportunity to share some of my favorite strategies and activities with you. Watching the webinar will put you just a little closer to making this the best school year ever!