I was driving Susan Gross to a presentation in Jefferson County, CO about eight years ago and I remember exactly what street we were on when she said this sentence, which I will never forget: Discipline precedes instruction. I took a photo in my mind of where I was talking with her in that car because the sentence was so grand. It made a big impression on me as I was trying to learn how to ride the CI train.
So as we look to January’s instruction, I suggest exploring SSR in novels, as recently discussed here, to transition the kids from the hallways into a quiet calm classroom before doing stories or whatever we have planned for January. Good things happen in quiet classrooms.
We must have total discipline. The SSR to start class, and especially the calming music* during those ten minutes, may make the difference for us in the success of our stories. Don’t try to start strong with a story five times a day right when the bell rings.
Drag it out over weeks, too, if you need to. Only do what you can do in one class period. It is better to get repeats on one target structure for the entire class period than try to finish a story that they don’t fully understand. And you have the Two Week Plan for many creative ideas to make a story last two weeks or longer.
OK – end of pep talk. It starts again for most of us this coming week. Let’s give each other lots of support, lots of reports from the field in the next few weeks. Send them to me at benslavic@yahoo.com and I will publish them. Especially, use the Calming Music/Brain Waves – it’s on the TPRS Resources page of this site. I do need to update it and will do that in the next few days. Get them focused each class. Use SSR/Calming Music/Brain Waves each class. And give yourself a break for ten minutes at the beginning of each class – it adds up to 50 minutes of down time for you per day. Sounds like a good New Year’s resolution to me, to pamper yourself in class and have quiet and focused classes all day. It can be done!
*if the kids ask about the music, tell them this:
1. The music is written at 60 beats per minute – it is taken from the second (slow) movement of certain baroque concertos, and they were written at 60 beats per minute.
2. This slows their pulse down from 72 beats per minute (normal) or higher (if they saw a fight in the hallway or their boyfriend or girlfriend). The music makes their heartbeat go down to 60.
3. Then, when the pulse is 60 after a few minutes of quietly reading in the target language, their brain waves naturally slow down from 22-24 cycles per second (active waking state) to a bit less than that. It doesn’t go all the way down to the alpha state (14 cycles per second, the gateway to sleep), but it slows their brain waves down so they can learn more, are more receptive to what is going on in class.
One thing you can do is go about 7 minutes with 3 minutes of R and D to translate and discuss (the common chapter book text) that they read during SSR. But if your goal is a story, be strict about stopping the SSR after 7 to 10 minutes to start the class and get the story going.
And nobody sleeps this year. Don’t let them even put their head down. Don’t do it. Don’t allow yourself to continue teaching with a head on a desk. The kid is not sleeping – they are sending you and the class a message, that what you as the teacher are doing is not important. But they are too young to know what is important and so must be told by an adult what is going to happen. So tell them to go to the nurse, write the note, get them out of there. And no side talking.
Come on you guys – it’s January. We have to be on our game. Brush of our jGR and Classroom Rule charts. Be determined to make the phone calls home and make jGR count for the weapon it is. A little calming music to get them focused. NO TALKING during the first ten minutes of class by anyone for any reason including you. Tardies must wait behind a locked door until the ten minutes of SSR is done so as not to disturb those who arrived in class on time. Discipline precedes instruction. Bam!