Halloween Horrors in the Classroom

Let’s face it; nothing is worse than having Halloween fall on a school teacher. I guess the trick is on all of us teachers! I have learned over the years not to fight the sugar rush too hard. Just like in martial arts, sometimes it is easier to fight by falling towards something than pulling away. With that said, I will suggest some ways to help keep sanity in your classroom.

English – Give students a topic about Halloween to write about like My Favorite Costume, The Scariest Costume, The Best Halloween Party, The Best Halloween Candy

Math – Use candy corn in a jar and have students brainstorm ways to find out how many are in the jar. The student with the closest number gets the candy at the end of the day.

Math – Have students use the newspaper ads to buy Halloween candy. Give them an imaginary amount to spend and see what they buy.

History – Have students research Halloween topics (Origin of Halloween, Witches, Ghosts, and Bats etc.) and write a report or draw a poster about their topic.

Art – Have students blow up orange balloons and make jack o’lantern faces on them. Display these around the room.

Science – Research and see how many calories and how much sugar are in different kinds of candies.

Hope some of these suggestions help! Happy Halloween!

Look Beyond the Labels

Too many times I’ve seen a student labeled with a disability and the teacher teaches to the disability rather than to the student. Over the years I’ve taught low level students, students with learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, mental disabilities, Down syndrome, autism, and traumatic brain injuries. I know the federal government has to have labels in order for funding for the schools but as a teacher, I refused to let the label be more important than the student’s needs.

For example, I taught a girl with a learning disability for 3 years. She was reading on a 3rd grade level and math on a 4th grade level by 11th grade. I was making a lot of progress with her and she had a future in pursuing the career she wanted by attending the vocational school. Federal law required that we reevaluate her every 3 years and the district decided that she needed to be retested. Poof! She suddenly became mentally disabled instead of learning disabled. This meant she was taken from my class and put in a class where the teacher did a lot more coloring and babysitting (I felt this teacher was getting burned out). The student’s self esteem plummeted and learning slowed tremendously. Next thing I know she is pregnant and then drops out of school. I really feel if I was able to continue to teach her that would never have happened. For years I felt guilty that I didn’t find some way to fight the system and I vowed from then on not to let labels dictate my teaching.

As teachers, we need to look beyond the labels and really look at what the student needs. If the student is a behavior problem, look at when and why the behavior occurs. Some teachers tend to get caught up in the day to day procedures and don’t take the time needed to analyze behaviors. If the students are not making passing grades, I looked at why. It might be because the student wasn’t studying (so a phone call home was necessary) or not turning in work (maybe a daily agenda is necessary) or the student really didn’t understand the concept (so reteaching is vital). I learned this “modify and adjust” during college but I wasn’t sure I was really doing it in my classroom. Once I made a conscious effort to do this, I noticed that my students were achieving more and the attitude in the classroom was more positive.

The Classroom Climate

The climate of a classroom is extremely important. It is important to set the climate from the beginning. I always begin by letting the students know that I am the one in charge but I always try to do it in a matter of fact way and not like a tyrant. By explaining to them that I will treat them respectfully and expect them to treat me in the same way, I am setting up a respectful climate. I explain about how tone of voice and body language also shows respect. I also explain that we each have a certain job to do and mine is to teach. If I am dealing with behavior problems, they are keeping me from doing my job. Their job is to learn and if they are worried about how I will treat them, then I am keeping them from doing their job. I then explain their job description (which is actually my class rules). I also show them constantly that I will be consistent with following through with the expectations (giving consequences for their actions). I will also give a lot of praise and make phone calls for good behavior. Of course, the students do not believe this until I make my first phone calls! Since I had a paraprofessional in the room, we were also able to model respect to our peers.

I also explained that if there was a major conflict between students, I would ask one student to move away to a designated location in the room. This does not mean that student is in trouble but rather it gives space for both parties to calm down. I would ask each student to write down what they felt happened and describe how they were feeling. Meanwhile, I continued with the lesson. After both parties have finished, I collect the writings. I mean with each student separately and discuss their behavior and explain how we can’t change other people’s behaviors and only our own. This was very effective in dealing with major conflicts. In fact, it became quite cute because the kids would decide that the episode was not a major conflict so they didn’t need to do any writing! By handling it this way, both parties felt like they got their say and was treated with respect also. The main thing I asked for was for no profanity and no physical threats.

I also explained to the students that we would be learning things together so I might make mistakes right along with them. I might need their help because they might be better at something that I was. Once when I was trying to explain a concept to another student for the fourth time and we were both getting frustrated, another student volunteered to help out and let me move away from the situation. Thank goodness it worked and the concept made sense to the first student. If I had not had a climate of understanding and respect, this would never have happened. As a teacher, I had to get rid of any insecurities and inferiority complexes to allow learning to happen. This encourages the students to help each other in a positive way which prepares them for real life.

Student Job Description

Instead of having class rules, I use a student job description. I give them a salary for attending class (which is fake money!) and they use it to buy items and privileges. It is as close to the real world as I can get. I used to make paper money and found out that my high school kids were stealing, trading, and charging interest so I stopped the cash and went to an accounting sheet (isn’t society going “cashless” now too?). At the beginning of the week my students get an assignment sheet with their accounting sheet on the bottom. At the end of each day, they are given their pay (by me or a paraprofessional) written in red ink. At the end of the week I have them total up their pay and that carries over to the next week and is written on their new accounting sheet by an adult. Of course anything they bought or was fined for was deducted from their total. Sometimes I even gave bonuses (if I saw them being extra nice to someone or they got a 100 on a difficult assignment. The students really responded to this system and I used it for over 20 years. Each year I may have had to adjust the money amounts according to the schedule but the basics stayed the same. If you would like a FREE copy of my Student Job Description, just email me at successfulteaching@gmail.com and put “job description” in the subject area and I will send it to you.

If You Have Nothing Nice to Say, Say Nothing At All

This is one of the things that I continually tried to teach my students. They were so negative to everything and anything so we constantly said this in my classroom. They were allowed to tell me that also (in a nice tone of voice). Of course I explained I was exempt if I was scolding them about something! It only applied if we were talking about others. In the same way, I had to teach them how to accept compliments, which for a lot of people is a hard thing to do. After a month had passed I wrote each student’s name at the top of a piece of construction paper. Then we brainstormed positive adjectives and wrote them on the board. Everyone was given a paper and had to write, with a crayon or magic marker, one positive thing about that person whose name was at the top. Then after 2 minutes, the paper was passed to the next one. People even had to write something positive about themselves. After this was done, I laminated them and posted them around the classroom. At the end of the nine weeks, each student was given their paper to take home. I still have students who have their paper years later.