The way many of us were taught to manage our classrooms worked great back in the day, but things are different now and those strategies are not always effective in today’s world.
TODAY’S STUDENTS COME TO US WITH:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- ADHD
- Short Attention Spans
- Awkward Social Skills
- Trauma
- A Lot of Influences that Impact Their Ability to Learn in a Traditional Classroom Setting
- Addiction (phones)
- Over-Stimulation
- Lack of Proper Sleep
- Lack of Proper Nutrition
- Chaotic Home Lives
THIS IMPACTS OUR CLASSROOMS IN MANY WAYS:
- Students have a hard time focusing
- Students are easily distracted
- Students are distracting to others
- Anxiety, depression, and trauma keep students’ physiological and biological makeup in stress mode, overloading them with cortisol and other hormones that literally make it impossible for them to focus and learn
- Not all students trust adults and are resistant to authority, which adds to the challenge of managing and teaching classes
- Good classroom management typically requires an active process by the teacher to constantly keep students engaged, and that’s exhausting hour after hour, day after day
WHEN WE TEACH OUR STUDENTS A FEW SPECIFIC SKILLS, CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT BECOMES EFFORTLESS!
Imagine what it would be like to have a classroom where you are able to:
- Get students to fully relax in your presence
- Guide them so their heart rates are relaxed and at a similar pace
- Disperse the unproductive energy and noise that comes with a new class entering your room
- Help students change from being in a state of over-stimulation and stress to being calm and relaxed in your presence, literally changing the hormones their bodies produce, allowing them to access their brains for discovery and learning instead of being in flight-or-fight mode
- Invest four minutes a day that fundamentally up-levels the ease with which you teach and students learn
Here’s what Chelsey, one of the directors I’ve worked with through Band Director Boot Camp, says about the First Four Minute protocol I teach:
“Band Director Boot Camp was a game changer for me. It’s helped restore positivity and peace to the culture of my classroom, introduced many significant new protocols that alight with our school’s theme and mission, and has taken the headache off of me and given responsibility to my students. We are all operating in a healthier, more efficient classroom where each individual has a role and we feel safe within our four walls. We laugh as a family and I know they’ll continue on knowing that band was a place where they belonged.”
I’ve been using this new protocol in my classroom since 2016 and the results are off-the-charts amazing, both in my classroom and in my personal life.
- Classroom management is a breeze
- Students play in tune much better as their bodies are more sensitive to pitch when they are relaxed
- They are more musically artistic and expressive
- Nearly all tardies have been eliminated
- Students are much more engaged
- Performance skills (and scores at Regional and State festivals and competitions) are markedly higher across the board
- Stress levels are much lower for students and teachers
- Non-instructional distractions are eliminated or greatly reduced
- Benefits carry over from year-to-year
- Kids like the benefits on a personal and group level, so they are motivated to do this every day
- Much higher retention rate of what they learn
- Reduced heart rates and controlling excess energy results in much easier teaching and learning environment
- Students and teachers tap into the intuitiveness of music
- Teaching is much more fun and far less exhausting, resulting in a happier and healthier teacher and students!
If you’ve “tried everything” and are out of ideas for how to get your classes to self-manage their behavior so you can spend your energy teaching, then I’d love to talk to you about what I’ve learned and see if it could help you.
You see, I am on a mission to help music teachers build successful programs without burning out, and that starts by making teaching less stressful!
In a desperate attempt to save my own health so I could stay in my classroom, I learned some things that fundamentally up-leveled my personal health and led to a dramatic upswing in my professional success as an added bonus. My students and I have the benefit of incredible day-to-day experiences that revolve around making great music and memories together because our work together has become effortless.
The directors I have worked with to create and implement this strategy in their classrooms have seen dramatic results with lower stress levels, more job satisfaction, higher student success, and much more. In other words, they are loving their jobs again!
Are YOU ready to fast-track your music program to the next level? Let’s talk about it!
With you on the journey!
Lesley
