Tag: classroom management

Effortless Classroom Management: From Chaos to Calm in 21 Days with Today’s 21st Century Students

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!

Set Up A Call 🙂

With you on the journey!

Lesley

I Used to be Really Good at Classroom Management, But Things Are Different Now

For most of my teaching career, I had been really good classroom management.

As soon as attendance was taken each day, I’d get the kids’ attention so we could get down to business. I had clear expectations and the kids were almost always really good about meeting them. I was quite effective at keeping kids engaged and classes ran smoothly. It took a lot of energy to do this hour after hour and day after day, but the consistent efforts gave me really good results, so I continued to work hard to maintain outstanding classroom control.

Sure, there were always a handful of kids in each class who were excessively chatty or who couldn’t seem to stop playing their horns when I cut the band off in rehearsals, but 97% of the time, I was in control and things ran smoothly. At the end of the day, I usually felt pretty darned good about how my classes operated.

But as the decades have passed, teaching has changed. Kids today are different than when we were kids, and if you’ve been teaching for more than ten years, you know that teaching effectively in this day and age requires a different set of skills than how we were taught in school.

Teenagers haven’t changed – they are simply reflecting what they see going on around them. Having been exposed (or dare I say OVER-exposed) to electronics and other stimuli since birth, their attention spans and ability to focus on anything for more than a few minutes is staggeringly low. It’s not their fault, but that is their reality.

Traditional forms of classroom management and discipline aren’t always effective in today’s classroom.

Like I said at the beginning of this, I used to be really good at classroom management.

But now things are different. Now the students in my classes manage their own behavior and I spend my time and energy teaching music instead of responding to student disruptions!

Several years ago I made a significant change in how I approached teaching, and the results have been off-the-charts amazing!

In the 30,000+ classes I have taught in my teaching career, it is how I structure the FIRST FOUR MINUTES that has fundamentally uprooted everything about how my classes run and how students are learning and retaining what I teach.

I asked my students to share how the First Four Minutes have impacted our class. Here are a few of their responses:

  • We play better in tune because we can feel pitch and not just hear pitch.
  • We are more musically sensitive and expressive.
  • Hardly anyone is tardy anymore. (They don’t want to miss our routine)
  • Everyone is more engaged.
  • Our performance skills are improved.
  • The stress level is much lower.
  • Non-instructional noise has been eliminated.
  • Benefits carry over from year to year as students.
  • It’s easier to learn and retain what we learn.
  • We have a communal energy.
  • Music feels much more intuitive and easier to learn.
  • Band is a lot of fun because we can work super efficiently and make great music together. In my old band (where we didn’t do this routine), so much time was wasted on discipline and constant disruptions that I stopped looking forward to that class. I almost quit, but now that I’m in a class where we actually get to spend time playing music, I’m staying!

As a teacher, I have reaped the benefits of having classes where I get to do the very thing I wanted to do all my life – teach music! I get to do it in a setting where classroom management has become effortless. I no longer expend energy on “being in control” because I’ve learned to teach students how to take control of their own energy. And they do it. Every day.

I love one of my recent client’s comments where she said,

“I’m in a coaching cycle with this outstanding author and Bad Ass Band Director and ideas are constantly leaping off the pages in the book and out of our Zoom calls. Even strategies I didn’t know I needed are coming to life and finding a home in my unique and non-traditional classroom.“

Chelsey has implemented my First Four Minute routine into her classroom and it has been a game-changer for her, too. The reason it’s working is because we took the concept and customized it into a routine that works in her classroom and in her situation.

That’s what I do now – I help teachers create and implement a successful First Four Minute routine that helps them take today’s students and get them ready to focus and learn so they can teach content and not spend their energy “controlling their classroom.”

If you are a music teacher who is already running a successful program but needs an easier, more effective, and reliable way to keep kids’ attention and focus without having to give constant reminders, (you know what I’m talking about…”put away your phone”, “trumpets – stop talking”, “percussionists, wake up and pay attention”, etc.) then I’d like to talk to you.

I am looking for a small group of dedicated music teachers who have a 2020 VISION of taking their already good program to the next level by learning and implementing a strategy that will fundamentally up-level their teaching.

Because we are kicking off a new decade, I am offering a 50% tuition discount to anyone who schedules a strategy session with me by January 5. I am interested in working with teachers who are highly motivated to get results and who are open to achieving them in unconventional ways.

If you know you have a lot to teach your students and want to spend more time teaching and less time re-teaching and managing your classroom, I can help you!

Click the link below and let’s talk about your situation. If I can help, I will offer to do so. If I can’t help, I will be honest with you so you don’t waste your time or money.

Are you going to up-level in 2020? I’m with you on the journey. Schedule a call and let’s get started!

Hugs – Lesley

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