Pay Attention Please - A Teacher's Memoir of Successful Strategies

By Richard Routh

 

Pay Attention Please - A Teacher's Memoir of Winning Strategies offers an entertaining insight into the tornado of chaos, language and behaviour that teachers encounter.

The classroom climate has changed dramatically and demands new and innovative strategies to keep cool and resolve difficult scenarios.

University st

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Routh
• Release date: Oct 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780648596707

Book preview

head

INTRODUCTION

I would prefer tackling a sink of greasy dirty dishes that have been sitting for a week or pulling weeds in an overgrown garden in forty degree heat or sitting in a traffic jam listening to radio advertising than thinking or writing about teenagers in a classroom. When I left teaching high school in 1992, I drove away, ruminating that No, I will never speak to a teenager again.

I was on my way to Western Australia to a remote Indigenous community desert school to take on the role of principal. This was a position that did not involve direct teaching or the concerns of daily classroom management. I spent two years working at the community school and then changed careers to work in a university lecturing.

After a long stint of lecturing in university, well away from the voices of teenagers, in 2007, thirteen years later, I found myself back in the classroom with teenagers and a fair commotion of chaos, paper airplanes and erasers flying around the room. I had a somewhat dumbfounded look on my face wondering what was I doing here again with twenty odd smirking teenagers not paying the slightest interest in what I was trying to explain about the lesson we were meant to be starting. There was a rumble of conversations drowning my request to please be quiet, which soon turning into a bellow of Excuse me, can we have some quiet for directions or we shall be using up your lunch time to finish this work. Rising over the din, a quiet settled in.

My return to the classroom began with a feeling of culture shock. The changes were galactic, beyond my wildest imagination. My struggle to survive had begun with a thousand volts to the system more than sitting in an electric chair. Life in the classroom had turned into a nightmare and the good old days years before seemed much more pleasant.

Working with teenagers requires an ocean full of patience, a deep sense of humour, a Darwinian will of survival of the fittest, an arsenal of quick-witted responses, a set of firm rules that can be bent as needed and a love of learning and your subject area helps. Energy! Boundless excessive enthusiasm that carries your students along like a tsunami of rushing water picks up all in its way. Teaching while feeling low, depressed, hungover or with a preoccupation with personal problems, presents a big barrier to optimum performance. It is better to call in and take a sick leave day than front up half ready for the challenge.

I wish more young men were taking up teaching as their numbers are very low in teacher education degree courses. Despite my initial worries and difficulties, the teaching profession has many great aspects: holiday time is generous, the pay is going up, the rewards of student progress and a love of your teaching area subjects can make a teaching career very satisfying.

I now work as a casual relief teacher also known as an emergency teacher. When the regular teacher is absent, in comes the relief teacher to take over the class. This is one of the most demanding teaching jobs. The issues include student perception and a well-entrenched practice of misbehaving, not working, being rude as possible without being sent to the principal and generally pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour way out into outer Siberia. What I have learned, which is useful information for new teachers, struggling teachers with difficult classes and other relief-emergency teachers, is that there is a way to survive, thrive and enjoy the benefits of the income and experience.

The teaching strategies in this book have described a series of scenarios that are common to secondary Years 7 to 12 classrooms. The diversity between school communities, student skills, facilities and administrators is immense in Australia and such variations as the hapless teacher might find in the school environment is the heart of the situation. There is certain common ground everywhere: the school, the students, the administrators, the curriculum and the teacher standing up and being responsible for daily learning and forming positive relationships and addressing national literacy/numeracy standard benchmarks. The mix of this recipe can be a formula for disaster or sweet success.

The role of a teacher has become more complex in today’s society. A teacher needs the skills of a psychologist and social worker and a driving ambition to make a difference in the lives of students.

Time stops for no one: 

Be on time and ways to avoid being late

Class starts at a designated time. It is universal, often signalled by a bell or a siren that a class is ready to start. As the one setting the example, a teacher needs to be opening the door and letting the class in exactly on time. The consequences of coming a few minutes late is that it sets an example and students drift in late. It is one of the very most annoying events to have late students saunter in with a weak excuse and you face repeating the directions, settling the class back down to work after the latecomers arrive.

Most schools have set rules and penalties for being late or require a late note to be offered if the student is quite late. Be sure to admonish that being late is not to be tolerated and keep a record of late students and arrival times, dates for evidence if you decide to use detention as a consequence.

I have had small gangs of three or four chronic late­comers really disrupt a class that is listening to directions and being cooperative. The latecomers will enter with a dramatic flourish and commence storytelling why they were delayed. Immediately cut them off and say, Tell me later — we are starting directions, you need to sit down and listen too.

Do not let the gang become the focus of attention or start berating them for being late. This will start a debate and be sure to waste time. Sometimes they will have a valid reason for being late, as the teacher from the previous class may have had a good reason to keep them back to clean up an art room or to resolve some conflict.

If the class has been standing, bored outside the room, there will be jostling and bag snatching and any host of conflicts you will be asked to resolve. If you do arrive a minute late, ask the line to be quiet and calm down and come into class slowly. Boys like to jump in front of girls or anyone to get in first. Send them to the rear of the line. This asserts your authority straight away.

Before entering the class, it’s always good to mention they will need a pen and notebook for this class. Whatever they need, let them know. If bags are kept outside, there will be requests to go out again to retrieve a pen. There is often a rule to keep bags outside the class so students don’t get distracted or tempted to get out anything from their lunch to deodorant.

Ways to avoid being late

During lunch breaks or a recess or before school, keep an eye on the clock and depart five minutes early. If colleagues are mid-stream in a story and they may have a free time next, just say, Tell me later, I have to go to class.

If you are starting work at a new school, learn the layout of the buildings. Get a copy of the school layout map. I have gone into new schools a number of times, and it’s easy to get lost. Be sure if you are lost, ask the nearest teacher or student for directions or even just clarify as you go that you are heading in the right direction.

Being late or coming in looking worried is an instant signal of some weakness. If students can sniff any kind of disorganisation or fear, it’s like wolves with the scent of blood. Beware! You are inviting trouble and mischief. There is no mercy for a teacher displaying a sign of weakness. Always arrive before or right on the bell, look your class squarely in the eye and exude the confidence of a Maori warrior, a heavyweight champion entering the ring. Along with this sense of bravado, make a few friendly remarks and greetings: Good morning everyone, aren’t you all looking bright and ready to do some fascinating new work today. If you know the group well, it’s always worthwhile to pay a compliment: Good haircut, like those new glasses. If you really know them well: Have a good weekend? It is important to start a friendly non-academic, personal conversation. A few informal words on the way