Routines and Relationships for Managing Uncertainty #engaginglitminds
Why do we do the things we do? For instance, why do we have certain procedures in our classroom or in our personal life?
Example: From the time I wake up each morning, I begin envisioning what my day will look like. Typically, I think about the schedule for the day; I think about the when and the what for today - my must-do’s, my can-do’s and my want to-do's. This naturally leads into creating a mental (and often written) checklist of those aforementioned “to-do’s”. Related, when you think about your typical school day, your schedule includes many nuanced items, structures, and routines than what first comes to mind. This is likely because you have developed the structure for a tempo or a beat of sorts to your classroom and your day.
During such unprecedented times, our minds are likely racing about what procedures will look like when school resumes this fall. We begin to wonder what entering the classroom will look like, or what eating lunch will encompass and more. At our school, we spend the first two weeks setting procedures and expectations in our classrooms. I often remind colleagues about how students most likely know how school works, and they know the expectations from the teacher before you, but they don’t know YOUR expectations. Now more than ever, routines and relationships will be important.
One structure that is important to get up and running is that of creating students to be leaders of their own learning. I loved it when the authors highlighted this idea:
“We want children to enjoy their interactions with books (and texts more generally) and find them useful so they will initiate and take control of their reading and writing.” (pg. 200)
I would also add that we could substitute “interactions with books” with “interactions with school”. If we want to increase and sustain engagement (the sweet spot of where true learning can occur), we must include our students in the process.
Regardless of what school will look like in the coming weeks and months, school is most likely the most social place for children to be. It’s also a place where they have access to a wide variety of peers and adults to observe and learn from and with. Not only do our schools foster a place for students to learn empathy and about social justice issues, they learn quite a bit about themselves.
The authors did such a fantastic job of outlining both reading and writing workshop as structures that can exist in the classroom as entry points for engaging students. What is beautiful about the way these structures are presented is that you, the expert, have voice and choice in what this structure can look and feel like. The sections titled “What’s Different About What We Do and Why” (pg. 216) and “What We Don’t Do and Why” recognize we have habits we have given up, revisited, or replaced and acknowledges how our teaching journey allows us the space to make this happen. What a powerful model we can serve to our students when we share that we too are leaders of our own learning and that we are learning how we want the structures to flow each year in response to the children we serve.
Five Ideas From Parents for the New School Year
Possibly my favorite structures to implement involve creating a classroom culture and building relationships. The authors set out several structures that made me so excited to greet students again, whenever that might be, and help teachers dive into building space, both physically and in the schedule, for these structures to happen. The idea of a soft start, community meetings, transitions, thinking together around texts, and shopping for books are reminiscent of what laying out the structure and procedures looks like in the first days of a school year.
So, while there is always the excitement of a new school year and what a new bunch of students always brings, I am challenging myself to embrace the uncertainty in the days that are ahead of us. It is quite possible that our first days will look drastically different this coming year, and while that can be quite a daunting task, it doesn’t have to be a negative one. Instead, I will choose to embrace what is coming next as an opportunity to take my new knowledge from books such as this and what happened as schools were shut down this past spring to propel us forward to what can possibly be.
This post is part of our 2020 Summer Book Study. Find all previous posts and more information here. We have also discussed Engaging Literate Minds at the newsletter. Sign up below – it’s free!