I’ve got 23 amazingly useful seconds of video to share with teachers starting the year and wanting to build positive, orderly, productive classroom habits.
Our teacher here is Sarah Stackhouse, a third grade teacher at Nashville Classical Charter School in Nashville, TN.
In the video we can see Sarah nail something we call the What To Do Cycle and then add a bit of subtle, next-level technique with her use of whisper corrections.
1) The What To Do Cycle is a a set of consistent teacher moves that help make a habit of students following through on directions.
It starts with clear, concrete observable directions for a task. Sarah’s directions here are, first, “Pencil on ‘R.’” [The first letter in the paragraph they are reading] And then “Eyes in” [Meaning to begin tracking the text as they read].
They are simple and crisp and, critically, observable.
Sarah can see right away whether students have followed-through … and therefore she can manage this fact. Notice that here she separates the two steps in her direction, looking for follow through on the first before she gives the second. That’s great for early stage habit-building. Later on, as the habit is more familiar, she will be able to give a series of directions in rapid sequence [eg books open to page six, pencils out and pointing to the letter “R”] But here she is working to build follow through of each step.
It’s pretty clear to me that Sarah has planned her directions in advance and rehearsed them a bit so she’s sure of their clarity and economy of language. She’ll probably use almost exactly the same words each time she asks students to get ready as consistent directions used to cue a procedure or routine ultimately become part of said routine.
The second step in the What To Do Cycle is to look intentionally for follow-through. Notice that Sarah stands in the corner of her classroom. Standing in this spot–a spot TLAC devotees call Pastore’s Perch–does two things. First it is efficient. From the corner Sarah can see more easily and clearly whether students have done as she’s asked because she only has to scan 90 degrees of classroom. If she stood in front of the room she’d have twice as much real estate to look at to ensure students were with her.
But standing in the Perch is also a teacher-facing habit. If, whenever she gives a direction, Sarah stands in Pastore’s Perch it reminds her that she is standing there to make it easy to look carefully for follow through and therefore she is more likely to remember her desired behavior an actually look. The place where she stands cues the habit.
Notice how clearly she scans the room… you can see her very clearly looking at everyone. She perhaps even exaggerates this fact to make it obvious to students that she is looking and that she cares that they follow-directions. This is always a great move–we cal it Be Seen Looking and it refers to the actions teachers take to exaggerate and make obvious to students that they are looking.
Sarah also uses the next step in the What To Do Cycle–Narrate the Positive–very effectively. After she says “Pencil on ‘R’” she starts to narrate back to students the normalcy of follow-through. “Just like row 1. Just like row 3.” This lets students know that she sees and appreciates when they follow directions quickly. But it also “amplifies” a positive norm. That is, by narrating the normalcy of quick and diligent follow-through she makes it more obvious to students that this is what typically happens among the great majority of students in Ms. Stackhouse’s class. It’s the norm. And norms are extremely powerful in shaping indivdual behavior.
Of course we’ve all seen teachers who go blithely along narrating the positive when a few students are clearly not following directions. Narrating the positive only helps when students are doing the right thing! The solution when students are slow to follow-through is not to ignore or pretend to ignore but to make a non-invasive correction–a quick reminder.
That’s where Sarah’s really elegant use of the Whisper Correction comes in. “Max” is a bit slow to meet the expectation. She needs to build a habit of quick and diligent direction following so she needs to use a gentle correction. But she’s also standing at the front of the room and that makes it tricky. So Sarah drops her voice to a stage whisper: “Max, pencil.” She’s lightning quick is reminding him of what he needs to do and there’s no animus in her voice. She’s not mad at him she’s helping him to make sure he’s on task promptly. But the whisper! The whisper is a thing of beauty. It reminds Max, in case he was wondering, that she is not trying to call him out in public. She’s doing everything she can to keep it private. To not broadcast his moment of imperfection. It does this even though everyone can hear it. The whisper changes the dynamic by showing that she is doing everything she can to make her reminder to him as private as possible. She is helping him to succeed and holding him accountable at the same time as she is reminding him that she cares about his feelings and is trying to preserve his privacy.
So we’ve got brilliant What To Do Cycle directions back-stopped by a lovely example of the Whisper Correction… and you can perhaps imagine all the additional times and places you might apply this idea… that simply dropping your voice into a stage whisper when you give a student a reminder about a task gives you the best of both worlds. You ensure diligent follow-through and time on task for the class while also remind students that you care about their feelings.
Thanks to Sarah and her class and all the brilliant folks at Nashville Classical for sharing this video!