Happy Friday, everyone!

Today's gems:

First of all, in today's school bulletin, the results of our principal's recent classroom walk-throughs--the first positive comment on the list was "Mr. Adams' nurturing learning environment and engaging classroom climate." (notice me beaming from ear to ear)

Secondly, I was working on an ear training exercise with a class of seven and eight year-olds, and I was asking one boy where sol (the fifth degree of a major scale) went on the staff. Immediately I saw his eyes go up and to his left, so I assumed that he was constructing a visual memory. I said, "think about last year, and where you saw the note on the board. Can you come up and put the note in the right place?" Smiling and nodding, he worked his way to the front of the classroom, and placed the note on the incorrect line. I was perplexed, because given the feedback that he gave me, I was certain he would arrive at the right answer, until someone in the class reminded me that he wasn't in our school last year! live and learn...

...anyway, I continued to direct the rest of the class to "go back to last year, and see where we put that note on the white board before." One boy astounded me at his understanding of the age regression process, as he said (making a spiraling motion around his head with his index finger), "I travelled back in time, Mr. Adams!" Finally, someone did come up with the right answer (teacher breathes a sigh of relief).

Life is good, and getting better all the time!

(my name means love) phil

Please excuse me jumping in here. I am not an NLP person but I look at this site and the forum from time to time because several people I know are NLP practitioners and I am just trying to get an idea of what it is all about.
There have been several interesting posts on this thread and I wonder if anyone could suggest a strategy to help with a class of GCSE students who prefer to spend the lesson thinking up ways to disrupt the lesson rather than listening or working. I know this is a huge question with no easy answer but I am prepared to try anthing!
To give you an idea what I am talking about, when we are using a computer lab I will be in the middle of explaining something when suddenly the printer will spring to life and lots of pages will appear with "poop" on them. They think it is hilarious and it is almost like they are challenging me to find out who is doing it and find a way to stop them. So far I have failed miserably to do either!
Hope you don't mind helping out a "lay" person.

As someone whose not a teacher, but whose worked a lot with children, Sobrina, learn to anchor from the stage for a start. Make sure you anchor hesitiation. Tell a graphic story of spiders, and the hair on their legs. Anchor it with a visual and auditory gesture. Fire it off right before someone gets disruptive. Stack the anchor with anything else snakes, or anything.

Learn to use pain and pleasure. Link pain and punishment to what you don't want. Postively reinforce what you do want, no matter how small.

Can't you do somethign practical like unplug the printer unless it's being used. At least they're not using the word s*it!

Don't show an emotion to what you don't want to reinforce. Ignoring is the worst punishment. When you pick up the piece of paper with poop on it, be indifferent and carry on. If you even smile and laugh you'll be reinforcing it with attention.

Be clear with your rules up front. Let them know the negative conseuqences if it doesn't happen. Practical ways to create negative conseuqences. If someone prints out the poop, change the seating arrangment, make them stay an extra minute for every time, or a slight bit of extra homeowrk.

Create positive incentive, if they get through the lesson by following the rules, every rule they follow they get to finish a minute early, and do whatever they want til the end of the lesson, or a little bit less homeowrk, or a chocolate each.

If you can talk about things they're interested in. Use examples of good looking movie stars or something in the news.

Think about getting them all into rapport before the lesson, if it's appropriate get thema ll up to strecth left, right, front, back deep breath in and out for each. This will begin to sych their breathing a little bit and make it easier to get rapport.

Use your perihperal vision so you can see fingers on mouses. When explaingin stuff make them sit with their hands in their laps, or see if can sit them somewhere else. If you've got internet access see if you can teach them things on video tape. Seat the students who are the most troubled where you can see them.

Also build some sort of connection with them if you can. It's not always easy. See if you can be cool in some way. Generally people are motivated by love or fear, or a combination of the two.

I hope a teacher will chime in here with something we can all learn from.

Sabrina,

I'm about to chime in, as soon as I get a little information.

1) What is GCSE?
2) How old are the students
3) How big is the class?

My preliminary comment to you (because I ALWAYS start before I begin!) is this:

Enter their world, and once you're in it, and you "have" them, take them somewhere more useful to them.

Sam gave you lots of good advice, and as soon as I get some more information from you, I'm sure I'll have some advice for you as well!

(my name means love) phil

Wow, lots of good ideas to think about. thank you. Sometimes you get so bogged down in a situation you can't see the wood for the trees!
GCSE is the exam kids sit in England at about 16 years old. 16 kids in the class, mostly boys. i'm female, older, not into sport so finding it hard to 'get into their world' in any way at all! It's not that they hate me - i even think they quite like me, but they don't want to do the work. Part of it is showing off to the rest of the class I think.

Sobrina,

I have so many tried and tested ideas for you but I am off out at the moment so will post them later.

For now, some homework for you.

Who was your most inspirational teacher when you were at school? Why?

Who is your inspiration behind motivating you to want to teach? Why, what do THEY think you bring to the role?

In the future, when this class (and other classes that are similar) are doing what is required of them, how does that look and feel in the classroom? How does that make you feel?

Thanks

Matt

Hi Sobrina,

someone who has done some very good work in schools is Caitlin Walker at trainingattention.co.uk

I think you would benefit from checking it out.

She has worked with some of the most difficult situations you could imagine and turned them around. On her excellent DVD set she tells how she got a class of troubled teenagers to become interested and involved in their work.

She works mainly with Clean Language and Systemic modelling.

You could always e-mail her and I'm sure she would give you good advice.

Best Wishes

David.

I seem to have hyjacked this thread, but thanks for the advice.

Redsimo, I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed in my replies! I didn't find any of my teachers at school inspirational, but then it was a long time ago and things were diferent then. I was inspired by learning and I loved school but it seems to me it was the subject that I found inspiring not the teacher. E.G. I loved learning French, I loved working out Maths problems and I loved English because we got to read all those wonderful books.
No-one was behind my motivation to teach. I always wanted to teach from when I was in Primary school but didn't get to fulfill my 'vocation' until I was in my 40s.
If a class behaves the way I want them to and learns, they are generally quietly getting on with their work or listening to me. even better, sometimes they ask for clarification and further explanation. I feel good because I like calm and quiet and I like to see a class engaging with the subject.
Not sure where all this is leading!

Sobrina,

Hijack away! I'll be writing on it again soon.

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

Sobrina,

Sorry for not getting back to you yesterday as promised, I've had a very exciting weekend which diverted me away from my PC.

How are you?

I asked those questions for 2 reasons, 1 to find out a little about the teacher you are and maybe even a little about the teacher you aspire to be. My reason for that is that regardless of what anyone tells you, you must remain to true to your style of teaching and interacting with students. All my suggestions here may be so out of line with how you want to be, every has their own teaching style and that is important for you to keep.

Secondly, I wanted you to be thinking about all the positives of teaching before I started throwing ideas at you.

My first thoughts is that you may feel as though the lesson is over and you did not do enough to deter them from playing up when the session comes round next week. This is not really the case. Don't forget, you teach as part of a team and a great tool for you to use would be to either turn up in another teachers lesson and ask to have students x, y and z for 2 minutes outside of the classroom. I would suggest you prewarn the menber of staff and fill them in on your reason why, if you pick the right member of staff then you can certainly use their presence to back you up.

I know you were not highlighting the printer issue as a significant issue but merely an example of the behaviour, well, you should have a log in that has higher levels of admin rights that the students and it is a simple task to have the 'printer control panel' open and simply 'pause all printing from going to the machines until you are ready. If anyon e does print then you can see exactly sent what to the printer. (access it by clicking START>CONTROL PANEL>PRINTERS AND FAXES>PRINTER NAME). If you start the session by dropping an off the cuff comment in about each person is responsible for their PC then you can jump on whoever then prints inappropriate stuff. This leads on to my next point, kids are amazing at forgiving and forgetting, if you are psyched up for a fight or battle next week then I am sure you will find one. If you look for a productive and fun session then you are more likely to get one. I would deal with all you issues from last week long before the next session and welcome the kids with an excited and confident smile. Certainly do not mention the previous lesson and do not let on that you were bothred by it in any way, do not give them a thread to pull on. As far are you are concernd, the last session with them was not even a blip on your radar.

In terms of managing the logistics of the class, you could move them to seats of your choosing but maybe not yet. If you offer them the chance to work in teams of their choosing but if it doesnt work out them you WILL change them for next week may be enough motivation to spur them on.

Without doubt my no1 bit of practical advice is to meet them outside of the classroom and have them wait until you are ready for them to enter the room. Before they enter they MUST demonstrate to you that they are ready to learn. Announce to the line of students in the corridor "Nice to see you all again, once you are all ready I will let you in" and then claim your place as a the group leader. "Tuck your shirt in... you sort your tie out...... you get rid of your gum etc" and only when you are ready announce " when you go in sit down, get out your green books etc etc...... ok, you can go in, you go in, you wait there- do your laces up first.. you go in... you stand over there- you clearly are in no state of mind to be in a lesson... you 2 go in "etc

What you are doing is setting YOUR standard of acceptable behavior before you deal with any class work.

You will get students who will pretend to be happy about standing outside while the others go in but if they do not do exactly as you asked then leave them outside and close the door on them, go in the lesson and praise the others for how pleased you are to be with them again and start the lesson off.

Once they are working and on task..

go back outside and offer them 5 seconds to get theirselves in order or their lesson is over and they will do the work as homework and make up double the amount of time in detention. You will get the easily led sheeps from the naughty group probably apologise and want to come in, tell them 1-1 exactly what they need to do and tell them where to sit and not to speak to anyone on their way in, this their last chance to join the lesson. As they walk in, tell them to enjoy their lesson and that you are doing something fun today.

For the others, take whatever is the requested step in the schools disciplianry system. Too many teachers make up their own punishments which I believe confuse the students with the inconsistency and undermines those who do follow the desired methods asked by the school. More importantly FOLLOW UP YOUR THREAT! Homework and every minute of the lesson doubled and paid for in detention.

Remember, it is a great job, but it is these challenges that we aspire to overcome, with no problems, there is no opportunity to show how dynamic and clever you are!

I believe the best tools for a teacher is a sense of humour and sarcasm, with sarcasm you can brush of any insult and bad situation and turn them into funny moments where you have navigated out of problems and actually built respect and rapport with students. But hey, like I say, keep true to your own style, calm, loud, funny, dry, mean and nice people can all make good teachers.

"but they don't want to do the work. Part of it is showing off to the rest of the class I think."

You can (as with everything!) use this to your advantage, give the kids a 'team' or table identity and keep a score of their progress. This will provide you with many opportunities to dish out praise without singling out student names (which can be counter productive!) Maybe give them a blank piece of paper and ask them to write down 3 things they most hate about maths, what they will do when they leave school and their favorite football team. When you say things like "the architects" or "the drug dealers" seem to be particularly good at fractions" or "the Man U fans and liverpool fans are by far the smartest dressed today" and give them points as you feel appropriate. Throughout the slesson you can keep them aware of the scores, "Man U 2, Chelsea 3 and Liverpool 1- come on Liverpool, you are getting whooped by Man U! Do something about it! I'll give you a point as soon as you reach the bottom of that page!". Half way through the session you can pull out a bar of chocolate and declare that you are keeping an eye of for the Man of the Match or the MVP (Most Valuable Player) of the session. As the lesson unfolds you can say "at present Tim is MVP for his x but Ben is about to knock him off the top spot with how fast he is working". That may split the class into groups and you can direct the showing off in to your gain! you can even manipulate the stats gained from the lesson to reinforce and demonstrate the mathematical work done in your plenary.

This is by no means an extensive list of ideas for you, there is too much to write about here, there loads of good books on this stuff, do you have a mentor at work?

Remember, a bored student is a naughty student.

Let us know how you get on,

Thanks

Matt

Last night we had a horrible windstorm in the midwest, so the schools are all out for the day. Who knows when the power will come back on.

I have power at home, thank goodness, but no posts today about working with the children, in case you were wondering why!

I'll just have to apply my skills elsewhere to better the world!

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

A large portion of central Ohio still has no electricity, so I have not taught yet this week!

On a more positive note, the contractor came today to look at the garage, and the tree removal company will be out tomorrow...

Life is good. When we can roll with it, especially. Flexibility, right?

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

Thanks to everyone who has given advice on how to deal with my problem class! I'm still digesting it all and will try out some different approaches. I'll let you know it goes.

Hello!

I cannot tell you how good it is to be back with the children today.

I am discovering what language patterns help kids access information most easily. Just saying "remember" doesn't do it nearly as well as "go back and see" or "go back and hear me saying it before." Several students had some difficulty remembering one particular label from last year, so I had them all run an auditory digital of my voice saying the correct answer this morning, and it seemed to do the trick of putting it in there firmly! We shall see next Friday when they come back and I ask them the same question...

I also had a funny experience with eye accessing cues from one bilingual (English/Spanish) student. I was going over some Spanish vocabulary with the class for a story, and when I said a certain word, he did something very strange with his eyes, possibly a visual/auditory kinesthesia, or perhaps he was going back and forth between visual/auditory recall and construction. Anyway, I asked him how I did on pronouncing that word, and he said, "I've never heard that word before!" Oh yes, I forgot. He is only seven years old!

Life is good. I'm sure that I'll have more posts later.

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

Hi Phil, good to ahve you back. My teaching starts next week and you are inspiring me and getting me excited about starting. Keep up the good work.

Wendy

This seems to be where these skills belong most in my life, Wendy. Not that I can't use them anywhere, but the applications for the educational setting seem limitless! I keep finding new ways to use NLP with the kids, and am continually improving what I do.

I can't wait to hear from you next week. What fun!

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

Phil, I envy you your enthusiasm for the job and life. You sound like an excellent teacher! Wendy, good luck! I am feeling rather negative at the moment and feel, not for the first time, that teaching isn't for me. It is partly the English system. If any of you have taught ICT in England you will know that most of the theory is extremely boring and irelevant and if it seems that way to me how much more so does it seem that way to the kids? Maybe I'll feel more inspired tomorrow!

Sobrina,

I am sorry you are having such a tough time. I work in England at a University but have worked in FE with both 16-19 year olds and adults. Where in England are you? If you would like to get in touch send me a private message with your email and I will see if I can give you some tips and ideas on how you could liven up your classes. I ahve taught some ICT classes but related to a vocational subject. It would be good to bounce some ideas around.

Wendy

Sobrina,

Hang in there!

Hoping Wendy can give you some good ideas...

And now, a story which I hope you find as inspiring as I did.

First of all, I wish to thank Andy Austin, whose book [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Machine-Tales-Neurolinguists-Journal/dp/0911226443/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221866636&sr= 8-1"]The Rainbow Machine[/ame] continues to inspire me. Thank you, Andy!

At the end of every day I have bus duty. Several days ago, I noticed a seven-year-old boy looking quite distressed and even anxious as he waited in the gym for the bus. Once again, his classmate reminded me that he did not want to ride the bus, but wanted his mom to pick him up. Today, I decided to help him work on this problem once and for all.

P=Phil
S=Student

P: Hi! How was your day?
S: (shrugs)
P: (plops himself down next to S on the floor)
P: So what are you going to do when you get home today?
S: I don't know...
P: Well, I'M going to do the laundry! I think I'll make lots and lots of bubbles when I do. How much soap do you think I should use?
S: I don't know. Five cups?
P: Oh, that would make A LOT OF BUBBLES! That would be quite a mess in my laundry room
S: Well, how about two?
P: Yes, that's more like it for a big load.
S: I know, because my mom usually uses only one.
P: Well, yes, there are those bubbles. And then, there are the magic bubbles!
S: (eyebrows raise)
P: (whispering) Do you want to hear about the magic bubbles?
S: (nods, inquisitively)
P: Well, some days, when I'm feeling sad, I pull out my bottle of magic bubbles. I unscrew the cap, and take three big sniffs. It always makes me feel happy! Do you want to see my magic bubbles?
S: Yes.
P: Well, only if you're really sure that you want to. They're very powerful.
S: OK!
P: (pull out imaginary bottle from my pocket and slowly bring up to S eye level. S eyes nearly bug out of his head. I match his expression, and continue, by unscrewing the lid, taking three sniffs and then commencing to giggle)
P: Ready to try? (I stick in front of S nose, and he BURSTS out laughing). Oh, I told you they were powerful!
S: (takes three sniffs and doubles over in laughter, with big grin)
P: You can take them with you.
S: Mom doesn't want a mess in the house.
P: Oh, don't worry. These bubbles don't make a mess.
S: My sister might find them.
P: No, they're magic. Put them in your book bag, and when you get home, find a safe place for them.
S: I could put them under my bed!
P: That's right!
S: Do you think that I could tell my mom about them?
P: Do you think she would want to know about them?

Our conversation soon was interrupted as his bus was called. For the first time this year, he walked out to the bus with a big grin on his face!

That really made my day. I want to do that kind of work every day for the rest of my life!

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

"I will see if I can give you some tips and ideas on how you could liven up your classes"
Wendy, fancy sharing them for us all to see?

Sobrina,

I qualified in 2002 with a PGCE in Middle Year Education that specialised in ICT. I too came to the conclusion that the English school system is appaling, I then went to work in FE where the role of Lecturer is unrecognisable from that of a Secondary School teacher. My wife is a lecturer and I had to listen to her complain about having 28 students in a class and 24 hours of contact time to do in a week. Almost sounds like part time doesnt it! I would love to say try x and y but I currently do supply work for a local agency while I work on some other projects I have and if they quadrupled my salary I would never go back to teaching full time, I would NEVER go back. The gang/mob mentality in innercity schools make them a no-go for anyone with ambition or anyone that plans to do any teaching. I am trying to hold back from listing almost endless stories about my reasons for leaving secondary school teaching, maybe if I start a new paragraph that may help!

That said, am I correct in thinking you are only a few weeks into the job? Have you ever had a job where after 2 weeks you were full capable and confident? You will be amazed at how knowing all the kids names and then knowing your boundaries will make future lessons happen with more order. You may not be suited to teaching, not everyone is, but if you leave then do so for the right reasons, dont be bullied or pushed out.

The conclusion I came to with secondary teaching is that some lessons are all about baby sitting. There are some groups where NONE of the teachers in the school can control them and if you are new in that school then you can be sure you have more than your fair share of these groups. If everyone else have given up on them then with respect, why are you wasting your valuable time and effort on them? You cannot win every battle so pick the battles you choose to fight. You cannot undo generations of poor parenting and lack of interest in education in the time you have, the biggest mistake you can make is to waste your time trying.

What annoys me know is that floods of advice will come your way from peolpe who have NEVER been in your/my situation but they once saw something on TV or read an article in a paper or read a book that now makes they qualified to judge how good a job teachers do. Or "I met a kids once who was off the rails, I did x and he is now an angel". In which other job is banging your head against a brick wall deemed to be good advice?

I liken the role of a teacher to that of a coal miner. The miner in down in a pit all day and asked to do the job without the right tools, without anyhelp, inadequate training and support while all those who are sat in the offices above shouting "produce more coal" and all those sat in their cold home shouting "produce more coal" and all the minor gets is more meetings where he is told to produce more coal but no change in his resources or working circumstances.