It’s overwhelming how many ideas there are being marketed out there. There are so many decisions to make. Planning my classroom management has always felt like getting dressed in the morning. Some years are like those mornings when I go through just about every outfit I own, and accessorize heavily, only to give up and go back to those go-to sensible black slacks and top I wore twice already in the last two weeks. My management system is just like that; I know it works, so I go back to it. Yes, I have had adventurous moments: I’ve tried Fred Jones’ Preferred Activity Time (PAT), Whole Brain Teaching (ready, OK!), and a myriad of points systems, but I always ended up back to something more like the sensible black slacks for my management system. It’s not flashy, but it gets the job done. Maybe slacks isn’t the right analogy? Call it the Spanx of my management wardrobe.

I seat students in heterogeneous groups of four; pairs face each other. They are numbered 1-4. Sometimes I name the groups. On my Google Keep to-try-someday list is to theme it up and have Harry Potter houses for groups or historical figures instead of numbering 1-4 (all the Harriet Tubmans, please stand up!) but I will also someday find a red lipstick color that works for all occasions. It just hasn’t happened yet.

While seats are ALWAYS assigned, every class period (oh that’s sweet, child, you want to know if I’m ready to let you choose your seats- you’re so cute! No.), I try to get students out of their seats to move around, whether that’s for poetry circle, or just moving all the 1s and 3s up one group to mix up the pairs. Sometimes I’ll randomly ask students to stand up and have a physical rock/paper/scissors competition or staring contest with a neighbor just for a brain break. It’s super fast, and super random, but it gets oxygen flowing back to their faces… I mean brains. I mean, nobody likes a Ferris Bueller situation, no matter how fun voodoo economics sound. And I don’t care how old your students are, kids who giggle together, learn together, too; it’s like a law in my room.

I tried group points, but I’m frankly just really bad at doing that consistently. I found building relationships and just talking with, not at, my students helps the room feel like we are both getting something out of being there together. I feel like a lot of classroom management strategies for the whole class end up being attempts to “control” the 5% of students that are outliers behaviorally anyway. They don’t need a whole class system. They need you. The best things that have worked for me with these students? Find their “in.”

We all have that one student that I shall name the Pencil Chipmunk who leaves little bits of pencil wood pieces behind while he (usually he) stocks up on angst for the winter of his discontent. You can resupply him daily for a month and still lose that battle as he subtly breaks pencil after pencil to see what will happen. At some point in his history, he’d decided that a worthwhile use of his time was to try to get the teacher to get to the “get off my lawn stage” of irritation. But these cuties are easy to spot, and require a bit of creativity.

For one such pencil-shredder, I triple dog dared him to remember his own pencil the next day, and if he did, I’d do the chicken dance. If not, he’d have to do it. Did he win? Yes. Yes he did. Did I dance with a big grin on my face thinking what is my life? Yes, but I also had fun with it and while he continued to have little issues, it never felt adversarial or purposeful. We had a working relationship, which is worth fighting for. “Don’t MAKE me challenge you to a chicken dance again” became the inside joke that meant knock it off, while letting him save face and me not lose my sense of humor. Once he realized I have a short memory, and don’t overreact to his personality quirks, he felt less judged and safer to maybe be able to grow a little more out of that box of an identity he felt pushed into. If I made it adversarial, the invitation to change over time would have been lost, and we would have been stuck in our roles of behavior problem and behavior enforcer. When you are upset at a 13 year old for not complying, you know you’ve lost your way. Find the “in” that allows you break free of that. The inside joke that allows for a little unclenching of the jaw that is needed in tense situations so you can both breath and not react too quickly. And just be ready for it to look different for everyone.

That’s the A.D.D. quality of teaching well for me. I know I’m teaching well when I don’t have a class anymore, I have individuals who all need me to be a little different at times. Luckily I read a lot, wear strong deodorant, and have pretty walls to stare at after particularly challenging days.