Attention all Teachers! Need advice on.....well, teaching.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey there folks.

Being fresh out of college with a degree in History, I was contemplating on what a hunk like me wanted to do with my life. Well, I really did want to teach world or local history at a high school or jr. high level but all the positions I wanted were full. I was giving up and looking elsewhere when I got a call from a elementary school asking if I was looking for a job. (I guess the central public school system sent them my name.)
I went into the interview with little hope for being hired, being that 1) I’m a history major 2) I’m fresh out of college, young, with no prior experience, and 3) I have no educational teaching background. With that being said, I was willing to at least try and impress and was confident that with all those points holdng me back, I could do a good job.
Well…as the title states, I was hired to be a sixth grade teacher, and I will be taking over in the MIDDLE of the year to replace a teacher’s aide that was their primary teacher because they could not find anyone qualified for the job.
The class I’m going to be taking over has about 16-18 students, and according the the teacher I’m going to be taking over for, they had about 4 teachers in the first two months before he took over and are overall, greatly behind the other 6th grade class. Their language and social studies are on par but the rest he said was…well, not for me to expect much gulp
Now, I’m sure I could get the basics down as soon as I take over but I just wanted some general or specific advice on what I could do on my first time teaching, whether it be how to structure the class, daily planning, ANYTHING!
Remember, I’m a newbie with no prior experience and ANY advice would do. I will be taking some courses during the summer to get my teaching certificate (I don’t even have one, that’s how desperate they are) so no prior lessons in school too.
Thanks for reading this loooong post and I’m patiently waiting for some replies :slight_smile:

Reoch

2

I am not a teacher, but I picked this at the library and found it most interesting.

I’m not sure how it does apply to real world teaching, however, I volunteer at my kids’ schools so I am not that clueless about what goes on in school. but some of the rules in there make sense and some of the other ones seem awfully controlling. If this class is so unruly, I highly recommend this book to give you some pointers.
Ask the principal or other teachers for guidance on planning.

My SIL is a 1st grade teacher and she says one of the biggest problems she’s seen with teachers coming in is that they are not organized and do not have a clue of how to plan their lessons.

Good luck!

3

reoch,

I have taught 6th graders for 5 years now, so I hope I can be of help.

Be strict, you want the students in your class to be safe from any type of harm, including insults from other students. They will resist, but talk with them about why this type of classroom is better for everyone involved.

Show them respect. Never put a student down. They will accept your discipline much more rapidly if it is not cluttered with any of the “What were you thinking” type comments.

BE YOURSELF! This is very important IMHO. Kids can tell when you are putting on a show for them. Be yourself. Joke with the kids, or tell them a funny story about yourself from time to time. They want to feel a connection with you, and if they think they know who you really are, they will treat you with more respect.

Develop a good relationship with the other teachers and the principal. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. There is no shame in not knowing something, but there is much shame in teaching a child something that is incorrect.

I hope it goes well for you, try to remain positive when things look bad. Feel free to e-mail me if you need anyone to rant to.

muckj@postbox.esu.k12.oh.us

4

I too, started teaching in mid year. My first day was in March, 1999 (huh, just realized that yesterday was my 5 year anniv.) the kids had had 3 different subs up until then. Suggestions:

  1. Get with the other teachers in your dept, and do what they do at least until Spring Break, maybe for the rest of the year.

  2. Go home tonight and come up with your rules and set them in stone. Tomorrow during your conference, go and get cozy with your AP in charge of discipline, suck up, kiss ass, whatever, but get him/her on your side.

  3. Take a copy of all the books you will use home and get familiar with them, they will be your best friend for the next couple of months. Look for activities that will fit your objectives, review questions at the end of chapter/sections. Are there any supplements with the books, or are they so old that the supplements are gone. If worse comes to worse, and you are dying for class activities, have the kids popcorn (take turns reading out loud, A reads, then chooses a B to read) whatever text you are using.

  4. Figure out what’s up with your money over the summer months. You may not be getting paid b/c the district hasn’t held enough of your checks back (I didn’t). Plan accordingly.

  5. If you are not going to need to work over the summer, and plan to go back to where you are now, get the lowdown on all of the inservices you can, and plan to attend. You will learn more from your peers at these than all of the college classes you ever took. You’ll get bored over the summer anyway, might as well have something to do.

  6. Find a way to leave school at school, and save home for home.

Hope this helps.
W.M., History Dept.
Urban TX I.S.D.

5

While I’m not a teacher (yet), when I was in the 6th grade, my teachers changed mid-year. My class was in much the same predicament as yours… behind, not doing very well, disruptive, etc.
What endeared our second teacher to us was actually pretty simple. She shared details of her life with us, and acted like she needed our help solving some of her problems. She was strict, but it didn’t matter how many times you had gotten in trouble, she still treated you like you were one of her favorite students (she did this with everyone in the class, but was careful not to pick out a “teacher’s pet”). She came up with interesting, interactive projects to teach concepts and lessons. For instance, to learn a 6th grade version of how to run a business, how to write checks and keep a check register, we built a town out of boxes (think refrigerator boxes), made our own shops, and “sold” items to our classmates with tokens that we earned.

Good luck!

6

I am not a teacher, but my mother has taught grade K-2 (at varous times) over the past 25+ years, and as such I know a lot of teachers at different levels. I also have very fond memories of my grade 6 year, so maybe I have a few words of advice.

  1. Get a copy of the municipal/state curriculum. Find out exactly what the minimum requirements for each subject (# of hours/week) are, and at what level the kids should be at by the end of the year, and plan accordingly. If you can, add an extra 15 minutes a day to subjects in which the kids are weak, like math, in order to try and help them catch up.

  2. Get a planner! Use it! Determine which pages of each subject you’ll be doing, and establish the amount of time you’ll set for it, and stick to that schedule. Plan your day a day ahead of time or more, if possible. If you are a morning person, get to school early, even before other teachers, and use that time to plan and prepare. Don’t be afraid to inlist siblings, friends, and family in preparing your classroom…it can be a lot of fun (but that is just my opinion)

  3. If the kids are strong in social studies and such, then make that their “reward”. My grade 6 (Ontario curriculum) social studies section spent a huge part of the year on Medieval times, which was particularly cool because we happened to be on a military base in Germany surrounded by all things Medieval. Perhaps plan an event, like a tournament or something, which can be built around their social studies knowledge and can be fun, but uses math as the “weapons” in the joust, or whatever. This is especially good, since it can draw on your History knowledge.

  4. Establish your rules early. If you do go with a theme, perhaps post the rules in a format drom your theme, like a parchment/scroll. I know you really want the kids to like you, but the best way to do that, IMHO, is to show them that they ahve to earn it, and that they have to be nice to each other and to you, and to follow the rules.

  5. Have a reading time. I don’t remember if my grade 6 class did this every day, or once a week, or at what rate, but I always loved it when the teacher would read to us. Pick a book related to a theme you’re doing.
    That’s about all I can come up with offhand. Good luck, and have fun!

7

For many first-time teachers, class discipline is biggest problem. Remember, you are there to be the teacher, not to be their friend. In this vein, I always suggest that with a new class you come across as a hard-ass for the first couple of days or weeks. If you are new the kids will test you to see what they can get away with (the same way they do with subs). Once you have established your level of tolerance and have shown that you will follow through with whatever consequences you have established…you can lighten up. It is always easier to go from being a hard-ass to a nice guy than the other way around.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

8

I teach K-5, and have taught middle school kids in the past. As has already been stated, get hold of the curriculum, and find out what they should be learning and when they should have learnt it. Don’t panic if you/they get behind, just use it as a guideline. Use your colleagues shamelessly.

Think about your objectives, and try a bit of “backward-planning”. What should they know by the end of the lesson? OK, and how are you going to make sure they know it? What is the best way of getting things across to them? How do you check their knowledge? Specific methods will become easier as you get to know the class, but, as has also been stated above, anything remotely interactive might be useful (even something as simple as having them act out an imaginary conversation in pairs sitting at their desks, if moving them around the room presents discipline problems).

As this class is already behind schedule, try to involve them, and engage them. It is a fallacy that the teacher knows everything: during the course of the lesson, find out if they know anything, have any opinions, can predict an outcome, etc. You don’t want to be too consciously “cool”, but drawing parallels between what you are teaching and their own experience (whether IRL or what they may have gleaned from books, TV or movies) might be a good idea. As appropriate, emphasise the blood and gore. Give them mental images they will remember.

Kids learn when they are interested. Inevitably there are things that you have to teach them that will not interest them, but try to make some of it memorable in a good way.

This will be a steep learning curve for you. Just try to ride out the bad bits, and put them down to experience.

And lastly, be consistent. Don’t issue wild threats in the heat of the moment, and let them get away with murder at other times. Let them know where you stand, and stick to it.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy it!

9

You have had a lot of excellent advice offered in this thread so far. I would reiterate the need for firm discipline–if these kids have been through multiple teachers this year, they may have developed some bad behaviors. Don’t beat yourself up if a lesson flops or if you have a horrible day. It sounds trite but every mistake is an opportunity to improve.

The classroom city simulation that liirogue mentioned is one that I have used myself. It is from a company called Interact. http://teachinteract.com/resources.asp If you are looking for engaging, long-term units that hit a lot objectives, visit their site and order a unit that fits your curriculum. They do all the planning and the units offer rich learning experiences. Not too expensive, either.

Let us know how you do–we are rooting for you!

10

I’m in my fourth year of teaching, just started 7th grade this year after 4 years in the high school. Some tips, in no particular order:

  1. Force yourself to be somewhat organized. Get one of those plastic accordion folder thingies and label each section with the subject. Put student papers straight in there so you don’t lose them. Make a copy of each handout you make, punch holes in it and put it in a binder, in order. This way you have a chronological record of your handouts and it’s easy to make copies. Keep a log of what you cover in each subject daily, including homework. Post this on the wall for kids who are absent. It does help a lot. Keep all official papers in a file, just in case. Save all parent correspondence in a file and keep a record of all phone and e-mail convos. Trust me on this.

  2. Definitely ingratiate yourself with the other 6th grade teachers. Ask if you can see/use their materials. Get their advice on sequencing, difficulty level, test methodology, etc. If they are decent human beings, they can help a lot.

  3. Find out what standardized tests 6th graders have to take that year or next, then work in the skills and topics covered in the test in your classroom (in a creative, stimulating way). Some states (such as NY, where I am) seriously recommend parallel tasks.

  4. Set out specific rules for things like: do you take late homework? How late? Late essays? How many points a day will they lose? How will kids who were absent make up work?

  5. How will the discipline structure work: a warning, a time out, then a referral? Stuff like that. Then tell them in no uncertain terms, and stick to it; post it on the wall and point to it when you need to. Be clear that bullying, teasing, and disrespectful behavior to self, peers, or teacher will not be tolerated. They will catch on. Kids at this age are squirrelly little bouncing balls of energy and craziness, so be understanding about this while also fostering a sense of order and structure (I know, tall order). Get them out of their seats every once in a while if you can; this will cut down on behavioral problems, as will varying your activities.

  6. Send a handout home with every kid introducing yourself and delineating your policies on homework, essays, tests, projects, and a basic discipline structure. Get them to fill out index cards with their address, parents’ names, home and work phone #s, and e-mail addresses. Do not be afraid to use this information.

  7. Find out how your school works. This goes for classroom issues as well as staff stuff (# of sick days, required # of observations toward tenure, school culture, etc.) Following these rules can save you a lot of trouble. If you plan to go for tenure, do try not to rock the boat and piss off the people who have power over you (and this can include parents, so be careful). Don’t pull a Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society until AFTER you have tenure. Also, kissing up to the secretaries never hurts.

  8. A good idea is to touch base with the AP and find out if there are any notable discipline issues with the class. Let him know you are going to lay down the law and get his/her support ahead of time. Some APs want you to send kids to them immediately for behavior infractions; others really hate to see kids unless absolutely necessary and will hold it against you if you write up a lot of kids. Find out the procedures for discipline referrals, etc.

  9. You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but get to know your kids as people. Maybe give them an initial assignment to write an essay introducing themselves to you. You could also write one and read yours to them. They love that stuff (be careful with too many personal details, of course). Often they are relieved to find out that you’re a human being too.

  10. Forgive yourself if you fuck up numerous times. There is a steep learning curve and there are times when you will feel like you’ve fallen right off it and gone SPLAT. Don’t be too hard on yourself. This is not an easy task you’re undertaking.

A good book for a new teacher is The First Day of School , by Harry Wong. I found it very helpful. Do check it out.

Screw the Army-- teaching is the toughest job you’ll ever love. Keep us posted and best of luck to you in your fabulous choice of career.

11

The advice given here is good. I would follow it, knowing what I know now.

One of the things Harry Wong would tell you – and does, in “The First Days Of School” is this:

  1. Establish A Routine.

BEGIN by taking the time to teach the kids, “This is how things are going to work, from now on.” Show them that there is a procedure in the classroom, and continue to teach that routine until it is habitual with ALL the kids.

Kids need discipline, and they WANT discipline. They want structure. Makes 'em feel safe. Routine equals structure, which equals discipline, to some extent. Mr. Teacher is here, and Mr. Teacher is in charge, and this is how we do things in Mr. Teacher’s class… got it?

Fail to establish a routine, and the kids will wander in each day, assuming nothing, wondering what they will be doing… and this is fertile ground for chaos. Take my word for it. When you have chaos, you have NO discipline, NO structure, and some kids will take this and run with it. Don’t give them the chance. Be ready. Have procedures in place, a few rules, and the appearance, at least, of some sort of structure for How Things Are Done Here. Your fellow teachers will gladly provide you with examples and ideas, if asked, that will dovetail nicely with the rest of the school, as well as provide you with some idea of what school policy demands.

Other than this… well… I can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said. Good luck!

12

Here is one I am working on. Explain things twelve times more explicitly than you would have ever thought you would need to. If you wait think you have it explained well enough bump it up a notch. It continues to amaze me how carefully any project needs to be explained.

Phone parents early. Phone them for good news as well as bad news.

Don’t back down from your rules. The smell weakness and will go in for the kill.

Good luck.

13

I’m gonna be student teaching in less than a year & just wanted to stop in & thank those of you who’ve contributed to this thread; I’m getting a lot from my theory classes, but I’ve not heard that much about discipline or teacher-parent/teacher-admin relations, & I feel that’s what I’m really gonna need. Besides aspirin & a cattle prod, I mean. :wink:

14

Lots of great advice here. A few more ideas:

  1. Someone mentioned kissing the secrataries’ asses. This is important. The person that runs your school is not an administrator. Administrators roll over every couple of years–the person that runs your school is sitting in the front office. She makes 20K a year and works harder–and smarter–than anyone else in the building. Figure outwho she is and kiss her ass because she deserves it and because she can make your life heven or hell.

  2. More so than your secratary, kiss the ass of your custodian. If your kids trash the room every day your first week (likely), make them write apology letters to the custodian. If you bring in treats for the kids, custodian gets fed first. A pleasant, professional, mutally respectful relationship with your custodian will make your life 1000% easier.

  3. If you’re ambitious–and want that high school position when one opens up–go to after school stuff and schmooze with the parents. The sort of parents that go to field day and school plays and PTA meetings and bake sales are the people that wield the real power in the school. They love young, enthusiastic teachers who are interested in teh activities of the kids.

  4. Again, if you are ambitious, remember that it’s not enough to be a great teacher, you must be percieved as a great teacher. So NO BITCHING to other people that work for the school. I have known some very fine teachers who have been overlooked for years because they have the sort of nice-girl modesty that says it’s ok to bitch about how awful your class is on bad days but bragging to tell everyone how good it went on good days. If you come up with a cool lesson plan or a neat unit or whatever, show it to people. Be percieved as someone who is always striving to better themselves. Don’t let the burned out teachers be your models.

  5. Just try and teach them something. That sounds really cynical before you’ve even begun, but on bad days it’s a mantra to fall back on: just teach them something. Ypu’re not going to catch them up to the other sixth grade class–there’s only ten weeks of school left (or so, depending). It’s ok. As long as you teach them something, they will be better off than if you hadn’t come.

  6. Find a mentor. Teaching has its own weird set of social rules and customs, and you need to find someone who is smart, straightforward, and discret that you can go ask questions of.

  7. Parents scare the hell out of me. One thing that helps is to remember that what every parent wants to hear is that in someone’s professional opinion their kid is a great kid. And you love him. Once you’ve established that you can say the hard things you sometimes need to say.

  8. You have to start teaching them from where they are, not where they should be. Don’t waste time being angry that they can’t do things that should be easy. Such is life. Take a deep breath and ask yourself “ok, what do they need to know to do this that they don’t know? OK, how can I teach them that first?”

  9. Keep a “next year” book–every time you say "next year I won’t. . . " or “next year I’ll remmeber to . . .”, write it down. All those things are forgotten over the long slow summer.

15

I’m in my third year of teaching eighth grade. I have to add my recommendation to the others on The First Days of School by Harry Wong. Every year, I spend more time on establishing routines, and every year, my job gets a little simpler and a littler easier.

On behavior, a trick I’ve heard from many veteran teachers (haven’t used it myself so far) is that your first day, pick out one of the good kids and nail them to the wall on their first infraction. That way, the disruptive kids will be taken aback, thinking “dude, he’s serious! He went after the goody two shoes!”

Second, set your standards and stick to them. I got tired of getting papers with cruddy handwriting, torn out holes, wrinkles, crinkles, tears, and dirt, so this year, I started by telling my students “I will not accept any homework that does not have a full heading, good handwriting, and good condition.” It took about six weeks of immediately handing stuff back to them, and then, the problem went away. (It reared its ugly head again when we got back from Christmas Break, but went away in a week this time.) Set your standards when it comes to student behavior, adherence to school rules, homework, everything you can think of. If it bugs you, refuse to accept it. It saves a lot of wear and tear on the soul.

Third, I picked this up from a student discipline book. IF YOU ARE NOT 100% CONSISTENT, YOU ARE INCONSISTENT. That is to say, if your rule is “no food in class,” but little Becky comes in with a lollipop and begs you to let her finish it because it’s her birthday and her dead father gave it to her and you give in, you have just shown the rest of the class that they will be able to eat a lollipop in front of you if they come up with a sad enough story. If you give in to a student after the 534th request to sit by their bestest friend, then all you’ve done is teach the students that they will get to sit by their bestest friend if they ask 534 times.

Fourth, don’t allow arguing. Period. Get used to saying “because I say so”. Shut them down, or you’ll spend half your instructional time explaining yourself. If you feel it’s important that a student understand your reasoning behind a decision, keep them after class or wait for a moment when everyone’s busy on work. The reverse of that is - don’t be afraid to change your mind. Sometimes you’ll make a snap decision and realize you were wrong. If that’s the case, own up to it.

Fifth, always treat the kids with respect and - as much as you can - affection. Don’t hold grudges, don’t obsess over how a student has treated you in the past, just start every day with a clean slate. Don’t EVER set out to purposefully embarass a kid, and if you do embarrass them, apologize to them in front of the people you embarrassed them in front of. It goes a long way to establishing integrity with them.

Good luck, and email me if you need anything.

16

Thought of a couple more things (as you can see, I LOVE talking about teaching)

  1. Kids love competiton. If they are under motivated, use games. I divide my class into teams and we kee pa running score card–at hte end of hte six weeks iI bring candy for the winning team–and only the winning team. This way, I’m not feeding htem candy every day all day–it’s less than once a month–but the competion is constant–everything goes onto the same tally–if everyone on a team does there homework, the team gets five points. Everyone who earns an A on a quiz earns a point for their team. Whatever is a problem area in the classroom can become a competition.

  2. Overplan, overplan, overplan. Plan at least two days of work for each day. You can always recycle the stuff you don’t get to. I still find it hard to guestimate just how long stuff will take, and running out of things to do is horriffic when you are new.

  3. This is really stupid, but I think it saves me more time than anything else I do: put your seating chart into a plastic sheet protectors. Then you can make notes over each child’s name on the sheet protector all day long and transcribe them into your grade book or behavoir log or whatever at the end of the day and wipe it clean.

  4. Make you punnishments small. I know this sound weird, but trust me. New teachers hear that they need to be strict-which is true–but then they think that means to make their punnishments draconian, which is not the same thing. It is not the severity of punnishments that keeps kids in line, it is the PREDICTABILITY of punishment. if your punishments are horribly harsh, you won’t want to impose them, especially not on basically good kids who just fucked up a little. So you will end up listening to their convoluted explanation of extenuatiing circumstances and letting things slide. Wheras if conseqences are meaningful but not drastic, you will be willing to impose them across the board.

  5. Learn names quickly. Work hard at this. You can’t extablish classroom disciplene as long as you are having to say “You there! in the stripped shirt! Stop talking to that girl!”

  6. Have fun. Teaching is a blast. If you realize one day that you aren’t having any fun and haven’t in a week, then something is wrong and needs to be reworked.

17

I don’t know about elementary, but for older kids, the standard advice is, “don’t smile before Christmas”. As you’re taking over the class in March, you’ll need to come up with an alternative adage, maybe “no nice guy until after two weeks of bootcamp”. Remember, you can always become easier and loosen up, but you can never tighten up after you’ve started out easy.

18

I am student teaching now (high school social studies mostly 9th graders at the moment) and really loving it most days. I think i am personaly responsible for the fact about 16 14 year olds are grounded this weekend. ( we had parent teacher conferences last night) anyway I have discovered a couple of things and have and a couple questions.

The thing I am discovering is the same thing I found with my daughter. Don’t set them up to fail. Don’t plan a lesson plan that involves all silent seat work for a group of ninth graders for the last class of the last day before a three day weekend. ( my classes are 80 minutes and 40 minutes is about tops on that kind of activity without switching it out anyway.)

Question: What do you use for activities after an exam. Again my classes are 80 minutes and i usualy plan a current events activity after the exam, but I am having trouble with the period between when some students are done and others are still working. This is true particularly of the last class of the day. I have threatened to rip tests, but I am afraid its a bad threat if I don’t do it. That should be something I am willing to do, but so far its hard. I would prefer to avoid the situation rather than get into having to rip some kid’s test up.

Question: What do you all use as punishments. For the most part I hate writing kids up. It seems like sending the kid out winds up to be a reward in a lot of cases and also I can never be sure what will happen. I wound up with a kid who got suspended for a swear word while the kid who got sent out for seriously disrespectful behavior got a “talking to.” (it was actually a day I was out sick and my co-op wrote the kid up with the swear word, it wasn’t what he wanted either). It seems like writing a kid up is the equivalent of saying “wait till your father gets home.” So what do you guys use.

19

I have no teaching experience, no kids, and no grounds for advice-giving in this particular instance. But, I will say one thing.

Be consistant.

I am, however, currently a student, and I can say the most aggravating and demotivating classroom experience is to do an assignment according to the teacher’s specifications, only to have them change their specifications willy-nilly. My English prof asked for something in MLA format. I did it in MLA format. She said “oh, well I want this kind of cite this way instead.” She asked for MLA format! That’s not MLA format! <pulling hair out> :mad: I’m sure you can see how that situation can be translated into other similar situations.

I’m sure you’ll do great. :slight_smile:

20

Well, here’s my two cents:

  1. If you think the problem is that some kids are deliberatly dragging out the test, try starting your exam at the middle of the period: have the exam run until the end of class.

  2. give them some sort of assignment that they can do independently and tell them to start after they have turned in their exam. Tell them it is due at the bell. This is important: if you tell them they can finish it for homework, they will hear "don’t bother working on it, you can raise hell now andh do it for homewor"k. (think of it from their point of view. They might well get hit by a car and die after school If that happens, all that work on their homework will have bee WASTED! Much safer to wait and do it right before bed or on the bus in the morning.) Then, when the stragglers turn in their exams tell them quietly that they can turn in their assignment the next day, provied that they work on it quietly and they come turn it in to you BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS the next day. That way you don’t have to listen to everyone saying “hey, why’d he get to take it home for homework?” the next day.

In my school, the only real purpose that writing someone up serves is to created a paper trail that we need to move the real trouble makers to alternitive school. Also, sometimes the TEACHER needs the student to spend a day in in house suspension just so he can have a break.

As far as actually maintaining disciplene, the only thing I have found that works is sheer force of personality. Really, by the time you are at the point where you have to punish a kid, things have gone too far: the goal is to never get to that point.

I use different things to get each kid to behave. I spend a lot of time reinforcing good behavoir–I kiss my student’s asses all day long: every class I say to soomeone “what would I do without you?” or “thank the good lord you ended up in my class” or whatever. I praise them to each other–if Suzie says something brilliant, I’ll turn to Johnny–mindful of social dynamics, of course–and say “Isn’t Suzie smart?” I also reinforce positive behavoir of my class as a whole: if another teeacher walks in and my kids are being industrious, I praise them to that teacher: “See how good my class is working? These are my angels.” The goal is to make them want to behave, more of less.

Also, remember that disciplene is always a work in progress–it’s not a state which, once established ,runs itself, but rather a system that must be tweaked and maintained. And it doesn’t reflect badly on you that it is something you have to keep working on–those teachers that have been doing this for 30 years, they to are still having to make a conscious effort to maintain disciplene.