I feel like one of the most important things we can do as teachers is to reflect on how our practices are working. We do this constantly, of course, but I like to do a deep dive at the end of each school year to really get real with myself about things I need to work on for next year.
I sit down and write it all out. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
I will admit, this year was a tough one for me in a lot of ways. With my JH and HS kids, I encountered a lot of behaviors that I just haven't really had to worry about before.
For example, it never occurred to me to say "Please don't tackle anyone on the way to the warm up room at show choir competitions." Or, "No, you cannot wear your headphones on stage."
That kind of stuff.
I feel like they caught me flat-footed over and over, because I just wasn't anticipating a "worst case scenario" moment.
And don't get me wrong, I love my kids, warts and all, and we had a TON of successes. It wasn't a bad school year by any means. But there are things I would have done differently if I had anticipated some of those things.
Here are some of the things I'm going to work on to prevent those problems. Maybe they will spark some ideas you could use as well!
Procedures Procedures Procedures!
Before next year, I am going to go through every classroom, competition, and travel scenario we will have and really fine tune the procedures for each one. I mean each and every one. I don't want to be caught off guard by things happening that I could have headed off earlier.
I created this form to help me organize my thoughts and really think through each one. You can get it here for free.
2. Sub Plans
I don't have an accompanist at my school, so rehearsals can't always happen if I'm not there. I leave recordings sometimes, but for areas they might be struggling with I don't want them practicing something wrong when there is no one there to correct it.
I need to leave them SOMETHING to do, but busy-work that has nothing to do with what we do daily does NOT work when you are dealing with behavioral challenges.
I need to create my own materials ahead of time that do the teaching for me. I'm thinking of pre-recorded lessons of me teaching something with some Google Slides activities to go along with it. I'm still percolating on how I want to go about that.
What do you leave for rehearsal sub plans?
3. Building the team
Part of our struggles this year had to do with having a large number of kids who have never been on a team without quitting, or just never been part of a team, period.
They didn't understand how their actions affected others. So I need to pre-teach that, hardcore! I feel like a lot of behaviors might have been happening not because a kid was making a bad choice, but because they had no idea what the right choice even was.
Do you have any reflections about your school year? What will you do differently? What problems will you solve?
Share in the comments, and let's work together to create the school year we all dream of!
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