Bell-to-bell recruiting

I feel like most first days/weeks of school around the country are fairly the same. Students come in the room, they get their assigned seats, they are expected to sit quitely and await the teacher to pass out the syallabus. 

After (painfully) reading through the details, perhaps a lecture on the rules and procedures for the classroom where the teacher dictates everything the students will do to comply and make it a "great year". 

Translation: "don't make me mad or make my life harder you'll be fine in here."

Then a little ice-breaker to get to know each other and then jump into chapter one. Because, you know, we never get throught the entire currciulum and we must get busy. No time to waste. 

Then, likely, the teacher just expects every student to follow all rules blindly and never make mistakes. They are to comply. Afterall, we did talk about it. 

They should "try hard" (again, translated into more compliance), and please don't do anything outside of the box or get in my way, because again, who has time for that?

***Time-Out - Please note: This is not a knock on the job teachers do. Please do not read it that way. If anything, read it as a knock on the system in place, the climate and culture administrations have created due to the misguided principles, lack of clairty, and misalignment between what students need and what it takes to get promoted within the system. Read it as a knock on the lack of true development teachers need in order to truley serve their students. There, now that that is out of the way....Time-In. 

One of the things I heard a ton while teaching in the classroom was that I was "different". I had a "different way of dealing with students". It was "unorthodox". In short, I cared about my students more than I did the content we taught. Their ability to think (critically and creatively), their well-being, their comfort, their character, were the most important things to me. Not their grade. *gasp*

I never cared about what grade they made. I did however, care greatly about what they learned. The decisions they made and the progress they achieved.

If they leared something along the way about Photosynthesis or Genectic Variation that was just a little cherry on top. And most likely, they would, probably even a little more than they cared to. Just because I think the oxygen we breathe being created from the splitting of water molecules as a waste product of plants which is all fueld by the sun is really cool, does not mean they have to as well. (But be honest, that is really really cool). 

But again, it is not about leading with the content. It was about leading with the relationships, the everyday recruiting, the #HumanComponent and climate of our classroom. 

I am not saying this is the only way to do something, the "right way", or what you must do in a step-by-step fashion. What this is, is my process that has evolved over the years through successes and mistakes, through constant reflection (RACA anyone?) and feedback from students; not only during the year but even years after they leave our classroom. 

It is simply an Essential Coaching approach to creating climate and reaching students, and I hope it can generate some reflection and thinking on your part, add some value to you, and ultimately add value to your students. 

When the new school year begins we do not just do an icebreaker activity and talk about how we hope they have a good year, etc. We intentionally recruit every student in the room. We recruit everyone. Everyday. 

In order to do that we must set the table and create a climate that allows this recruiting process to even take place. This is a relationship, and like all relationships, the social contract must be entered into freely from both parties. But in order for that to happen, we must establish trust. To trust, we must connect. 

The cycle has to start somewhere, so again, we do not just break the ice, we spend the first week (plus) of school doing nothing but getting to know each other. Nothing but connecting. No content. No science. There is no "bell to bell" teaching. No "rules or regualtions". 

We will get to those later, collectively, through our standards setting actvities. Instead we begin talking about what experience we want to have, discussing and defining those standards to make that experience a reality, and then we literally write those commitments down into that visualized reality. They then own it. It is theirs. They have voice, and choice, and it removes (most) of the ambiguity of what their role it and how they fit in. 

It is bell-to-bell recruiting. My students learn things about me. I learn things about them. The results have been astounding. It's amazing what you can learn when you simply ask, and how much captial you can generate by simply sharing parts of yourself with them. 

For example, by learning a couple of my students were talented artists and them learning I had a daughter, these showed up in my email box a couple days after school started. They took the chance to showcase their talents and we now had a connection that would last forever. 

Again, please note, this is not to say our classroom is perfect. Far from it in fact. We still struggle with aspects of routines and standards. I still get frustrated, my students get frustrated. They miss questions. I teach lessons poorly. I am not always as prepared as I need to be, and neither are they. 

But what is important is we have created a framework, an environment, and a climate with which they can build skills that should continue to improve through the year. i=It reduces the amount of #UnfinishedBusiness in the room. It allows us to fight the entropy we know is coming.

Our goal is simply to make the next connection and work on making the next best decision we can.

Each student has a different set of skills, they are unique. Some are more compliant. Some are more creative. Some have more energy. Some buck the system and authority and feel that is the only way they can get the attention they need and crave. Some are more mature than others. Some are more artistic. Some are more athletic. Some lead. Some follow.

And ALL of them are great.

The goal is not to shape them into the perfect model student to make my life easier. The goal is for them to find themselves and use their natural gifts to contribute to the greater good of the class. To serve themselves and serve others.

The one thing they all have in common is that they will all struggle at some point with one or most of these things. One of the reasons they struggle is they are not used to being asked these questions or having these discussions. No one has ever asked them how they feel or what they want. Much less to articulate these things in either writing our out loud in front of other people. It is scary. It’s uncharted waters for a 7th grader (hell, for most adults even). It will take many, many reps; multiple tries. Continuous conversations. Nonstop recruiting. 

Some of them still don’t understand why. And that is OK. It is not necessary that they all have it down today, it is good enough to know that they may tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. It is not about when they get "there", rather that they will. One day.

Bottom line, they all want some version of their classmates and peers to treat each other with respect. They do not want to be bullied. They want to fit in, but in their own way, on their own terms. They want to succeed, and perhaps most importanlty, they DO NOT want to disappoint.

I do not feel like our job is not to compare them to one another (which can be difficult). It is not to pre-judge them before they walk in the room based on last year’s opinions others have formed of them. 

They want teachers (adults in their life) who are patient with them and BELIEVE in them. They do not want their past transgressions to be held against them. They want fresh starts. They deserve fresh starts. Becuse they grow and evolve. They are not the same person they were last year, or even last week in some cases. 

But they can not, nor should they be expected to, navigate all this on their own.

That is where we come in. To help them navigate. To be an ally they can depend on. Someone to model for them. To show them they being imperfect is normal, but also how to own and learn from mistakes, and to life is not about how much content you can retain and spit back out. 

It is about how you treat people. How to serve. How you take what just happened and how to learn it and repsond to it. How to make that next best decision. How to function emotionally, socially, how to find themselves, achieve their optimal experience and help others do the same. 

Finally, this is not just unique to a classroom; it is any team dynamic. A boardroom. A locker room. A household. It is simply the #HumanComponent at work in whichever environment we find ourselves in.

It is Process > Outcome. 

It is Progress > Perfection. 

It is Absolute success > Relative Success. 

And it can not come at the expense of pushing content.

Recruit your students bell-to-bell and I would be willing to bet that more learning will take place than your traditional teaching bell-to-bell ever would. 

What is on today's lesson plan? Today's objective? 

It is simple:

Recruit. Everyone. Every day. 

If you have any questions or would like to talk about processes to recruit those in your daily life more please contact us at admin@essential-coaching.net.