Prayerful Teaching is Initiating Procedures

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
    who daily bears our burdens.

          Psalm 68:19 (NIV)

Prayer and Meditation

Even though this is not my first year of teaching, I feel as vulnerable and frightened as my first day student teaching.  I know the first few days, even the first few hours will make or break the school year. I worry about my failure to honor my calling as teacher and to determine the procedures necessary to make my classroom a place for joyful learning.  As I surrender my concerns, my uncertainties, and my frailties at the feet of my Father, I trust Him to guide me through those first days with the children whom he has entrusted to me. 

The Actions of Prayerful Teaching

• Reduce discipline problems by implementing procedures.  Procedures are how things are accomplished in a classroom such as turning in papers. Do monitors pick up papers in an orderly fashion?  Do students randomly pass them forward?  

• Every classroom action needs a procedure. Procedures are a major part of classroom management.  Without classroom management in place, confusion will reign, classroom disruptions will be the norm, and learning cannot occur.  The result will be a frustrated teacher, out-of-control students, and a chaotic classroom.

• Model, model, and model again and then model some more.  You are front-loading to prevent future problems.  Students whom you expect will have trouble following the procedure are the best modelers.  Students, even upper grade level students, will not “get it” if you tell them once, twice, or even three times and expect them to remember procedures.  They need to see the procedure in action and be part of the action. 

• Clarify student expectations through procedures.  Procedures are positive statements of classroom actions which concentrate on the “Do” instead of the “Do not.”  Some examples are as follows:
• Quieting down a class by playing transition music, giving a hand signal, or ringing a bell.  The “teacher look” and proximity to students is of utmost importance at this point.
• The morning or class start routine.  (Do you have a place where you consistently post starters for students to complete while you take attendance, collect absence excuses, and attend to early morning paperwork which cannot be completed until students are present, or is this a “free for all” time?)  Students should be able to get themselves started with little or no help from the teacher.  The starters should be relevant to the learning that will take place in the classroom that day.  They can act as formative assessments  Starters are never busy work or time fillers.
• Quick and efficient return of papers.  Nothing wastes time or encourages needless commotion like calling out the name of each student as papers are returned. 

Challenge of the Week:

Consider three obstacles that prevented your classroom from running as smoothly as you would have wished it to run.   Determine what procedures might be able to assist you in overcoming these obstacles.  How will you introduce these procedures and support them throughout the school year?

God Bless and Prayerful Teaching,

Elizabeth A. Wink

prayerfulteaching@gmail.com