Dear We are teachers,
I am in my first year teaching high school biology. Since the start of the new semester, my students are completely indifferent or spend the whole class playing. There is nothing we can do, and it feels like they hate me. How do I reset them to factory settings? And please tell me it doesn’t take weeks?
-I got the New Year Blues
Hello IGTNYB,
If it makes you feel better, I don’t think it’s you. January. And your young readers will leave in two weeks with a combination of TikTok, sugar, and very little sleep. Of course you won’t be so lovely in comparison!
In any case, now is the perfect time to reset. Here are some of my favorite articles on building strong routines, building character, and reinforcing routines in the second grade.
- If you suspect your students need some engagement, here are 5 ways to improve morale when the vibe in your classroom is off. And if you’ve never tried it before, attendance questions and attendance brackets are a great way to engage with your students and get them talking, while doing the work you should be doing at the beginning of class anyway.
- Games and class brain breaks are a great way to combat student inattention. Here are a few of my favorites for middle and high school classrooms: The Odd Game, Wikiracing, this middle school math game, and, surprisingly, this Heads-or-Tails game. They went in with it!
- Here are some quick fixes for a challenging class that you can use overnight! But for long-term reorganization, consider these 50 tips for managing high school classrooms. Or if 50 sounds like too much, I’ve whittled it down to the top 6.
You have this! You are in your first year—be kind to yourself. In time, you’ll learn strategies to get there before the back-to-school slump begins.
Dear We are teachers,
At our high school, students take a new ELA class every semester; so we have a second parent at night in January. It was as if during the lesson at night, I have many parents who say that they criticize or hate the books. One student’s father warned me that this class would not be his son’s first major in engineering (thank you!). Another parent asked if my lesson still works with the advent of AI (cool!). I don’t know if they met on a group text before parent night and agreed to embarrass me together or whatever, but I feel like I’m starting the year on a bad note. How do I remove it? How would you react?
-Not important in Indiana
Dear III,
One of my favorite words from my father-in-law when people say or do something sad is this: “They don’t know.” (Pro tip: it works best if you shake your head while opening it.)
For some reason, people love to tell teachers how they find their elective uninteresting, unimportant, or irrelevant. We often even write an article about it.
I’ve had this problem a few times during my 11 years of teaching, but never several in one night. I would add two things to your first semester supplies.
- Make sure your cover letter or syllabus explains why literacy is still important in 2024.
- In your parent’s evening presentation or literature, include a section called, “How important is literacy, really?” You might say, “Yes, I’ve been asked this by a parent before. But it’s still a good question. Let’s talk about it.”
Basically, you want to knock them out of their humor. And if you think about it, you’re really doing the same thing here with parents that you do with your students with each new unit. Why do we need to know this? Why does it matter?
Dear We are teachers,
I teach in middle school. As school has started to wind down, I’ve had students ask a question that they know is well worth it: “Is it big?”
When I teach about Charybdis in the Odyssey: “Was it great? Can you say what the girth is?” If I say there is a big snow in the forecast: “Is it big? How big is it?” When I say they have a few questions about homework: “Is the homework big, though? Would you say it’s bigger than Mr. Nguyen’s?”
I tried to play it, but they keep showing it. I know it’s a reference to some internet meme, and I know that any attention I give it will only make it worse. But I worry that at some point, an administrator will come to check on me and see this “big” issue in my classroom. What should I do?
– Very Irritable
Dear MA,
This is not just annoying; it is abuse. It is also grounds for a Title IX complaint as it is unwanted sexual conduct in the workplace or school, and includes any employee or student at a federally funded school.
Here’s what you do. Have an open discussion with each of your classes: a “big” discussion is not appropriate for school because of its meaning, and it doesn’t matter if they agree or not. Then, explain what Title IX is. Once they understand that, explain that continuing the joke after you’ve made it clear it’s inappropriate is grounds for a Title IX complaint against them. Also, it can lead to disciplinary action that remains on their record forever. (Run all of this through an administrator ahead of time to make sure you’re transmitting accurate information.)
Make sure students know that any continuation of the joke will be emailed verbatim to both parents/guardians and your administrator. They may have the courage to say it to you, but something tells me they don’t have the courage to say it to adults.
Do you have a burning question? Email us at [email protected].
Dear We are teachers,
I am in my first year of teaching and school starts on Monday. After thinking about last semester’s problems over the break, I feel like I need to reset a large class of my 5th graders by following directions. Are there any procedures, processes, procedures, etc., that you would recommend so that I don’t find myself repeating the same thing 8 million times this semester?
—Let’s get down to business
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