I know that you all are looking forward to the Thanksgiving break.  I hope that you will take time amidst the food and family to re-energize yourself.  Look for energy saving tips in this Newsletter for being in the midst of a big family gathering.  I love Thanksgiving because I believe we need a holiday that lets us take time to be grateful for all that is good and wonderful in our lives, and there is a great deal.  That being said, I also know that getting together with family can be challenging and energy training if we aren’t careful to take care of ourselves.

I also hope that you will take this time to reflect on the first part of the 2006-2007 school year.  How it is going for you?  This is a good time of the year to assess your progress and come up with some new strategies to make your work more successful and enjoyable.  With a little reflection and a few suggestions from me, you can have a fresh start on November 27^th instead of thinking “Oh, boy how will I make it ‘til the Christmas break?

Here are a few good questions to ask yourself in your moments of reflection:

• Am I enjoying my teaching experience this year?
• If not, why not?
• What could I do---not my principal, not someone’s parent or anyone else---just me---do to make it better for myself?
• Do I need some help with a particular student?
• Do I feel comfortable asking for help?
• What do I know about this student besides how he or she misbehaves?
• If I turned the aggravating behavior up side down, what strength would this student be displaying?
• Can I capitalize on that strength to help this student settle down and work for me?

Now for the suggestions:

1)  If you are not enjoying your teaching, then make a commitment to yourself to put some fun into your curriculum. 

2)  Plan a contest with your students.  Get them to compete with each other for prizes.  Go to the Dollar Store nearest you a buy a little bit of silly stuff for prizes.  Consider it an investment in your own fun quotient.  Give them a chance to earn bidding points. Give bidding points for work completed, right answers, quiet, cooperation or anything else you can think of.  Then on Friday, auction off the stuff.  Teachers have told me this is a great strategy for keeping students on task.  They can earn bidding points or bonus bucks or whatever you want to call their earning to bid on the silly stuff.  It’s fun

3)  Ask another teacher “What do you do for fun in your class?” Too much fun has been taken out of the educational process.  Add a little back in and you’ll be surprised how much enjoyment can be had in the learning process.

4)  Accept the fact that the only thing you can really change about your teaching situation is you.  Don’t waste energy dreaming of the day you will have the perfect students, with deeply committed parents and a wonderful administration that backs you up entirely.  May your dream come true but in the meantime--- you are it, and   you can do something different for yourself.

5)  Make a decision to try some new strategy with your most challenging students.  Ask them what they think would make your class more fun and interesting and what do they need to help them settle down and cooperate or at least not interfere with other people’s desire to learn.  Make this an essay question that gives them extra points.  You might be surprised at what you learn from them.

6)  Tell you students that you have thought a lot about them and the classroom situation while you were away and you have decided to make a single request from everyone of them.   Here it is.  Would everyone agree to treat every body in this room with sincere respect?  Define respect as the one word Golden Rule.  Then discuss how they want to be treated and what they consider disrespectful.  Tell them that once you all agree to what is, and is not, respectful then you are going to ask them all to make the commitment to make your classroom a Respect Only Environment  Sometimes they will do something they have agreed to in a reasonable fashion instead fighting the same thing when it is imposed on them.

7)  Get the focus on the positive. Give each student a small list of what you consider their natural strengths and talents and ask others to add to the list is they want.

8)  Remember that the student who can take the attention of the entire class away from you is a natural leader.  Get them to lead the class in some aspect of the daily routine.  Make them your ally.