By Dr. Natalie Fallert
I remember when I first started teaching, a seasoned teacher told me, “Don't smile until December!” Thankfully, I did not listen to that seasoned teacher because that is not really my personality, and the longer I'm in education and the more roles I fill, I find this statement to be one of the worst pieces of advice that could be given to any teacher, let alone a new teacher. One thing I have learned in all of these years and roles is that relationships are the key to everything. And it is really hard to have a relationship with someone or like someone who never smiles. Teaching is already hard enough. We don't need to make it harder by pretending we don't enjoy our students. My advice as a seasoned high school teacher is to smile, laugh, and love your students from the first day.
The first 30 days should focus on the ERs: expectations, relationships, routines, respect, and rules. Attending to these in the first few weeks will help establish a safe home for your students and hopefully avoid a true ER triage situation later.
Start on Day One: I understand that you have to go over procedures and rules set forth by your district; no one is saying you shouldn't do that, but when that takes precedence over building a relationship or the true values that you hold, then it sets a tone for the remainder of the year. The key is to find a balance and do both.
Expectations come in a lot of different forms, but one is thinking about what you value and what you expect from your students not only daily, but in the long term.
As a high school English teacher, I want my students to grow as readers and writers and feel confident expressing their thoughts both verbally and in writing. Of course, I also have expectations about being respectful and following procedures, and I will get to those later. Here, I want to focus on growing the learner, not simply securing compliance.
Kittle and Gallagher discuss in their 180 Days book that teachers should model what they value from day one. If you want your students to be readers, then on the first day they should be reading or discussing books. Lead with what you value in your students and content. They need to understand that their learning and growing is the key focus of that classroom. Don't just tell students what you value. Let them experience what you value.
The first few days shouldn't be a rehearsal for the real learning that will happen later. They should be the beginning of it. What makes this work so well is weaving it into relationship-building. Create opportunities to value the learning and learn about your students.
A lot of beginning-of-the-year relationship advice is teacher → student:
"Learn their names!"
"Stand at the door!"
"Ask about their interests!"
No matter what subject area you teach, figure out how to build and establish not only teacher-student relationships but student-to-student relationships. The teacher-student relationship shouldn't be the only thing holding the classroom together. Students need relationships with one another. By the end of the first month, students should know the names of the people they regularly sit beside, have talked with several classmates, and know how to work with someone other than their best friend. Too many students, especially at the secondary level, sit next to kids all year long and still can't tell you their names. Even if you're in a small school or you're teaching students all the same grade level, you cannot assume that they know those students simply because they are classmates in the same grade or same graduating cohort.
Relationships aren't built through one icebreaker. They're built through repeated interactions.
You can build these relationships in the first 5 minutes of every class during the first two weeks by asking students to talk with one another and share low-stakes things or ideas. In a history class, you could ask what war they think was more dramatic and why, or have them share two things from their personal history. In math, you could ask students to share what they like or dislike about the subject, or give them a simple math problem to work on with a partner. It is more important for you to spend 5 to 10 minutes every day building relationships with and among your students than it is for you to jump straight into the curriculum. Whenever possible, use your content to build those relationships.
Here, I can offer a few examples from an English teacher's perspective of how to make this work.
The key is showing students that you can be strict, disciplined, and have high expectations while still knowing and respecting them as individuals. Building that foundation will make difficult conversations and productive struggle possible later.
Routines have to be established, and I'm not just saying the order of events in a classroom. For instance, many people may believe that routine is a bell ringer, mini-lesson, and independent work, which is part of your routine and class structure, but routines go beyond that.
Model everything. Do not expect students to enter your classroom with the same understanding and expectations as you or their peers. You need to establish those in your classroom. No matter how silly it seems or how old your students are, something as simple as how to put their name on a paper document has to be taught. When considering your routines, think about these three categories:
All of these things are routines; establishing, teaching, and practicing them consistently in the first 30 days is a game-changer. I have visited classrooms where students are asked to turn and talk but remain completely silent—not because they are unwilling, but because the routine has not yet become familiar.
There is nothing more powerful than a student who is able to explain what is happening in the classroom or automatically and independently move to the next step without guidance from the teacher.
Respect starts with you modeling the behavior. It is important that you understand and respect your students as individuals and what they bring into your classroom. They, like you, bring different experiences and expectations. Honor that and respect it. Model it, so they will honor and respect that of their peers, creating a warm and inviting environment. When you respect students' identities, experiences, ideas, mistakes, questions, and dignity, they learn
As a teacher, you can maintain very high standards without embarrassing or belittling students.
If you want students to be growth-minded, take risks, and be vulnerable, you have to build respect in your classroom so they feel safe enough to do these things.
Students aren't going to volunteer an uncertain answer, read aloud, share writing, attempt a difficult problem, or challenge an idea if mistakes lead to embarrassment.
Rules may seem cut and dry, which for the most part they are. These five statements can sum up rules:
Key things to remember about rules is that they help keep the other ERs in order, but they should be flexible and, when possible, owned by the students. Consider allowing students to create classroom rules that they own. This may be difficult for upper level classrooms where there are multiple groups of students moving in and out throughout the day, but you could create a joint list that suggests all the students who come through these doors have set forth these rules. Believe it or not most of them will come up with the same rules. Rules should be posted, referred to, and reviewed every few days within the first 30 days. They will most likely need to be reiterated throughout the year. Be flexible. If a rule needs to change, be deleted, or added it is okay no matter what time of the year it is.
Teachers often hear "be consistent," and interpret that as: Never change anything. Never make an exception. Never admit something isn't working.
But consistency is really about students being able to predict the environment.
They should know what happens when they make a mistake. They should know how you will respond. They should know the boundaries. They should know that tomorrow's version of you isn't wildly different from today's.
At the same time, good teachers adjust.
During those first 30 days, pay attention to what students are showing you. Which routines are becoming automatic? Where are students still confused? What did you assume they knew how to do that clearly needs to be taught? If something isn't working, stop, reteach it, practice it again, or change it. Changing a routine doesn't mean you've lost control of your classroom; it means you're responding to the classroom you actually have rather than the one you imagined in August.
I was in a high school classroom where 50% of the students had one, if not two, earbuds in and were kind of following along. I went across the hall, and not one student had earbuds in. Every student had a notebook on their desk, a writing utensil in hand, and some type of highlighter or colored utensil nearby. One student came in late, and the second he walked in the door, he took out his earbuds, put them in his pocket, put his phone in a pouch on the door, sat down and asked his neighbor what they were doing, got out all his materials, and started working. He never once interrupted the teacher or the class. That is an established routine. That is respect. That demonstrates expectations and relationships. And underneath it all are clear rules and boundaries that no longer need to be announced because students know them.
That student wasn't born knowing how to enter that classroom. Someone had taught, modeled, practiced, and reinforced those behaviors until they became habits.
Yes, this blog mainly focuses on the ERs, but I hope you took away that this should take only a few minutes daily with students. The ERs don't require elaborate lessons or weeks of team-building activities. Often, they require only a few intentional minutes each day. Those minutes aren't lost instructional time; they're an investment in future instructional time. When students know how to enter, transition, collaborate, discuss, ask for help, and work independently, you spend less time managing and more time teaching.
As you head into this school year, ask yourself, “What type of environment allows me to do my best learning ?” I am sure your answer will mirror that of your students.
Don't wait to become the classroom you want to be. If you want…
Spend a little time focusing on the ERs up front, so your room doesn’t become a literal emergency room later.
Gallagher, Kelly, and Penny Kittle. 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents. Heinemann, 2018.