First, I need to give you a little background story…
We are vacationing with our horses in Tennessee. You guys! If you haven’t visited the foothills and mountains of Tennessee on horseback, you need to add it to your bucket list! This place is gorgeous. And if you compare the weather to Southern Indiana, it’s downright divine.
Our first day riding was quite painful for me. I assumed it was all my doing for two reasons 1.) I’m out of shape and 2.) I have never had official riding lessons (that should translate to: I have a horse and a husband who take very good care of me!). I have no idea if my stirrups are adjusted correctly, if the saddle is tight enough or too tight, etc. There are about 582 different ways to adjust a saddle and I don’t know any of them. I do know that I have always been a little uncomfortable riding.
Well, this first day out was just plain awful! I was in so much pain that I almost cried for the last 45 minutes of our roughly 5 hour ride. My knees were killing me. I have had problems with them the last few months so I assumed it was a combination of my fitness level and bad knees.
We discussed a multitude of possible causes and solutions (different/new saddle, new stirrups, changing the stirrup length, and more) and in my head they all boiled down to: I’m doing something wrong and I won’t be able to fix it.
[Stick with me, I promise I’ll get to a connection to comprehensible input soon!]
The next day was forecast to be rainy all day, so we made plans to go to town and do some after-Christmas shopping. On the way out, my husband suggested I find some new boots that weren’t as wide (I was wearing hiking boots because my cowgirl boots aren’t warm enough for this time of year) and that had a little heel on them. They didn’t necessarily have to come from a tack shop or boot store. Just a comfortable boot.
I was willing to try anything.
We went to town and I found boots right away then we completed our other “bargain shopping” and returned to the cabin.
Today, I wore those boots out on the trail. You guys, that teeny, tiny, little change made a WORLD of difference! While I wasn’t pain-free, I was definitely in less pain riding than I had been in a very long time. And it got me to thinking….
What if the change we need in our classrooms is also a teeny, tiny adjustment?
If you are struggling with classroom management, try thinking about what students need rather than what you need to change. Maybe they need more routine – as in the same thing every, single class period – or classroom jobs.
Or, maybe you have too many Alpha Dogs in one room who are all fighting for power. Think about what kind of power you can give them and go about doing it systematically. Classroom jobs can come in handy here, also.
Maybe you just have one Alpha Dog and he/she is fighting with YOU for the power. (You can read about how I won over just such a guy here). What is the one, tiny thing you can give him/her to make your life easier?
Your students complain about the class novel and say it’s boring. Maybe the tweak you need to make is variety. That can seem like a big one – but really, committing to providing a variety of input methods and post-reading strategies may be all you need. You can read about how I approach novels here (Teaching a Whole Class Novel and Using Novels with Novel Ideas).
Maybe, you are like me during my first year with CI and you have no focus and no clue where you are going. The small thing you need to do is to backwards plan from where you want to end up. This also seems big, but the few hours it will take to do it will seem tiny in comparison to the increased focus of your lessons.
Or, maybe you just can’t get the hang of storyasking (not as easy as it looks!). The tiny change you need to make is switching to Movie and Picture Talks. You can still target your structures and you can take out the yells and guessing that so often threw me off track.
Thank you, JJ. I've been enjoying your recent posts!
Becky 🙂