Compass PD Episode 36: Holiday Season Survival for Teachers

Ever battled the end-of-year frenzy in your classroom? Chaos seems to have a field day with homecoming, Halloween, elections, and holidays all vying for your and your students' attention. But worry not! Join us for a transformative conversation with educators Dr. Carrie Hepburn and Dr. Natalie Fowler from Compass PD as they provide a lifeline with practical strategies to navigate this whirlwind period.

As high school teachers know, the challenge of maintaining academic focus amidst shortened bell schedules for assemblies is a tricky balancing act. We uncover the significance of incorporating mini-lessons and practice activities and the potential of implementing flipped classrooms to counteract this disruption. But don't miss out on the essential angle of sensitively maintaining inclusivity during holiday-themed lesson planning. We underline the need to prioritize core curriculum and skills even more during this period.

Let's not ignore the elephant in the room - the holiday season. It comes with its share of potential absences and difficult family situations for students. We'll arm you with proactive strategies to prepare for these. Plus, we'll share tips on making work relevant and tied to the curriculum to prevent students from falling behind. Because acknowledging and addressing the potentially harmful effects of the holiday season for some students is as crucial as academics, so, lend us your ears for this episode crammed with valuable insights and strategies to help you thrive amidst classroom disruptions during the holiday season!

Check out previous episodes with Dr. Fallert
Episode 18: Cultivating Classroom Excellence
Episode 19: Embracing Classroom Routines
Episode 24: An Innovative Approach to Enhance Student Success and Motivation
Episode 30: A Deep Dive Into Goal Setting, Monitoring, and Tracking

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, hello, hello. Dr Carrie Hepburn here from Compass PD. I am the founder of Compass PD and am so excited to be joined by my colleague and good friend, Dr Natalie Fowler.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Hi Natalie, hello, Hello, how are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:28

Good, I think we both got little ruffles today. I feel like I'm channeling you when I wear my ruffles, because you always have these cute little ruffles up there and it makes you feel happy and excited. I do like ruffles, so nothing that's funny. So anything fun going on in your life right now.

Speaker 2: 0:52

I guess we're just getting ready for the holidays and family coming in town. I actually have some kind of crappy things that have happened. We recently had to put one of our dogs down and that was just a terrible experience. All right, we're ready for the holidays to come in and being a Compass PD family and celebrate the things that we do have in our life and what we are thankful for.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Yeah, it does. That is kind of a lot right before the holidays are happening, and kind of some stinky stuff. There's something about the holidays, though, and seeing everyone that just makes you happy and thankful for that time. Sometimes I'm thankful that we get a short time and then we get a little bit of time away from each other. So we have a large family, and all of our family lives everywhere around the US, so it's a challenge to get us all together. Okay, well, some exciting stuff that we need.

Speaker 2: 1:53

It's great news of things happening, but we are real people and things happen that sometimes aren't the best, but that's all right.

Speaker 1: 2:03

I know They'll go on. I guess both of us lost our dog within like three weeks of each other and it was terrible. It was just terrible. So I'm kind of sort of hoping one just magically appears under the Christmas tree for me. But I'm not with all the travel my husband's like no, no dogs right now, no puppies. But if one happened I wouldn't be unhappy or sad, I will say that.

Speaker 2: 2:35

So okay. Well, my other dog, gash, is, I think, really sick of me cuddling with him. He's just like oh my goodness, I'm disgusted because I just I kind of keep smothering him. So it'll be all right.

Speaker 1: 2:50

I totally get it. Well, I am happy that you're joining us today, Natalie. You're going to be sharing information with teachers. Today's podcast aims to give teachers some ideas about the final month which is wild of 2023. Here we are, finishing 2023 and teachers are preparing for winter breaks. What are some things that teachers should have on their radar right now?

Speaker 2: 3:21

So when I think about like back, whenever I was in the classroom and this time of the year, and then also now working in schools and watching my kids navigate the halls during this time, the only thing that comes to my mind is utter chaos. And I think about if I were in a high school, depending on like and sometimes just depending on the school district that you're in, because sometimes it's a district wide thing, sometimes it is just a high school thing, but most high school kids are coming off of a week of homecoming, most likely, and I'm totally sure. And then you add into that so that could be a district wide thing or it could just be a high school thing. But then you add in the end of the month of October, which is Halloween, and this year Halloween felt on a lovely Tuesday. So it disrupts all day, tuesday, and it disrupts Wednesday, wednesday, right.

Speaker 2: 4:12

And then you think about if your district is impacted by elections or, if you, if it's impacted by Veterans Day. So I know that in my district where my kids go to school, they won't. They went to school on Veterans Day, but the entire day was simple, all day, and they were just like rotating in and out and busing kids in and out of the high school, and then you get into Thanksgiving break and that's a shortened week, and then you start December and you've got you know what. What are they called? Like Christmas. Some people call them, still call them Christmas parties, some people call them holiday parties or winter parties.

Speaker 2: 4:50

And then you have winter breaks, so you have all this kind of chaos that is going on in this disruption within the normal class time. I also know that a lot of people take vacations during this time, so they go to visit family, and so they'll just take the whole week off for Thanksgiving, or they'll leave early for Christmas. Especially if they're from another country, they'll go and do an extended stay, and so this absence of instructional time, however that looks, seems to be very prominent during these last couple months of the year and a lot of times. Some school districts have a hard break in December and they start their second semester when they come back in January. But if you don't, then there's still such a long break in December that you almost want to end a unit so that you can start another unit in January. You don't want to pick up in the middle of a unit because it's hard for kids to transition, and so you're really pressed for that time. Yeah, so whenever I, when you kind of ask me like what do you want to talk about today, I want to talk about these like disruptions and hopefully maybe provide a few insights and possibly some tips to help teachers weather this storm.

Speaker 2: 6:08

First, I want to take everyone back to one of my earlier broadcasts where we talked about setting up routines within your classroom. This provides security in the stability of routines for your kids. When kids know what to expect, then their behaviors are curved and learning is actually able to take place. So these disruptions like class parties, assemblies, half days, longer breaks in school any of those things are occurring or they become more frequent.

Speaker 2: 6:40

It's important for teachers to try their best to keep as many routines in place and provide some stability to their students. And if you know that there's going to be a disruption like a planned party or an assembly, consider setting your kids up ahead of time to let them know that there will still be learning on those days and consider giving them a brief outline of what that may look like. And I feel that too often teachers will take those days and just be like well, I'm going to talk it up, I'm not going to do anything. Well, in an elementary school, that's a lot of little kids doing nothing. That's just how terrible the main thing is.

Speaker 1: 7:21

And in high school.

Speaker 2: 7:22

You might or you know high school, middle school or kids are switching hours you might think, well, I'm not going to do anything in my class.

Speaker 2: 7:27

Well, if everybody takes that approach, then now you have middle school and high school kids who aren't doing anything all day long, and that sounds terrible. So if in elementary, like let's say that there's a party scheduled, you might want to be thinking about, like, what time of the day is that party going to take place and how can you still use the time that you have in class to have some some type of meaningful instruction? Don't just do like a pumpkin project, right, and like, choose a few priority skills or standards that could either be introduced or reiterated during that time, and think about laying out a schedule for your kids the day before or even a couple days before, like, hey, I know we've got this party or this assembly, but we're still going to be doing some learning on this day and this is what it's going to look like. So if, like, the party is happening at the end of the day and there's really no reason for you to waste the rest of the day, everything should be business as usual until they get to that party.

Speaker 2: 8:26

But if the party, I know that, like some schools will rotate their party so that like first grades in the morning, so that the parking lot is not crazy, you know, with parents, and so they stagger them. So when you're thinking about that, like if your party's in the middle of the day, then plan for your morning routine to be as normal or as possible so that you're still getting some learning in, and then, like, the party happens, and then after that party, I would not plan for that. Tier one instruction You're gonna want to plan for more small groups or sometimes some individual conferencing time with kids, because, let's face it, if it's in the middle of the day, you have a lot of parents. 50% of them are gonna take their kiddos home with them, so you're only gonna have a few kids that are left and, honestly, most likely they might be kids who probably struggle a little bit in school and Are there, you know, for the remainder of the day, and so you could use this as Enriching time for those kids or even intervention time to kind of work on some they haven't done in the past, and this is great for those kids because then they get some one-on-one centered around their education. Love that, love those ideas.

Speaker 2: 9:43

And I the only other tip that I would give if you're doing that morning. If you're an elementary teacher and you have that morning party, it's maybe even sending out an email to your parents ahead of time Communicating that you don't want them to take their kid, that hey, that this party in the morning. But I Would really like for them to stay and finish up the day, because that's a lot of instructional time it would be losing. And so maybe doing the party in the morning, letting them wind down into lunch and then after lunch, go back to your routines and that and that structure within that day. And that's another hard one, because if half of your kids leave, then you still want to do some instructional pieces with those kids. But it Did, you do a full tier one. Instruction when half of your kids are gone Doesn't really make a lot.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Right right. I think reminding parents that the work that we're doing in school is important and kids being here regularly Is important, and that we have a lot that we need to cover before they leave for that winter break Could be a nice way of just kind of reiterating to parents that, hey, in that email, I need your kids here Because it's important.

Speaker 2: 11:02

I think about that too, as as a parent. But if it was in the morning, I would feel bad if I did, if I went to the party and then I left without my kid and I didn't have to go back to work, I was just going home. I would feel bad not taking my kid, I really would right. So to be given permission from the teacher yeah, I don't want you to take my kid is Actually a weight off my shoulders as well, because it would be like, oh, like, I'm coming and I'm gonna participate in the party and I want to watch my kids and there's learning that needs to be done. So I'm gonna respect that and I'm gonna leave my kid, I'm gonna go. I actually think that that's kind of a win-win on both sides. But mm-hmm, thank you.

Speaker 2: 11:40

And so now kind of shifting gears to high school, and this can kind of be tricky because some schools offer an alternative bell schedule on assemblies to where you still go to every class, but it's shortened periods, and then some do not do that, and so if they are doing that shortened bells bell schedule so that you get to see all of your kids, you need to take a hand into this, even if you only have 20 minutes, it's easy to say, oh, we only have 20 minutes, I'm not gonna do anything.

Speaker 2: 12:07

But 20 minutes after eight periods is a lot of time. The kids are doing nothing all day long and I used to teach English and so I. I mean we have like end-of-course exams that are a passage and then multiple choice questions, for the ACT is passage and the multiple choice questions Most of them are supposed to be done in under 10 minutes, like you're supposed to be able to read the passage and answer the multiple choice questions, and then are 10 minutes. So you could easily do something like this to gauge where your students are. If you're at that high school, no matter the subject area, you could probably pull some practice ACT questions and do those with your students for that appropriate grade level or you know whatever, and I think about many lessons Like many lessons should be between seven and ten minutes.

Speaker 2: 12:54

You could easily teach a mini lesson and, like kids, practice for 15,. You know 10 to 15 minutes and it's not wasted time and they know that, like every time they come in this class, we're gonna be reading or writing, or we're gonna be doing you know whatever. But don't, don't discount those 20 minutes. Find something that you can do, because that is like it just keeps those routines in place for your kids.

Speaker 1: 13:22

I also think it shows that this class and the work that we're doing is important, so important that even when we only have 20 minutes, we're going to learn, we're going to practice, we're doing something, and when they aren't doing something, that's an easy text home to say can you call me out, can I leave school today? And that just becomes a habit that in life you can't just get called out of work when, when things are a little boring or you don't want to do it.

Speaker 2: 13:57

We have a lot of kids who aren't into the school spirit right, and so if they know that there's an assembly that day, or a prep assembly for homecoming or whatever, they might avoid school that entire day because their response is we aren't doing anything. And all too often they're correct, like they aren't doing anything all day long until the prep assembly, and they aren't even like big school spirit kids, and so they don't even want to go to the assembly, and then it like they don't even want to come all day. And so that is another mindset shift, just as an entire high school building to be keeping that in mind that no, we're going to do academic things all the way up until this point and then you're going to go for this. I think that another layer of this at the high school level that I see is if they don't do adjusted belt schedules, so you just lose your fifth and sixth hour or whatever that is. It's easy sometimes for a teacher to say, well, and I I'm not going to disagree with this that like if I teach English one first, third, fifth, sixth and seventh hour and my fifth, sixth and seventh hour are going to miss that day, and I'm like do I really want all of them off pace with each other Like that just makes my life harder, and so they won't teach first and second or first and third period, because five, seven are missing out. So this is where I would say that if you ever do flip classrooms and you wouldn't want to introduce it on the day of an assembly, getting your kids accustomed to doing some flip classrooms every now and then, or introducing it at the beginning of the year and saying on days that we are going to have assemblies, we're going to do flip classrooms, and that flip classroom goes to everybody, and then you know the kids are. So if you don't know what a flip classroom is, it's where you would like teach your lesson on a video and the kids would watch that as homework and then, or they would read something as homework, that then they would come and do the application in class and practice, and so the first and third hour would take the practice, but your fifth, sixth and seventh wouldn't. They still got the instruction and then they would have the opportunity to add that instruction into practice later days. But again, keeping in mind that idle hands are the devil's playground and making sure that you have good instructional lessons going on on those days, even amidst the disruptions.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Another disruption that we see this time of the year is a heightened focus on holidays for instructional purposes, and I want to bring this up for a few reasons. Number one it is important to be sensitive and aware of the diverse cultures, religions and beliefs in your classroom. In planning projects, lessons, assignments, activities, anything. The core curriculum, which is your standards and your skills, should remain the heart of the lesson, not the hollow.

Speaker 2: 16:56

So consider giving multiple ways that you can assess the work of your students, and a holiday theme can be an option, but should not be the only option. You should always offer a secular option as well. We also have to consider the psychological impacts of holidays and brains, and not everybody enjoys that time at home because it might not be a safe environment for them. It might not be a healthy environment for them and, keeping that in mind, that if that entire month leading up to that break we are just talking about Christmas and celebrating Christmas and all these things, and then you have this kid that doesn't want to celebrate any of that and every day you're just kind of poking and poking and poking and poking. But try to keep your content specific to your skills and your strategies.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Not necessarily the holidays, the holidays, and I think we have more children than ever that are homeless or in foster care, and the holidays are not necessarily joyous occasions for them. And so I agree with you our curriculum shouldn't harm children. It shouldn't be harmful, and our instruction shouldn't be harmful for children. We should always be keeping them and leading the work of teaching students the skills and strategies with empathy and thinking about all of the different things that they're facing. So this is really good to say out loud, even though we don't say it out loud very often, and I think it's important for us to be proactive. So, all of the things right now, are you setting teachers up so that they can be proactive for what's about to come and they can be thinking with their students at the forefront of their mind?

Speaker 2: 19:01

And I love that. You said this is harmful because I could see somebody responding to me like how is talking about Christmas harmful? Like I understand that response because we don't live in that world. Like I live in a world where I decorate, like I already have Christmas mats out in front of my house and my kids were counting down the days before the Christmas music started on the radio, and that's the house we live in and most of the time people don't show you that other house that they're living in. They put on a brave face and they come to school and we don't think about those situations. But watch any home art movie and you will see it Right, and it doesn't end with a happy ending, you know.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Right, right. So thank you, thank you for sharing.

Speaker 2: 19:50

I think one of the best examples is the movie Gremlins, where the girl in there hates Christmas because she had this tragic of it. You've never seen Rimmelands? Oh my God, I've never seen it. No, I don't watch television at all. This was like from the 80s or whatever.

Speaker 1: 20:05

I know.

Speaker 2: 20:06

So her dad used to dress as Santa and he slid down the chimney and died in the chimney, oh yeah, and so she hates Christmas because psychologically, like it, took her dad and so we don't even you know like things like that can happen. And so, either way, sorry, I died.

Speaker 1: 20:23

Chris, no, I understand Okay.

Speaker 2: 20:27

Okay. One more disruption that is really completely out of a teacher's control is scheduled absences for whatever reason. We're going on vacation, we're going to visit family. This could happen anytime of the year, but we see it happening a little bit more as November and December come around. We need to be thinking about this is really hard, because I always hated it whenever a kid would come to me and say Mrs Valer, I'm headed on a cruise and I need my work for 10 days, and after I got a side, like I had to set aside my envy and jealousy for them going on a cruise and I'm still here teaching.

Speaker 2: 21:02

It was always so hard for me to get their work together for X amount of days because they would come to me a week before they were leaving and they want their work for two weeks out from there. And that's not how I taught, like I always taught. I had a big picture, like I knew where I was going and where I needed to be by a certain day, but I was very responsive to the needs of my kids. So I didn't have we're doing this worksheet on day one and we're doing this one on day. I didn't have any of that planned. It was like what do my kids need today in order to get them where we're going? And so that was always really hard for me to get that stuff together.

Speaker 2: 21:41

If I was an elementary teacher, I think I would hurt somebody if they asked me for all of that work, because you're planning for multiple subject areas for multiple days that take instruction, that go along with it Like I don't even know how you would ever be right to be perfect exams. So when I think about that, I think about I think this would be an easy thing to do.

Speaker 2: 22:02

So you have to put it in the perspective from this way, just stepping back and saying, okay, during these 10 days, what am I going to be accomplishing with my other kids? What are the big standards, the big goals that I've got going on? And so let's say that you're writing something in an English class. Then I would want to be like, okay, where are you going? And I would try to figure out a way to give them assignment that was relevant to them in the location that they're going to be at, that could tie to my subject area. So let's say we're doing something persuasive. I might say, all right, you're going to Tahiti for 10 days. I want you to write a travel brochure as to why this is the best destination to go to.

Speaker 2: 22:46

So persuade me, because it's going to be really hard, right To persuade me to go to Tahiti, or maybe it's an informational piece and so when you go there, I want you to do some interviews with your family, or I want you to tell me about this place. If it was a social studies class, you might ask them to do like geography of it, or what are the imports and exports of that area, or what is the history of this area.

Speaker 2: 23:11

So science class you could ask them to look at the foliage and the vegetation. You could have them look at the genealogy of their family and the attributes that different people had like whatever it is, figure out a way that you tie it to the content, make it relevant for them and you're not replanting it ahead of time, necessarily, but you're still hitting those standards and they're still doing something and being held accountable for that work.

Speaker 1: 23:39

Yeah, I know, in elementary a lot of times we would have students. They would. You know it was in reading. You need to read a book, kind of thing, and maybe prepare for one or two book talks when you come back. Another thing would be writing. So they would be writing. If we were in an informational unit, they could write information about wherever. If we're in a narrative unit, they could write a story. We were in a persuasive.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Again, just like what you said, math was tricky because sometimes those skills, the new skills, required intense instruction and so trying to catch them up with that, if there was any way to get them where they weren't losing that instruction, we would share things like that. And then science and social studies we made it really more of a fun thing. So these are all really great tips and things that should be on teachers' radars as they are in November and December and getting ready for ending the school year or not ending the school year, ending the year of 2023, and then ending first and second quarters or first semester. So, as we think about the end of 2023, what are some predictable problems teachers are gonna be facing right now?

Speaker 2: 25:01

I think that running out of time is where a lot of people, because the disruptions and the chaos we, If we have a clean break in December, then that's you your grades are due.

Speaker 1: 25:15

So, there's a clean break.

Speaker 2: 25:18

If not, then you kind of want a clean break in a unit or something so that there's not this gap between those two. And I think, just remembering that you need to get in as much instructional time as possible and don't Dismiss that. It's only 20 minutes moments, use them to your advantage, because you know, I think about, just like my children. In the month of from October 31st until when they'll leave for Thanksgiving break or whatever, they had a field trip one day. They had a half day one day. They've got another half day coming up and a trip me today for a half of a day. It's like a school-wide tribute, a and then they had the better day. So four days of instruction lost in two weeks, like that's, that's crazy, that's almost 50%. I mean, yeah, they lost 40% of the learning days because of that stuff and and so if if a teacher taught for 20 minutes every one of those days in every subject area, then they're really probably only losing two of those four. You just cut it right, right. So when we wonder about like, what like, are we getting through everything? We'll cut the fluff and and Teach every second that you have the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 26:48

And then the other thing that I think about coming up on closing out 2023 is the burnout from students, is that they start to get burned out, they start shutting down and this is a time that you could introduce something fun to kind of reinvigorate them. I think of Like I think this is kind of easy for English to do, but actually hard because nobody wants to read. Right, it's an easy way to kick things off, but you can even do it school-wide In a sense that like like creating book clubs and like fun book clubs. So start December off and like we're gonna start book clubs in December, that so that you're reading over Christmas break or Winter break or whatever you call it, but make them fun might be one way, you know, to just kind of get kids back into Like conversing and talking and reading about things.

Speaker 1: 27:41

Yeah, it does lift the energy level. The topics can be really fun, which increases engagement and motivation for them. I found, too, it was a great time to do writing clubs in elementary and we could embed Science or social studies and within science or social studies so it could be more cross-curricular. Those groups could be studying different Parts of the science topic topic or the social studies topic that we were studying at that time. So I think book clubs, writing clubs, just kind of something that gives students choice and Excitement and a project to work on, where they're all working on something, is a great way to take times where Burnout is high, energy levels are low, and just get everyone, like you know, excited again, rejuvenated again about the learning. So that's a great tip. Well, what tip or reminder do you want to share with teachers as we wrap up this conversation today?

Speaker 2: 28:43

I think the two things I would share would be that you control the chaos. You can either keep it at bay or you can let it recap it, and if you you know you don't underestimate the power of those 20 minutes, yeah, you can control what they're doing during that time. Either you let them run around like chickens with their head cut off or you have some structured time and that helps with that chaos and it also keeps you instructionally focused and let your kids know the reason why you're there and again, those routines, and that's stability. Some kids thrive on that, like it's not just right, you need it, and when we don't give that to them, we are actually causing harm.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Mm-hmm for sure. Well, dr Fowler, thank you so much for sharing your brilliance. I want to highlight a couple podcasts that Natalie has done previously. So I want to highlight to you episode 18, cultivating classroom excellence insights from a Season educator. This is where dr Fowler talks about kicking off the school year and Starting the school year really well.

Speaker 1: 29:56

Then, in episode 19, embracing classroom routines for enhanced student learning and well-being, she talks with us about the importance of setting up strong routines in our classrooms. And then she comes back in episode 24 and she talks about innovative approaches to enhance student learning and success, student success and motivation. And here she talks to us about setting goals with students and Creating a pathway to turn short-term objectives into long-term Goals and big successes. And then in episode 30, she comes back and she talks about Empowering students, diving deep into goal setting and monitoring and tracking. All of those will be linked in our show notes Below, like, if you look at our show notes, if you didn't know, compass PD has a big goal of impacting the learning of 1 million students.

Speaker 1: 30:50

One way you can help us meet that goal is by sharing this podcast with a fellow educator and if you find this learning helpful, our team works with leaders and teachers in school districts Every day reach out to us and we would be happy to talk with you about how we can help you reach your ambitious goals. Thank you, natalie. Thank you, have a great day, everyone, you.