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3 Back to School DON'TS for Your Teaching Strategies Toolbox

Back to School with teacher sitting on the desk with students in rows

Depending on where you are in the world, you may be in the back to school mindset as school may resume within a short amount of time for you. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve been reflecting on what all went well and maybe not so well last school year.

But before you go down what could be a never ending rabbit hole, there are 3 DON’TS to be mindful of when it comes to back to school teaching strategies.

1. DON’T Try to Make Too Many Changes at One Time

Having a growth mindset is critical as a classroom teacher. If you have multiple classes in a day, each one is different, just as each school year is not like any other.

Wanting to be better is why we’re great at what we do. But sometimes we can make the mistake of changing too many things at one time. If we do so, we make things a lot harder on ourselves. Teaching is already challenging, and adding too many self-imposed changes will only make it worse.

What I suggest is making a t-chart where in one column you list out what went well. The second column is where you add those things that didn’t go as you’d hoped. From there, at most choose just a couple of things to do differently or add to your teaching strategies.

2. DON’T Avoid Following Through with Consequences

There’s a very high chance you have chosen to educate young minds because you actually like kiddos, at least most of the time. But we as teachers can fail to follow through with consequences when our students choose to break our rules, which then leads to even greater issues like students believing they can do as they please and nothing will be done.

I highly recommend you have posted rules and consequences for students, and DON’T avoid following through with those consequences. There are some students who will quickly learn and take advantage if you give multiple chances and unfortunately will continue to be problematic.

Here are 2 free (plant-themed) PDF digital resources: 5 Classroom Rules and Classroom Consequences.

Having follow-through is definitely one of those lessons I had to learn the hard way. It’s a top teaching strategy that will have a major impact.

3. DON’T Delay Preparing for the Next Day

As the famous motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, “Don’t start the day until you have it finished.” The idea behind this quote is greatly beneficial for us educators. 

Preparing for the next class day can consist of ensuring all copies are made, technology set up, boards updated with the needed information, room arrangement set and so on. 

You may have all intentions of arriving to your classroom with enough time to be ready for your students to arrive. But there may have been a chance you’ve experienced those days where traffic was heavier than expected, you overslept or you were to attend a morning meeting - all of which would make for an interesting start to both you and your students’ day.

Don’t delay adding these DON’Ts to your tool box of teaching strategies, and hack the heck out of your classroom.

Jonquil 💗
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