I started two residencies this week, and it reminded me how “make or break” the First Day is. A good First Day lays the foundation for a successful residency; a bad one truly sets you back. In honor of my newest residencies, I’m starting a series of posts about building a First Day that will set you up for a successful taiko class.
Three critical things happen on the first day. This post talks about #1: the students learn your behavioral expectations. I talk about K-3 strategies here and will talk about higher grades next time.
The winning strategy with all grades is to set clear expectations and be consistent and immediate with consequences AND with reinforcement when kids do well. With K-3 students, I teach a rules chant on the first day. The video shows me introducing these rules as a chant to a new 2nd grade class.
(Note, these rules work for me, but if they don’t feel like a fit for you, Google “music classroom rules” for literally thousands of examples.)
I introduce the chant on the First Day, and then it becomes our focusing activity for the rest of the residency. At my schools, students walk from their regular classroom to the room where I’m teaching. Never underestimate how completely a walk across the school campus can derail a kid! They absolutely need an activity like this to focus when they get to you. These kids will say the chant every week at the beginning of class, and they’ll have it perfect by Week 4.
Rules aren’t effective unless there’s a consequence for breaking and positive reinforcement for following. For my K-3 classes, I draw a happy face and a sad face on the whiteboard. When the majority of the class follows a rule (i.e., everyone listens the whole time I’m giving directions) I put a check under the happy face. When a rule is broken, I put a check under the sad face. At the end of class, I make a big deal of having the happy face checks cancel out the sad face checks. I introduce this system in the latter part of this video. Kids this age really respond to this approach!
Lots of classroom teachers have some kind of behavior reward system in their classrooms. (For example, they put marbles in jar when the class shows good behavior. When the jar is full, the class gets a pizza party or something). See if the teachers you’re working with have a system like this and if they’re willing to tie behavior in taiko class to their existing system (i.e., they put a marble in the jar if the class has more happy face checks than sad face checks in a day, and take one out if the reverse if true).
That’s it! Next time I’ll talk about establishing expectations with older students. Although my focus is on in-school taiko programs, this approach can be easily adapted for out-of-school programs. Contact me if you want some suggestions for that. Until then, happy teaching!