School Success: A Healthy, Happy Routine

This quote came from Chris Emdin's Book,
For White Folks that Teach in the Hood and the Rest of Y'all. 

What matters with regard to the new school year for teachers and students alike is establishing a healthy, happy routine. It's important that the routine is loose-tight which means it's tight enough to happen most of the time, but loose enough to give way for revision and change when needed.

That kind of flexible, but mostly predictable routine does what Gmelch notes in the quote to the right--provides control and confidence, and that's what we want for ourselves and for the children we parent and teach.

One good way to establish this routine is to co-create it with your students and/or children by asking the following questions:

• What's important to us?
• What goals have we set?
• How can we help each other?
• Who is going to be in charge of what?

Routines established with effort and commitment early in the school year tend to stick, and it's much more difficult to establish new routines later in the school year so it's important to give those the initial routine setting the time and attention it deserves as that's what you'll mostly live with for the rest of the school year. 

What routines will you set for the upcoming school year? How will you practice and solidify those routines in the early weeks of the year? What signage will you use to announce and relay the routines?

These are questions I'm focusing on now as I set a few good routines for the year ahead.