A lot of times, we are told to present ourselves in a professional manner. We might even remain reserved while at work. As teachers, this can sometimes be a weird balance because we deal with an insane schedule and energized students on a daily-basis. And in order to deal with or survive the heavy tasks of teaching, we must EMBRACE THE CRAZY.
I mean this phrase of “embrace the crazy” in several ways. The first is that when you put 25 to 40 students in a room, let alone a 1000 or more in a school building, you are going to have a lot of variables.
The other part of embracing the crazy is that we all need to bring in our crazy side. Have fun at work and let your students see your authentic and fun self. They will feel connected to you and you will hopefully enjoy work. I think that I was mainly known for being the Solo cup lady. Several years ago, I needed a solution to a problem that I was having. As I was creating more and more student centered and personalized learning lesson plans, I noticed there was a pattern of behavior. A handful of students were using the excuse of holding their hand up as a reason for not being productive. At that time, I had anywhere from 35-40 students in my room. So, I did some research and came up with the Green Cup and Red Cup method. It sounds a little bit like a Dr. Seuss book: One Cup, Two Cup, Red Cup, Green Cup. Each desk had the red and green cup stacked at the corner. I mainly used the cups as informal assessments to check for understanding.
Red Cup = I am confused, have a question, or need guidance.
Green Cup = I am good to go. At this time, I am figuring things out on my own.
The idea behind the signals via cup color was that an expectation was now set. You had both of your hands to do the work, but if you had a question or concern, you would signal the teacher or peer that you needed help by putting the red cup on top of the stack. In the meantime, the student was to continue working on what they could until I could get to them. The nice thing too was that when a student changed the cup on their desk, I heard it. I would look up and signal to them that I saw they needed to talk to me, and I would give them the acknowledgement that I was aware of it.
This significantly reduced anxiety.
And, it gave the students a safe environment to take risks and to keep working (time management, organization, prioritizing skills). My minor questions reduced because students were encouraged to try something first. As the years rolled on, I continued to keep the cups on my desk. I had all kinds of students walk by my room, stop, look at the cups, and ask me “what was with the cups.” For the longest time, I had fun with it. I would tell them that there was an initiation into my class and that I couldn’t tell them unless they took my class. It drove this one kid nuts.
I continued to find ways to use those cups. Sometimes I would start the beginning of the class with a true and false or agree and disagree question.
Red Cup = False or Disagree
Green Cup = True or Agree
You could then do a pair and share by having the students find someone with the same color cup or debate it out with someone that has the opposite cup color. Sometimes, I would have seniors come in and use the cups to let me know their current mood. We all know that senioritis gets bad, often early into the school year, so I had a lot of red cups in my senior classes. They were anxious about graduations requirements, grades, promposals, or college acceptances. One year, I had a senior class that would come in every day and turn all the cups red. They wanted to make sure that I knew they were stressed out no matter the scale. At first, I got annoyed that this was becoming a “the boy who cried wolf” scenario, until I realized that my seniors were stressed. I started adjusting the way I presented things to them. I made sure to give an extra few minutes at the beginning of class to find out why someone felt like it was a red cup day. A lot of times they just felt better after someone listened to them vent. The cups let me get a pulse of my students’ well-being and became a reflection.
I started using the cups as my first day Icebreakers. In order to get the students used to the cups being on the desk, I came up with a team building activity. I put my students in small groups and told them that they must play the cups to the tune of a recognizable song. Most of these kids did not know each other, so it was a great way to get them to work together and start learning about each other. They had to agree on a song and then work together to play the cups to the tune. Once each group had time to prepare, we came back together as a whole group and listened to the songs and tried to guess the name of the tune.
I kept getting even more crazy about the cups. The cup song activity turned into another idea. If it was a student’s birthday, we used the cups to play and sing “Happy Birthday” at the end of class time. The students loved playing the birthday song and it gave us a chance to celebrate the good things and build relationships.
Two more quick things about the cups (I told you I was a crazy cup lady):
The students could use the cups to bring art materials back to their desk. I kept buckets of colored pencils, crayons, and markers. If students were working in groups or independently on a project and needed a visual, they could take a cup up to my art supply desk and gather what they needed. The cup of materials would go back to their desk so they could be productive.
And lastly, I bought some gold cups during New Year’s Eve to use as positive reinforcement. My students had been reading and acting out a play. Some of the students were really getting into the characters and projecting their voices with the appropriate volume and tone, while others remained flat and unenthused. I decorated those gold cups and stacked them on the desks of students who were giving it their all. Guess what? I had kids barreling over each other to sign-up for the readings parts. They wanted that gold cup award and their Snapchat and Twitter photos proved it.
I owned the craziness of the cups and the kids would smile when they saw me using them. What are some of the crazy things that you do all for the success of the student? Bring me your best ideas.
See You Real Soon,
Erin