Rethinking Routine in the Secondary Classroom

What kind of habits or routines do you traditionally establish in your classrooms? How linked are these with the big picture success you envision for your learners?

In this session, we'll talk about creating daily classroom routines that translate into the kind of lifelong habits our students need to achieve any goal they set.

Like anyone else, our students' success depends on the habits they build over time. But there's no such class in the school curriculum called The Art of Habit-Building or Habitual Literacy 101.

And while it might feel like teaching them good habits is their parents' job, or that of a life coach, a therapist (or a unicorn, for that matter), it actually IS our job, and here's why..

1. Habits make goals happen.
2. Habits define our character.

We are both in the business of helping our students achieve their goals AND responsible for shaping their character while they're in our care.

So what can we do to legitimately build strong habits with our learners, ones that will actually translate into their real lives down the road?

We can only hope our students will wake up each morning like Thomas Edison once did, intending, 'what good will I do?' and end each day by reflecting, 'what good have I done?'.

-- Jill Pavich

Habits make goals happen.

Is that binder check really teaching our kids to be organized? Is that 0 in the grade book actually instilling a lesson on deadlining?

I think not, my friends.

To be productive in an admittedly distracting era, where connections are instant and information is constant, they need a system, not a binder check.

To reach their goals, our students need a concrete game plan for moving incrementally in that direction, not a motivational poster hanging above our whiteboards.

If we establish strong routines with our students--ones that bear relevance in real life--they're more likely to develop the kind of lifelong habits that yield success again and again.

So, get creative! Try new routines! Encourage students to be part of building the routines in your classroom!

'First we make our habits, then our habits make us.'

Charles C. Noble

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