UH Lantrip Theatre Club
Classroom Management
1st year of teaching:
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I was very hesitant with finding my voice to keep students quiet while a teacher was teaching.
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I was trying to find my place in the group of theatre educators and it kept me from taking charge because I feared stepping on toes.
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Learning about Jonas Basom's classroom management system that consisted of 3 reminders, I was hesitant to use it because I was trying to be the student's friends and not necessarily their teacher.
2nd year of teaching:
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After doing the Alley Theatre internship, I learned a lot more calls and responses and classroom management techniques that I easily applied to Lantrip Elementary.
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I also learned that different classroom management styles can work for different age levels and not others was an important discovery as I tried to teach a clap sequence to elementary kids and they weren't getting it. It worked wonderfully for the Advanced Play Makers (middle school) students at the Alley.
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I discovered that effective classroom management comes from my ability to be stern and keep my word. I issued the first reminder to a student not even a minute after I introduced the system and it set the tone for the rest of the lesson because the students knew that the system was being implemented.
Teaching
Being able to start teaching at the elementary level as soon as I stepped into the program gave me the start to teaching that I needed. Finding what works for me in lesson planning and using the "education-ese" as I went along in my progression has scaffolded my skills as a teacher.
Separation of Spaces
We taught in the music classroom for the first few weeks and it was very effective because we could implement the reminder system easily. The students were contained and knew the expectations for being in a classroom setting.
The day we moved into the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR), which was basically an open auditorium space/ gym classroom, it was very hard to keep the students contained. The open space and high ceiling excited the kids, and the echo that the space created amplified the noise.
In the next lesson that we were in the MPR, we sectioned off the space so that we were on the stage with the curtains closed. We used rolls of decorative paper and taped it down onto the floor to create the 9 areas of the stage. The issue with doing this was that the paper easily tore when students played games on the stage or walked without looking. We fixed this by replacing it with tape so that it would be a permanent fixture and could be used as an audience area as well. This made lessons more efficient and effective on the classroom management side.
Administrative Work
After being given the opportunity to be the co-student administrators with my colleague, I realized how challenging it can be to run a theatre club. There is a lot of administrative work that happens behind-the-scenes that people usually don't think about. For example, we had to:
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Schedule and lead Lantrip meetings to discuss norms, lesson plans, duties, dismissal procedures, parent/ guardian phone calls, parent/ guardian paperwork, student applications, and coordination of space.
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Make quick decisions in a fast-paced environment.
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Handle student problems like stomachaches, headaches, and the occasional accidents.
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Lead a team of freshmen teaching artists.
Throughout this year, there have been decisions that I wished I hadn't made, and just as many that I wish I had. Here are a few things that could have gone better:
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Have an electronics/ toy policy from the very beginning. When taking up electronics, either keep it on your persons or a designated box that a teaching artist is in charge of.
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Create a bathroom policy and have the attendance person remind each student as they're coming in for the first 3 weeks.
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Make a policy for cleaning up accidents and make sure all teaching artists know it.
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Use name games for the first few weeks.
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Engage parents and guardians from the very beginning through email or newsletters to keep them updated.