This week’s article summary is Don’t Smile Until December: Bad Advice Based on the Either-Or Fallacy, which is an apt article as we settle into the second half of the school year.
Through my years in education, I’ve had a number of colleagues who embraced the mantra of not smiling until Christmas.
I also had some colleagues who had lost control of their class by Christmas due to their overt permissiveness during the first months of school.
Similar to effective parenting, classroom management shouldn’t be viewed in an either/or manner, but rather from a both/and perspective. Research consistently shows that combining firmness and kindness is most effective.
As we reestablish our classroom and school culture after an extended mid-year break, we need to remind our students how much we care for them while also being responsible for their safety, growth, and learning.
The article reminds us that consistent classroom routines are critical to optimizing student learning. I especially like how the article explains that it’s within parameters of consistency that student agency develops. Teacher clarity in terms of classroom expectations, instructions, and feedback also helps students learn more efficiently and effectively.
While teachers need to monitor classroom expectations, they also need to develop honest, trusting relationships with their students. The Rick Wormeli line that kids don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care is accurate. Continually remind your students how much you believe in them and their ability to learn and to help and support others in and out of the classroom.
Not smiling until Christmas assumes that teachers should be stoic, unemotional automatons, yet the article urges us to more open with our students. Show empathy by sharing things you struggled to learn. Help them see that even when embracing a growth mindset, we can still have bouts of self-doubt. Invite them to share how they have handled disappointment and confusion in and out of school.
Even if the first half of the year has gone smoothly for you and your students, this time of year is ideal to reflect on what’s worked and areas to further enhance over the next five months.
Joe
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It’s amazing that new teachers are still being told, Don’t smile until December.
Whatever truth this cliché communicates is outweighed by the reality it denies: neither consistent classroom management nor challenging academic content need be in competition with expressions of kindness, caring, or joy. To the contrary, consistent challenge, discipline, and joy should all be part of the classroom climate that students come to expect.
Here are some important elements to their both-and approach:
Autonomy Support and Structure: It’s a fallacy that students need to be tightly managed for four months before being allowed to make choices. Consistent structures should be implemented alongside autonomy support so that in the context of consistency, students also perceive that they have agency in their learning. When students have the three interdependent elements in self-determination theory – autonomy, competence, and relatedness – they’re more likely to develop intrinsic motivation for learning. And indeed, studies show that teachers who take a both-and approach get better results. The key elements of a structured classroom are clear and explicit directions, guidance for ongoing classroom activities, and feedback on how to be successful. Autonomy-supporting practices include getting students’ perspectives, responding to students’ individual preferences and interests, and providing relevant and interesting instruction. Classrooms high in structure need not be doctrinaire; instead, they offer proactive clarity and ongoing support. Students know what to do because they have been clearly told, and if the message was not clear, then students get constructive feedback to get them back on track.
Pedagogical Caring: Studies show that students regard effective instruction as one of the best ways teachers can show they care. That includes helping students with their work, explaining assignments clearly, making sure students understand, offering encouragement, orchestrating good classroom management, and planning fun activities. In other words, there’s no conflict between caring and rigor. Students work harder and engage in more prosocial activity when they believe teachers care about them. If teachers focus on either one aspect of caring or the other, then we have embraced a more truncated form than students seek.
Challenge and Warmth: Another aspect of the don’t-smile-till-December trope is that rigorous instruction needs to be delivered in a standoffish manner. But students have a more-nuanced view. Educational research suggests students experience teachers’ high expectations as a form of concern and respect as long as these expectations are coupled with effective student supports and strong student-teacher relationships. Students respond to this with greater effort and increased achievement. Students appreciate higher-order questions, interactive lessons, and feeling respected as learners.
Cognitive Empathy: This means understanding the thoughts and feelings of another person, from that person’s perspective. Affective empathy is different: it’s sharing the feelings of another, while recognizing that the other person is the source of those emotions. Both kinds of empathy are important in a productive teacher-student relationship. What makes advice like ‘don’t smile until December’ so attractive is that it suggests good teaching can be accomplished without seriously consulting one’s students, as if teaching were a series of strategies that, when performed correctly, led students – any students – to higher achievement. Cognitive empathy is the trait that allows teachers to understand life from their students’ perspective, thus, it provides the information necessary to make classrooms more conducive to student learning and motivation. Taking the time to get to know students is a vital part of balancing caring and rigor. Some students require a great deal of structure to succeed while others would find that level of scaffolding to be suffocating. Not until teachers can see the world from their students’ eyes will they be able to craft lessons that balance autonomy and structure successfully for them. In the same vein, when does pushing a student to do their best become nagging them? It depends on the student, which is why effective teachers commit to getting to know each of them.
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