In practice: Leadership — Build a meaningful student culture from Day One 

At its best, student culture is the cornerstone of a learning environment where student intellect and character will both thrive.  The key to building a great culture is consistency: all staff practicing together to implement a unified vision from the first day of school.   

 

Principal Lauren Moyle stands at the front of the cafeteria of her elementary school and claps her hands twice. “Good morning, boys and girls!” she calls, and the enthusiastic response rings out, “Good morning, Mrs. Moyle!” 

These answering voices, however, are not voices of boys and girls but those of adults. Two days remain before the first day of school, and, in fact, the children are the only members of the school community not on campus this morning. Instead, every teacher and school leader has gathered to rehearse the first day of school, minute-for-minute, before the students arrive. The goal of this annual exercise is to lay the groundwork of a strong student culture — one that will nourish both student intellect and student character throughout the year. 

Identifying why student culture is so critical is like telling an inquisitive child why people shake hands when they first meet. Why does it matter what our hands do when we greet others or where students sit when they enter the cafeteria each morning? Our first thought may be something like, “Well, it’s just what we do.” But the logical follow-up question is all too apparent: Why do we all agree to adhere to these simple practices? Is there a reason beyond “it’s just what we do”? 

The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. The power of the handshake or any other cultural routine is the efficiency with which it allows us to accomplish the most basic exchanges we make with other human beings. In virtually every culture, people develop a common way to greet each other — be it a simple bow or a kiss on each cheek — so they can quickly and easily communicate respect and acceptance. Imagine if, as you went about your own workday, you were never certain whether to greet colleagues with a handshake or by some other means. Misunderstanding would ensue, and valuable time would be lost.  

When routines run smoothly, you earn back untold time for adding fractions, analyzing Shakespearean themes, or looking at plant cells under a microscope. 

This same need for clear, quick systems and routines is ubiquitous in the classroom. For example, the simple question of where students will sit when they enter the classroom can undermine great instruction if not answered immediately. Cultural routines solve these challenges as effectively in schools as in society at large. Routines are only one part of a great school culture, but they’re a foundational element paving the way for important gains in other areas. When routines run smoothly, you earn back untold time for adding fractions, analyzing Shakespearean themes, or looking at plant cells under a microscope, and you’ve created a safe, peaceable environment where students can learn to practice respect, responsibility, and other core ethical values. 

Yet cultural routines can only accomplish all this with the help of one crucial characteristic: consistency. As in the case of the handshake, a school routine’s efficiency soon grows diluted if students can’t anticipate whether they’ll be expected to follow it every day in every classroom. When every teacher has a different process for getting students to transition into partner work, students may spend more time turning around their chairs than actually discussing the material. In contrast, when every student has been taught what to do when the teacher simply says “Turn and talk,” the same transition takes a matter of seconds. For this to work, all staff members must begin the school year with a clear, shared knowledge of how they’ll implement their school’s cultural systems.  

Everyone practices together; everyone shares the same vision of what school routines will look like. 

That’s where Moyle’s complete rehearsal of the first day of school comes in. Earlier this year, I shared the story of rookie teacher Noel Borges and his principal, Serena Savarirayan, and the effect of summer teaching rehearsals on a rookie teacher’s success. Borges’ initial effectiveness was determined even before he met his students because he’d already practiced the essential skills of working with them. Imagine the effect when it’s not just individual rookie teachers who get these hands-on opportunities to rehearse for Day One but the entire staff. Everyone practices together; everyone shares the same vision of what school routines will look like and how students will be welcomed. 

What does it take to make an all-hands-on-deck rehearsal of the first day of school successful? Let’s look more closely at what goes into the planning and execution of this event. 

Write the script 

When you imagine how you want it to look when students arrive at school or transition through the hallways from class to class, what do you see? The key to realizing those visions is to script them, spelling out what staff and students will do to make them happen every day. To rehearse the first day of school effectively, you need that script in hand. Such scripting entails two major steps.  

Step one is to identify the key systems that keep your school running throughout the school day. Some of these systems probably come to mind easily, like the procedures students follow when they arrive at and depart from school, move from one class to another, or enter and exit the cafeteria. Others might be less immediately apparent, such as how teachers will redirect off-task students, grant hall passes, or transition mid-class from one activity to another.  

All such routines need consistency to go smoothly. For example, imagine how many different ways students are asked to attend to a teacher’s instructions. When some teachers simply say, “OK, everybody, eyes on me,” others use “Clap once if you can hear me . . . ” and so on, students won’t develop consistent habits to show that they’re listening, and instructional time gets lost in the shuffle. But when all staff use a single universal signal for “Stop talking and pay attention,” students learn to respond unhesitatingly to that signal. Every time any teacher uses this signal it adds learning time. 

Step two is planning how each lesson will unfold minute-by-minute. The plan you develop should answer these four questions for every moment in the routine: 

1. What will the school leader do? 
2. What will the teacher(s) do? 
3. What will students do? 
4. What will happen immediately if a student doesn’t comply? 

When you’ve developed a plan at this level of detail, you can present all staff with one concrete, crystal-clear description of what you envision for each school routine for the year.  

Run the rehearsal 

Plans are only as good as they’re practiced. The principles that drive a rehearsal for the first day of school are just like those that drive a dress rehearsal for a play. The rehearsal’s structure must guarantee that all participants automatically know how to perform each action that will make the show successful and that any part of the plan that doesn’t run smoothly will get additional attention before opening night. Here’s what Moyle does before, during, and after her rehearsal to make both happen. 

Prerehearse in pieces: During all-staff professional development sessions before school starts, Moyle presents her completed plan for the first school day. Rather than relying on a lecture or an information packet to learn what this plan looks like, teachers spend the bulk of their time role-playing every routine in groups or pairs, with veteran teachers guiding rookie teachers along the way. Practicing each routine separately prepares everyone for the dress rehearsal, just as actors learn how to perform individual scenes on their own before running through the whole play. 

Put the pieces together: When all staff have practiced the routines of the first day of school in isolation, the big Day One rehearsal is everyone’s chance to put all these pieces together from start to finish. The rehearsal mirrors as closely as possible what teachers must do on the first day, with teachers delivering instructions as if students were present in the room. (The role of students may be played by other teachers or simply imagined.) 

Make sure it all fits: At the end of the dress rehearsal, teachers and school leaders debrief the rehearsal and practice any routine that didn’t go smoothly. 

Showtime 

Let’s take a moment, now, to look forward to Moyle’s students’ first day of school. It’s easy to imagine the stresses: Several hundred students flood into the cafeteria at once — some nervous, others rambunctious — all wanting to know where they should leave their several hundred backpacks. 

But as Moyle stands up and claps her hands twice and the cafeteria falls silent, we see the joy as well as the challenge of the first day of school. That joy comes from routines rehearsed to perfection. It shines through as Moyle greets her wide-eyed students, as they all transition eagerly — but patiently — and their teachers welcome them to their classrooms. Mere hours into the first day of school, the show is already well under way, with every individual ready to play his or her role.   

 

Citation: Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2014). In practice|leadership: Build a meaningful student culture from Day One. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (8), 72-73.