Using Anticipatory Conversations to Diffuse Classroom Chaos [Episode 135]

Rebecca 0:00
So as many of you know, if you’ve been listening to the podcast all this month of June, I’ve kind of been using these episodes just to reflect on things that I’ve done and have learned as a parent, and how those transferred to the classroom and vice versa, like things I actually did in the classroom as a teacher that I now do as a parent, things that I’ve started doing as a parent that I’ve realized, wow, that would have worked really well in the classroom, or I was like, unknowingly doing it in the classroom, unintentionally, but it’s kind of transferred both ways. It’s just been a really interesting reflection time for me, and I hope you found benefit from it, regardless of if you have children in your home or not. So that’s kind of been my goal with this, and we’re continuing with it this week. And we’re going to talk about anticipatory conversations. This is a strategy I learned in parenting just from a dear friend who’s a few years ahead of me with her children, just about proactively getting ahead of potential chaos. And it’s just something I was, like I mentioned it, I actually was doing this in the classroom, I was doing unknowingly and unintentionally, just to kind of diffuse chaos, prior to doing something that I call setting my students free, you know, I would go over and have these anticipatory conversations, and then I would set them free to do the labs or, you know, do the activity or do the instructional resource in a group, you know, whatever it was, we were working on that day. And so today, we will be talking about what these anticipatory conversations are, what they look like, and exactly how I use them so that you too, can have a classroom or a home that can be calm in the midst of potential chaos, especially if you are someone who has a personality like mine that runs a little hot, and not necessarily always with anger, but just with intense emotion. I would not ever really use the word steady to describe myself. That’s a word I would use to describe my husband, but I’m not necessarily steady. So it takes a lot of intentionality and effort to be steady to be that calmness person in the room, which another person told me years ago was like the number one goal parenting just always be the calmest person in the room. And so that’s not easy for me. And these anticipatory conversations equip me so much to be that person. And so I hope it’ll do the same for you. So let’s jump in. This is secondary science simplified a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca joiner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers, love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all in only 40 hours. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place teacher friend, let’s get to today’s episode.

Okay, first and foremost, I always like to start with kind of a definition like what do I mean when I say anticipatory conversation. And you could think of this as like a team huddle before you do anything. So like, it’s a conversation where you’re gathering the people in your charge, and you’re just kind of laying the guidelines, you’re laying the expectations. And you’re laying out the consequences of potentially following and fulfilling those expectations, and or not fulfilling. So we’re getting ahead of things were these are not conversations we’re having in the heat of the moment that we’re having in the middle of the lab, where you’re like ringing a cowbell, to try to get their attention and gather them in to make sure they don’t set anything on fire. These are not hot conversations. These are very cold. They’re in advance. For example, like I’ve done in the past, we’re gonna start with the parenting examples, because those are the freshest in my mind, and then I’ll share how I use this as a teacher. So as a parent, before we are getting in the car, to go to the pool, to go to the park to head over to someone else’s house for dinner or a playdate. We’re having a little anticipatory conversation, we’re having a team huddle, we’re getting together and I’m saying, here’s what’s about to happen. Okay, I lay out the plan. And I understand that my two, four and six year old aren’t necessarily always tracking with the plan, or even have the ability to remember the plan. Okay, so it’s not even just about them knowing it all. It’s just saying, hey, let’s just talk about what’s to come. Here’s where we’re going. Here’s what we’re doing. What questions do you have, it’s creating space for them to ask questions there. And then I’m really highlighting the priorities, the expectations, the goals, the priorities, and I’m being extremely clear. Hey, we’re about to go to Blake Lee’s birthday party. What’s the very first thing we always do when we get to a birthday party? And my children now can repeat and Tell me because we’ve talked about this so many times Repetition is key. They say we go find Blakeley, you know, or whoever’s birthday it is. And we go say happy birthday, thank you for having me. And we’d like to acknowledge them first, we’re not going to run off and find other friends there that we might be more excited to see them, the child that invited us, we’re not going to go run and you know, do a backflip off the trampoline into a foam pit until we acknowledge the person who has been gracious enough to include us. So they know that we review that expectation. And then I remind them pretty much anytime we go into any social situation, one of my parenting refrains, which, if you missed Episode 133, I talk about my refrains I use with my students, while I use with my students, and then the ones I’m currently using with my kids, but one of my refrains is respect response. So we always talk about before we go into any social situation, hey, respect responds. If someone says hi to you, if they ask you a question, you need to respond to them. Because we respect all people. From our spiritual standpoint, we say because all people were created in the image of God. And so they are all worthy of dignity and respect, just to give you context for why we say this, until we will always respond. Now, we also have talked about so many times, it’s okay to be shy, you never have to give someone a hug. He’s trying to hug you if you don’t feel comfortable with that. But you can always verbally respond to someone, even if it is just a Hi, and then you run away, or whatever it is okay, but we always always respond. That’s another expectation when we talk about and then the third thing would be, we’re always talking about okay, hey, before we leave, what are we going to do? And that’s we walk up to whoever the mommy or daddy, you know, or grandparent is that’s hosting the party, we say, Thank you for having me. Is there anything I can do to help? Before I go? This is a big one for when we do dinner at someone’s house, or a play date of like, hey, is there anything I can do to like, Can I pick up the cars or the Barbies, or you know, put my plate in the sink, like what would be helpful, and it’s the gratitude there and the respect for whoever’s putting this on. And then also, you know, go say goodbye to your friend who is also there. So these are again, that’s three expectations. And I have them every time we go anywhere. So my kids have heard them enough that we start to have this anticipatory conversation, they get it and they can go ahead and like, they will jump ahead and answer the questions for me when I’m reviewing them with them. But then I also will remind them of the consequences and you know, maybe in the benefits of like, okay, what, what’s the why, again, because we treat people that they need to respect or maybe I’ll remind them, one of the best things ever, y’all is when this sounds terrible, but like, when another kid treats your kid poorly, and does something hurtful. It’s such a great learning opportunity to be like, hey, remember, when your friend Benson, ignored you, and you said, Hey, to him, remember how that felt? Did that feel good or bad? And they’ll say, you know, bad, and I’m like, okay, that’s why we are going to always respond to people when they talk to us because it doesn’t feel good to be ignored. And so we talked about how like, that’s the the benefit of this is like you are a good friend to others. And that is a way that we want to live, or a benefit of this is like, hey, if y’all can show respect to people who host us, then we will continue to go to things we’re invited to, we’ll continue to have people over to our house, like my kids love hosting and going to social events. And I’m pretty sure they got that from me and my husband, because we’re really passionate about hospitality. One of our like, core values as a family is come as you are hospitality, and just inviting people in our home as they are without pretense. Without pomp and circumstance, like just casual gatherings, people are invited in and my kids love that they’re like obsessed they, at least once or twice a week to be like, is anyone coming over for dinner this week, like who’s coming over to play? Because they know that’s what we do. And so we remind them like, hey, if we keep treating people with kindness and dignity and respect, we will keep coming to these things and inviting them over or whatever. And if we do not, we will leave. Okay, so we’re going over the plan. We’re asking them if they have questions, we may be asking them questions and like seeing if they to make sure they heard us when we said things, were reminding them of the expectations. And we’re articulating what the consequences are of not, you know, potentially having those kind of not meeting those expectations. And also, you know, sometimes the benefits of those things, too. Okay, so those are all things we’re doing in this anticipatory conversation. And it sounds like a lot, but again, you’re gonna see every time you do a lab, you can have similar conversations in terms of parenting every time you go to the park, it’s going to be the same thing birthday party, whatever pool whatever. You know, one of our things when we go to the pool that I always remind them have like their expectations is like my big kids are like we’re always looking out for the little kids who can’t swim and like I’m really empower my big kids. My four and six year old are completely independent swimmers. You know how to swim and your little brother, Robbie who’s too does not know how to swim. And there’s a lot of other little kids that don’t. So like, we don’t hog the staircase, you know, that goes into the pool because that’s what the little kids need. Or I always reminding them, you do not pull on mommy’s bathing suit because Mommy doesn’t want her private parts to be shown to the other, you know, mommies and daddies and kids at the pool. That’s what my daughter like, loves to just like, climb up my body and pull on the strings. And it’s stressful, and it’s why we do double knots for everything. But those are just like little reminders. And then, the other thing I always tell my kids was something really exciting, like the pool or beach that can get them really jacked up and hard to think clearly is, and remember, five minutes of force him to leave, Mommy’s gonna give you a five minute warning to do your last things that you want to do. And then you have to get out of that bull, when I tell you, it’s time to go. And if you have a bad attitude, or whatever, we will not come to the pool again, for you know, however long and the key here guys is follow through your yes has to mean Yes. And your no has to mean no, they will not trust you or take you seriously, your children or your students. If you do not follow through. And it’s hard. So make sure you’re only offering consequences that you will actually follow through with I have pulled children’s bodies out of the pool, and we have left after 10 minutes. But that barely ever has to happen other than once because it’s so traumatic, you know, they don’t want to do it. There was one time when I was pregnant with our third. And I had like one of those, you know, birthing balls. And I would like sit on it kind of like roll my hips, trying to like loosen them up whatever. I was using it to try like induce labor. And my two big kids always wanted to play with it because it’s a giant ball. Like why would they not want to play with it, but we had rules around playing with it that were about people’s safety. You can’t like throw this at your little sister’s face. And then her head like hits the back of the dresser. You know, there were different roles we had, I always had these anticipatory conversations. And I said, you know, if you break these rules, mommy will destroy the birthing ball, it will be gone. And there was a point in time at the end of my pregnancy, where I had to take scissors and pop the birthing ball in front of them. And it was extremely dramatic. And no, I did not get another one. And also, if you think that’s really, really wasteful, this had been handed down to me from like five different friends. So I felt like it really had gotten its use out of it. But I wrote I destroyed it because I said I would. And that was a little bit of dramatic of like maybe a consequence, a little bit wasteful. But you know, the end of pregnancy, emotions and hormones are high. And so that was the consequence I laid out and I had to follow through and y’all, my kids still talk about it. You know, my youngest is two. So this is when I was pregnant with him, the big kids still talk about it. When I say something about my son’s Nerf gun. If you leave out these little bullets, mommy will throw them away because the baby chews on him, he chews the tops off, he swallows them, he poops them out, we’re not doing that. And I have thrown away many Nerf gun bullet. And they remember, like my daughter would be like T, you got to pick these up, because number one mom’s stabbed the big ball that we love to play with. It’s just they will remember and a lot of those dramatic things, you never have to do more than once. So really, really hold your consequences. And then my last little tip here with this before we talk about some teaching specific examples of this is when or if they make a foolish or unwise choice, you know, and they don’t do what you’ve prepped for them to do. They don’t meet the expectations, they break the rules that you laid out, whatever, you pulled them aside, you remind them of your previous conversation. And like I said, you execute the consequence. And you have to do it was zero emotion tied to it. This is key. If you’re raising your voice and showing that you’re, you know, you’re angry, and you have anger at them for this. I really feel like it wounds them, especially when they’re younger. But I think when they’re older, like I’m thinking of my high school students, it makes them angry. It makes them combative. When you start coming out there, I feel like it’s their defense mechanism is to come back at you. But if you can just say super calm and it’s like it’s not personal. This is not me saying You are foolish, or you are unwise, or you know, whatever. It’s just saying like, hey, ooh, unwise choice. Do you remember our conversation we had and the consequence I laid out, now I have to execute that consequence. And then you just do it. It’s super level headed. And that is so key, like your anticipatory conversation cannot be effective, without clear communication, consistent reinforcement, and no emotion when you bring emotion into it, which like I said, the top it’s hard for people like me, it really kind of blows up the whole thing because then it just start everyone starts taking things personally that don’t need to be personal. Everything feels like an attack on you and it has absolutely nothing to do with you. And so that’s my best advice for that. So, let’s talk about how this like applies and plays out specifically in the classroom. The first month of school y’all for me was basically just like one anticipatory comment Station after another, we’re having so many of these, this is a new group of students, they don’t know you, they don’t know how you run your class. So we’re constantly talking through like, Hey, this is how we do things in here, these are the routines, these are the procedures, this is the expectations, you will be so repetitive. But if you can just commit to that the first month or so of school, it will make it so much easier. On the back end, I have a couple episodes that I’ve kind of done on this episode 33, I did at the start of the 2022 school year, Episode 91, I did started the 2023 school year with just kind of some things I think, are really important to think through and implement and have anticipatory conversations about the beginning of the year. And so I’ll link those in the show notes, but you’re gonna be having so many of these the beginning of the year, and then it’ll be less intense as the year goes on. And so then as the year goes on, you’re really going to be having these types of conversations, anytime you’re going to be sending students out to do something on their own or in groups. So for example, a test day, the day before a test, I always have anticipatory conversations at the end of the class period, to remind them of like, Hey, here’s gonna be the expectation when you get here tomorrow, especially when I taught 50 minute class periods, because I’d gone from teaching 90 minute class periods where we had all the time in the world to do a test. And we often like moved on to other stuff after the test that day, that’s not the same as a 50 minute class period. So I would say reminder, tomorrow’s your test day, when you get to the classroom, you’re going to be expected to leave everything in the hallway, all of your belongings. So if you don’t want to do that, or you know, at the front of the classroom, whatever your policy is, if you don’t want to do that, just come to class with your calculator and your pencil, you don’t need a single other thing, just leave it in your locker, remind them they will walk in and they will sit down, there will be nothing on their desk, pencil, graphing calculator, you know, whatever it is that is it, no water, no, what, however your rules are, I’m just reminding them the expectations before that. And then hey, what’s the benefit of following these expectations, because remember, we want there to be a pro here is you’re gonna have 50 solid minutes to work on this test. The consequence of not following these expectations is it’s gonna take us longer to get started and you are losing test time here. And you don’t want to lose test time here. And so that’s really motivating for a lot of them. Another example is just like lab days, I mean, that’s like probably the biggest one, I’m really diffusing a lot of stuff. Especially when I had 50 minute class periods, I always like to block out two full days for labs. And then the end of the previous day, before we got started. Let’s say we’re gonna have a lab on a Wednesday, that Tuesday in class, I would like to block off like 10 to 15 minutes at the end of class and really talk through the lab, and what the expectations will be have this anticipatory conversation for the first time, go through the entire lab, I’m always having students while we’re going through and talking about it highlighting marking things like right on the lab, emphasize stuff that I’m saying. And then I also like to on the actual lab day, so that’s like what what’s going on Tuesday, Wednesday, when they get there, I hit the highlights again. And then I have on my whiteboard, I always write almost like treat it like an FAQ page on a website, I think about the things that I’ve seen in previous years, you know, places where they’ve fallen short, if you have any of my curriculum, bullets and things that I point out in the lab details PDF, or in the read first doc, and say like, Hey, these are things to be mindful of and have three to five bullet points on the whiteboard. And I love this too, because then in the middle of the lab, when students are coming up to you, instead of having to like rehash all you can often just like point to the thing on the board. And these are great things to keep track of year after year, like the first year you do a lab, write down the questions they’re asking, so you can remember to include them in your anticipatory conversations next year, or to put them on like your little FAQ answer page on your whiteboard. The other thing I remind students of, you know, when we have a lab or something like that is it does get a little chaotic, and it does get a little bit loud. And so I have a little bell that I ring, I’ll link the option in the show notes on Amazon. It’s a two pack for $7. So get it and give one to your next door neighbor, teacher friend as like just a nice thing to do for them. But I remind them, like when I doing this, everyone stops and looks at me. And I tell them they know, hey, I’m not just gonna like dang this and interrupt your work for no reason. Okay, it’s only going to be something really, really important. Like, oh, so and so Jesse just came up and told me of this mistake that his group made. And I want to make sure that your group, I mean, I would never say this then but like, if he says something like, oh, wow, I should have warned them not to do that, then I’ll do it be like, hey, quick warning, I just thought of don’t do XYZ because then you know, abc will happen. And so obviously, you’ll have to make little interruptions, but that’s a nice thing too. And that’s something you talked about the anticipatory conversation, hey, when you hear this sound, and I ding the bell, what do we do? And it’s like, you stop, you drop everything you look at me, and I’m not going to use it ridiculously. Like I will only use it for really important stuff. And then the other thing I’ll say to you on labs to include in these anticipatory conversations, especially if you teach like a 45 Over a 50 minute class period, is give them very clear goals of what they need to get through by the end of the class period, this is going to help them not feel as overwhelmed and rushed. And it’s also going to keep them focused. So like I said, I thought I was doing a live on a Wednesday, that Tuesday, we’re having our anticipatory conversation, we’re going to kind of hit the highlights at the top of Wednesday’s class period, and then dive right in the goal of Wednesday, that first day is data collection period. And then the goal of the next day Thursday would be now let’s collect class averages. Now let’s make graphs, let’s work on analyses. Let’s work on conclusions. All of that comes later. I think really zeroing in on being like this first day, all I want you to do is get your data, and best case scenario, add it to the class spreadsheet to like, if you’re absent the next day, we’ve got it, you know, but I think that really, really helps them zoom in. And again, it helps with them seeing the benefit of meeting the expectations, like hey, if you can stay focus and do these things that I’m saying and worrying about, you’re gonna get through, you need to get through today, you won’t be rushed, you don’t have to do anything for homework, you will get your work done in the allotted time possible. And for most students, that’s really, really motivating for them. That’s one of the reasons why I stopped assigning homework, which I’ll link my podcast episode about that and kind of how that changed my entire classroom culture, honestly, because it became so motivating for students because they knew I was going to build in enough class time for them to do all the things as long as they listen to these anticipatory conversations, and met the expectations that were set before them. I hope this is helpful for you. Just a reminder, you’re being clear with expectations and goals clear with the consequences of those things, you’re consistently reinforcing them after you’ve set them free. And you’re following through so that your word actually means something. And we’re doing this with no emotion, because it’s not a personal attack on you. If they fail here. They’re just humans and humans make mistakes. And we make unwise and foolish choices. But it doesn’t have to be on you. But we are going to do this work on the front end to be proactive about defusing chaos in our classrooms. So I hope you found this helpful. I wanted to let you know I’m working on some like virtual professional development courses. Before I even started this podcast, I had a virtual professional development course called secondary science simplified, and I ran it and kind of cohorts for two summers, absolutely loved it. But yeah, it was a lot of work to almost have it, even though it was virtual, and like work at your own pace, it was kind of like a live class and that we all started on the same day, we ended on the same day, I had a Facebook group with it, I was trying to like, you know, motivate them through it, that kind of thing. And it was also like a pretty high price point. Because it was all the things put together. And there are no smaller options. And so what I’ve been working on the last few months, and will hopefully be done very, very soon, in July is I’ve been taking that original course and breaking it down into smaller chunks. And I’m going to have the option to buy little individual mini courses on select topics. And then also buy just the full bundle of the like, original course, which is all of the little mini courses put together. So I’m treating it more like I already have my existing curricula because I know that like not everyone can drop 360 and a biology curriculum, maybe you just want to buy the evolution unit for $50. Because that’s your hardest topic. But then after you do it, you realize, oh, this is awesome, I would love to have the whole thing you save up, invest in the whole thing we refund you for the original unit. That’s what’s gonna be happening here with the course. So I’m hoping that it’ll make it a lower barrier and entry point for people to get PD, that’s really, really helpful. And so I know again, it’s like hard to invest in PD not knowing am I gonna get anything out of it. So one of the things I’m also working on creating is like a free mini course called labs when you’re limited. And this will be an opportunity for you to see my teaching style, see kind of what’s included, and then make a decision from there like, Okay, if I liked this free one, then I’ll probably like the paid PD options as well. And then the other thing I’m really excited about with these PD courses is these will live on my website all the time. So I’m removing kind of like the live feature with a Facebook group just because I honestly I don’t want to have to manage a Facebook group all year round. I’m only on Facebook, when I ran that group, those two summers, I’d really never use it other than that. And so by removing that Facebook kind of live feature, I’m now able going to be able to offer the courses all year round. So like you don’t have to just buy in the 10 day window that it’s open to enroll in June. You can buy it in July, you can buy it in November, you can vote in January, like it won’t matter. And so I think that flexibility is just going to hopefully serve more people. If you’re interested in hearing more about that. Check out it’s not rocket science classroom.com/p D And if the courses are not ready, when you go to that link that will just go to a waitlist I’ll send like one email when they’re ready. I’m not going to like barrage you at all. But if they already that link will go straight to the page where you can check out what is available including the free one that I’m Working on.

If you feel like you could use a little less chaos on your lab days or really any day in your classroom, I would love it if you would leave a review today if you haven’t already. And I know I mentioned a lot of links so you can find those in the show notes. It’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode 135 All right, teacher friends. That wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you Teacher friend.