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By Ashlee Mashek Blurting disrupts any classroom. Consider the best practices described by this 3rd grade teacher.
Last year, two student behaviors almost drove me crazy. One was blurting answers during whole-group instruction; the other was classmates interrupting each other. These had been the bane of my teaching existence since my first day on the job! The behaviors were eroding learning time, quality, and the strength of our community.
This year, I strove to teach my students to use self-control, wait their turns, and raise their hands. On a larger scale, I wanted to guide my students to become respectful and responsible, as these attributes will allow them to make positive contributions to society.
Familiar problems
As third graders, my students are capable of recognizing the importance of allowing one person to talk at a time. To help spark this recognition and teach students to raise their hands, I modeled the expectation, reminded and reinforced using specific and clear teacher language, and then redirected students when they strayed from the model. For example, at the start of the year, I modeled how to respond to the signal for quiet, how to listen, how to raise your hand, and how to wait your turn even when you really want to say something. I redirected students when they blurted or interrupted. But these steps alone were not enough.
One thing I quickly realized about my class this year was that the students are very talkative. At first, they would continue to chat right through my attention-getters, directions, and lessons. It was exasperating for me as a teach-er—Here we go again, I thought—and I could tell that the students who were consistently on-task were getting discouraged as well.
Student endorsement
On a particularly chatty day early in the year, I knew I had to do something or face an entire year of blurting and in-terrupting. I stopped everything and took an informal poll. I asked students to raise their hands if they were both-ered by the extra talking that went on during the day. Everyone in the class raised a hand! We talked about how we didn’t want to leave school frustrated, especially when the talking was something within our power to fix.
We discussed ways to reduce our talking, and we brainstormed appropriate and inappropriate times to talk with our neighbors. This conversation was an epiphany of sorts. Our discussion extended beyond blurting and interrupting and included ideas on how to make our classroom more enjoyable. I reminded them of that day throughout our year together.
Help from colleagues
I sought the advice of my colleagues. One teacher suggested using a stuffed animal—the person holding the animal is the only one who should be talking. This would provide students with a visual reminder of whose voice we should be hearing. I started using this “talking piece” approach the following day and saw some improvement. The students enjoyed having an opportunity to hold the stuffed animal. At the same time, they were learning what it felt like to raise their hands, wait their turn, and be the only one talking in the classroom. I still use the stuffed animal occasionally as we continue to work to reduce blurting.
I also took the advice of a colleague who suggested I select positive role models in our class. I had student leaders remodel listening, raising hands, waiting until you have the floor before speaking, etc., and assigned others the task of giving the signal for silence when interrupting and blurting began.
Peer-to-peer strategies
I orchestrated several class discussions and read-alouds designed to help teach alternatives to blurting and interrupting. We learned new strategies to use if someone close to us was interrupting, blurting, or talking out of turn. The most widely adopted strategy was a nonverbal reminder for silence, where students pressed a finger to their lips as a prompt for classmates. Other nonverbal methods we created and used included
- Making a stop gesture by extending a hand straight outward to let others know they are interrupting and need to wait their turn
- Ignoring or turning away from a blurted comment so the “blurter” doesn’t get any attention
Within a couple of weeks I was encouraged to see several students using these nonverbal methods to remind their peers to avoid blurting, control their voices, be polite, and stay calm.
Measuring results
To gauge progress, I tallied the number of interruptions and blurting that occurred each Tuesday and Thursday from mid-September to November.
While the results weren’t dramatic—blurting and interrupting didn’t stop overnight—my tallies showed a slow but significant decrease. I also tracked who was interrupting, the time of day it happened, and the subjects during which interruptions typically occurred. As I examined my weekly tally sheets, I saw some patterns:
- The same few students were blurting and interrupting.
- Blurting and interrupting typically happened during Morning Meeting, math, and reading,
- all of which took place in the early portion of our day.
- Blurting and interrupting happened far less in the afternoon.
This made it clear that I could help the repeaters by social conferencing or using a behavior contract if necessary. I reexamined how I spend my mornings and have tried to use a strict-but-fun policy when I plan and run morning meetings. By that I mean remaining very consistent about redirecting blurters and interrupters whenever necessary while giving students plenty of opportunities for greeting, sharing, and games that provide them with time to chat appropriately.
Students assess success
At the beginning of November, I took a post-survey to see if students felt we had made any improvements on interrupting and blurting in our classroom. A majority of students felt that others in the classroom truly listened to them and found what they had to say to be important. Most students believed that we had made significant im-provements by raising our hands before we spoke. This in turn brought down the number of interruptions and helped insure only one person was speaking at a time.
“Oops!”
Overall, I felt we made great improvements in the amount of interrupting and blurting. I’m pleased that the students are now conscious of this issue and recognize the strategies we created to combat it. Students might accidently blurt out an answer in math only to cover their mouths and say “Oops!” In these instances, students have identified that they’ve interrupted a classmate, and they recognize they need to raise their hand before speaking.
Awareness brings growth
We will continue to work on our general chattiness, but the daily reminders and redirections—some coming from me, others from peers—have helped lessen blurting. Being aware of the social challenges in the classroom has been a huge step towards overcoming them. I’ve learned something important in this effort. By blurting or inter-rupting, sometimes students are meeting a need that’s real and valid, but they’re getting that need met in a way that harms the group. If I can get their needs met in ways that are positive, we all win.
Ashlee Mashek teaches 3rd graders at Big Woods Elementary School in St. Michael MN
This article first appeared in Origins’ Special Issue, Spring 2010
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