Student Contributor: H. Potter
This tool is used when a student has a breakdown in class or is not following classroom rules. The student is asked and has the choice to take a stroll in the hallway with an adult. The adults that are available to assist this student are paraprofessionals or counselors. It’s helpful because the student can express feelings to the adult and escape the environment, they were just in. It really helps the students calm down.
The cool down stroll is used when a student is disrespecting classroom expectations or having a breakdown. The student can be asked by the teacher to go for a stroll, or the student can request to go on one. It’s important to use this when appropriate and to clarify when it should be used or else the students will abuse this tool. The students show great response to this tactic. I have never seen a student so far come back to the classroom after a stroll and engage in the same behavior they were engaging in previously. This is also a great tool to have students learn how to express their emotions and learn how to control and decompress when needed.
This tool relates to the corrective phase of management because this is a tool used after the classroom in disrupted. This tool can only be used in the corrective stage because the student had to have disrespected rules or became frustrated over a certain situation. This tool is difficult to decide where to place theory of influence wise because the teacher has the choice to direct the student to take a stroll, but the student also has the choice to nominate his/herself to take a stroll. I would say however, it would most likely fall under Teacher center/collaborative.
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Tool Source: My Mentor
I used this tool In my urban first grade classroom of 20 students and it worked really well. This tool was easy to use because it required zero effort from the teachers on the room and students liked the tool so they never said they would not do it. The students knew that their time in the hall was quiet and purposeful just as it is when we walk to a specialist, so it was easy to teach them as well. Students who were left in the classroom also knew that when the student came back, they were not to bombard them and it became natural to the classroom to have a student go in or out without para un-noticeably. The students always came back more relaxed than they left and if needed they knew when an apology needed to be made on their way in and would do so appropriately. The only adjustment that was made was thought of by my mentor teacher who put bags of rice in pillowcases that students who were angry knew they could simply drop and pick up as many times as they needed on their stroll. This allowed them to take out frustration as well as come back to the class with less pent-up energy than they left with.
I am placed in a 6th grade classroom with 22 students in a suburban area in Spokane, Washington. The tool I prepared for and used was the Cool Down Stroll. I found the idea of this classroom management tool to be quite easy to prepare for, the difference with this tool is that you do not know what the need for the cool down stroll is until you are in the moment. I had planned on using this tool for quite some time but was just waiting for the right opportunity to use it. The day it happened was just at the beginning of our morning meeting and one of my students decided to be disruptive in a disrespectful way to another student. Just being a placement teacher, I had the fortunate opportunity to use this tool in a slightly different way than intended. With my mentor teacher in the classroom, I was able to take the time to join my student on his walk and talk about what was going on. I noticed a great amount of success when I was able to use the tool in this way because I was able to talk one on one with my student in a calm and safe speaking environment where he was able to relax and share his side of the story. These circumstances also allowed for me to have a deeper talk with him about expectations moving forward, which I found to be highly effective as a result of his actions returning into the classroom. I believe all the students understood their role when using this tool. The student who I was taking a stroll with took responsibility for his actions and was respectful as well as remorseful when talking with me. The students in the class were also respectful of the time this student needed to himself in order to get his emotions in check because I believe they all know they would want the same if they were in that position. An adjustment I might possibly make is adding some form of card with this stroll so if I am not able to join the stroll the student with be able to either right down a plan to make changes to their disruptive behavior or if the student requests the time for an outside reason they will have a space to express their feelings to me in a private way that I can come back to and have a meeting with the student later.
When I saw this tool, I knew it was something I wanted to try out in my placement classroom and it was something that really resonated with me. I like that this tool is not as isolation of a student, but rather a brain break for students that need it. When I was in school I was a high anxiety kid and always liked to be talking to my peers or moving around the classroom. I feel that a little walk every now and then would have helped me as I think back to my days in school. This is a positive way to help students reset their brains and get out some of their “jitters” as some refer to. Something we had to be careful about was not send the same student every day to take a walk, if this were the case then we would need to have a little talk and check in with that student to prevent isolation. I still feel that this is a positive corrective classroom management tool.