Over my career in Primary I have learned one thing very clearly, that rings true every year, no matter the group of kids. They are far better at talking than they are at listening. I believe in an oral language based classroom. You will never walk into my room and find complete silence (unless someone is presenting). You will see kids asking questions, extending their learning, bouncing their ideas off each other and lots of growth mindset.
Quiet classrooms are not the goal. Evidence of learning is.
With this in mind we talk. A lot. The flip side of that coin is that the practice of listening is even more important. Enter, classroom call backs. I’m pretty sure I have tried almost every call back in existence to see what works best. I have use wind chimes, xylophones, bells, door bells, egg shakers, songs, short rhymes, long rhymes, you get the picture. I learned over time that simply picking one thing and sticking to it was what worked the best.
Why are Call Backs so Effective?
The concept of call backs is so great because it allows your students to maintain independence while learning how to use active listening skills. I give my students their general instructions and learning goals and then send them off until they hear me call them back to my attention. I often pair my call back with a short breathing exercise. This is a great tie in for teaching social/emotional learning skills (more on that in my next post). My most recent call back is my favourite so far.
“If you can hear me… Take a Breath”
I don’t know where I heard this, likely one of my late nights online, going down a rabbit hole of teacher ideas on the web. I saw it and thought how brilliant. For years I have been saying to children if you can hear me do this and do that… Simon says kind of listening until I had everyone’s attention. Breathing incorporated into this idea is so smart and the results for active listening are so quick. The whole room breaths now almost simultaneously into this calmer state. It’s amazing.
Our breath connects us to our body making us present and ready for learning.
Knowing all I do about the simple powerful act of breathing, it is the single most useful tool that I can give my students. It can: slow heart rates, improve focus, lower stress. It’s amazing and something we can all do. So I challenge you now to try this, this week with your students or family and let me know the results in the comments below. I look forward to hearing how this works for you. One last thing remember wait time is key, no matter what call back you choose. Don’t continue talking when most of them have heard you, wait until everyone has, be consistent with whatever call back you choose and bring on the talking.
With Love, C.
Cool photo cred shout out to: Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash thank you!
