Tammy’s Teaching Tips

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In the classroomNew teachersFuture teachers

Teach routines like they're content

Every transition you don't teach, you'll spend the year managing.

Written with AI — this one isn’t Tammy. The Field Guide covers ground her videos don’t, and keeps to what’s well established. It doesn’t know your students, and nothing here overrides your school’s policy or your state’s law. · 1 min read

What to do

List every recurring moment in your day — coming in, getting materials, turning work in, asking for help, the bathroom, packing up. Each one needs a procedure.
Teach each procedure the way you'd teach a skill: explain it, model it yourself, have students practise it, and give feedback.
Rehearse until it's automatic. Calmly having the class redo a messy entrance isn't a punishment; it's practice.
Narrate what's going right (“Row two already has pencils out”) more often than what's going wrong.
Re-teach after every long break. Routines fade over the holidays for students and teachers alike.

Why it works

Most disruption doesn't happen during the lesson — it happens in the seams between activities, when nobody is quite sure what they're supposed to be doing. A routine removes that uncertainty and frees students' attention for the actual learning. The time you spend drilling procedures in September is repaid many times over by February.

Try this tomorrow

Pick the single messiest transition in your day. Write it as three numbered steps, teach it tomorrow as if it were a lesson, and practise it twice.

Watch out

Don't assume students already know how your room works. Every teacher does it differently, and “they should know this by now” is how routines quietly stop existing.

Tammy on this

The same subject from someone who has actually done it for thirty years.

In the classroom

Don't spend your own money on incentives

Bribery works. The things kids want most happen to be free.

New teachersFuture teachers

With Tammy Striler

In the classroom

Use humor

Let them see you're human. It's what they'll actually remember.

New teachersFuture teachersVeteran teachers

With Tammy Striler

More from the Field Guide

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Ask what the behavior is for

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Most misbehavior is a student getting something or avoiding something. Find out which.

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Settle phones on day one

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Know your school's rule, turn it into one routine, and enforce it calmly every day.

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Wait three seconds after you ask

Teaching & assessment

Silence after a question isn't dead air. It's thinking time — and most of us cut it off.

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Written with AI — not by Tammy

The rest of the guide

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