Latest / Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies / 285. Positive Classroom Culture is Your Management Secret Weapon

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285. Positive Classroom Culture is Your Management Secret Weapon · Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies

• 0:01
  Heidi: This is episode 285 of Teacher Approved.
• 0:05
  You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
• 0:08
  educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
• 0:12
  Heidi.
• 0:13
  Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
• 0:16
  Window, where we give research-based and
• 0:18
  teacher-approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and
• 0:21
  more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources
• 0:25
  from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
• 0:28
  Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
• 0:31
  the show.
• 0:35
  Emily: Hey there! Thanks for joining us today. In today's
• 0:38
  episode, we are talking about how to shape your classroom
• 0:41
  culture so it can boost your classroom management, and we've
• 0:45
  got a tip for making your mornings a little easier.
• 0:49
  Heidi: But first, let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we
• 0:51
  share a quick win that you can try right away. Emily, what is
• 0:54
  our suggestion this week?
• 0:56
  Emily: Okay, this week look at the school calendar and get all
• 0:58
  the upcoming school theme days or dress up days on the
• 1:02
  calendar. Maybe even set a reminder for the day before so
• 1:06
  that you're not scrambling in the morning.
• 1:09
  Heidi: And also, if you need to buy anything like new pajamas
• 1:13
  for pajama day or a shirt in a certain color, order it now so
• 1:17
  that you have exactly what you need.
• 1:19
  Emily: And if you're worried about how to look cute in the
• 1:21
  school T-shirt you're expected to wear, go back to episode 245
• 1:26
  where Lindsay from Fashion Fix shared a teacher-approved tip
• 1:30
  for how to style a school shirt. She had some really great ideas.
• 1:34
  Heidi: And if you like this idea or anything else we share here
• 1:37
  today, would you do us a favor and share this episode with a
• 1:40
  teacher friend? People trust recommendations from people they
• 1:43
  know. So every time you share our show, it really does help us
• 1:47
  out.
• 1:48
  Emily: Okay, we are officially in September, which means a lot
• 1:51
  of our listeners are starting school this week. And if that is
• 1:54
  you, happy first week! We hope everything goes smoothly.
• 1:58
  Heidi: And actually, a lot of teachers have been back in
• 2:01
  school for weeks already.
• 2:02
  Emily: Yep, especially around where we are. And if that is
• 2:05
  you, then we hope everything is continuing to go smoothly a few
• 2:09
  weeks later.
• 2:11
  Heidi: But wherever you land on the back to school spectrum,
• 2:13
  hopefully you're in a situation where you only have 16 kids in
• 2:17
  your class, and they're all eager, focused learners.
• 2:20
  Emily: Yes, I really hope that's true for all of you, but more
• 2:24
  likely, let's say there are 25 students in your classroom,
• 2:27
  maybe 30, maybe more, and there is one of you.
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  Heidi: I don't like that math.
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  Emily: No.
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  Heidi: Because even if you are the most present, most connected
• 2:38
  teacher in the building, there is no version of the day where
• 2:41
  you can personally manage all of those kids all of the time. It
• 2:46
  is absolutely impossible.
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  Emily: Right. Because while you're helping one student
• 2:50
  understand the assignment, there's two kids that are
• 2:52
  deciding whether to stay focused or start talking. Someone just
• 2:55
  knocked over their pencil box, and their neighbor is looking
• 2:58
  around to see if it's okay to laugh. Another student is trying
• 3:01
  to decide whether it's socially acceptable to ask a question
• 3:04
  that they think might sound dumb.
• 3:06
  Heidi: And you aren't there to personally coach students
• 3:09
  through every one of those decisions. You physically can't
• 3:12
  be, which means that for most of the day, your students are not
• 3:16
  being managed by you at all. They are being managed by each
• 3:19
  other.
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  Emily: Yeah, and this is a part of teaching that we don't
• 3:22
  discuss enough. The social environment in your classroom
• 3:26
  develops its own answers to questions like, is it cool to
• 3:31
  try, or is it cooler to pretend that you don't care? How do we
• 3:35
  respond when somebody is being annoying?
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  Heidi: Or is this a room where we help each other, or a room
• 3:41
  where we look out for ourselves? The answers to these questions
• 3:45
  aren't just individual behavior choices; they are cultural
• 3:48
  norms.
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  Emily: Classroom culture is the collection of unwritten rules
• 3:53
  about how things work. Is this the kind of classroom where
• 3:56
  people stay on task if the teacher has to step in the hall
• 3:59
  for a minute, or is it the kind of class where the teacher's
• 4:01
  absence is an excuse to run wild?
• 4:04
  Heidi: That always bugs me about teachers on TV or in movies. You
• 4:08
  know, they just step into the hall for a five-minute chat
• 4:10
  without a second to worry about what's breaking up behind them.
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  Emily: One of the most unbelievable parts of Abbott
• 4:16
  Elementary. Even though I love Abbott Elementary, but frequent
• 4:20
  hall chats with multiple teachers. That's not, that's not
• 4:23
  realistic, and obviously that's because those teachers are lucky
• 4:28
  enough to have writers telling those kids what to do. But
• 4:31
  sadly, someone forgot to hand out the script to the rest of
• 4:34
  the kids that we have in our classrooms.
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  Heidi: Which is why culture matters so much. It's
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  essentially the script your students follow for knowing how
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  to behave from minute to minute, which makes it much more
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  influential than the rules hanging on your wall.
• 4:49
  Emily: And unlike classroom rules, culture will develop
• 4:52
  completely organically. Which means if you don't decide to
• 4:56
  shape your culture on purpose, you are basically letting the
• 4:59
  loudest voices in your room do it.
• 5:02
  Heidi: Sometimes that works out beautifully. You get two or
• 5:04
  three natural leaders who set a great tone, and then you can
• 5:08
  just ride that all year and feel like a genius.
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  Emily: Uh huh. But more often than not, you end up with a
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  culture of chatting and nonstop water bottle flipping contests.
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  The reason culture is such a potent tool is because of
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  something called social contagion. Like that back to
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  school cold that you're currently fighting off, behavior
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  also spreads.
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  Heidi: You have definitely experienced how this works. So
• 5:34
  when you are the new person at a job, you watch your coworkers to
• 5:37
  see where to sit at lunch or how loud conversations can be, and
• 5:41
  then you just copy what everyone else is doing.
• 5:44
  Emily: Classrooms run the same way. When kindness and effort
• 5:46
  and respect are the standard in a room, then kids absorb it and
• 5:51
  reflect it back to each other without being asked. But it also
• 5:55
  works in the opposite direction.
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  Heidi: Yeah, if eye rolling is tolerated in September, eye
• 6:00
  rolling is the standard by October. Kids are watching what
• 6:04
  you let slide far more closely than they are listening to what
• 6:07
  you say.
• 6:08
  Emily: So when you're working against a student-created
• 6:10
  culture, you spend the whole day putting out fires that the
• 6:14
  culture started.
• 6:16
  Heidi: But with a teacher-led culture, your students hold each
• 6:19
  other to the standard, and you have fewer problems to manage.
• 6:23
  That's because you have peer pressure on your side.
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  Emily: We spend a lot of time trying to protect kids from peer
• 6:29
  pressure, but the truth is, peer pressure is going to exist
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  whether we acknowledge it or not.
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  Heidi: And that's why we definitely want to make sure
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  that the pressure in our classroom is pushing everyone in
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  a useful direction. Positive peer pressure makes the
• 6:43
  difference between students watching someone disrupt a
• 6:46
  lesson and joining in, and someone leaning over to whisper,
• 6:49
  "Dude, stop! We're trying to work."
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  Emily: In the first few days of school, hopefully, you scheduled
• 6:55
  time for important community building activities. But as we
• 6:59
  move into the school year, your work here isn't done. A positive
• 7:02
  classroom culture requires attention, the way that
• 7:05
  relationships do.
• 7:07
  Heidi: But don't let that panic you. Unlike most lessons,
• 7:10
  teaching students how things work in your room happens in the
• 7:13
  little moments. When you respond calmly to a broken rule instead
• 7:17
  of losing your cool, you teach that mistakes are expected.
• 7:20
  Emily: Yeah, and when you invite a student to try again if
• 7:23
  they've spoken harshly to a classmate, you teach that
• 7:26
  respect and relationships matter in your class.
• 7:29
  Heidi: But if you want to be more intentional about shaping
• 7:32
  your classroom culture, we've boiled down the whole process to
• 7:35
  five steps: name it, teach it, practice it, notice it, and
• 7:39
  protect it.
• 7:41
  Emily: All right, let's walk through the first one, which is
• 7:44
  name it. This is an easy one to skip over because it feels so
• 7:47
  obvious, but it's worth saying it anyway. Start by finding 10
• 7:51
  minutes on two different days for a class discussion.
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  Heidi: For the first day, prepare a chart or a blank slide
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  with three columns. Label one column, "I want a teacher who,"
• 8:02
  label the second column, "I want a classmate who," and label the
• 8:06
  third column, "I want a classroom that," and then invite
• 8:10
  students to share their ideas about how to complete those
• 8:12
  sentences.
• 8:14
  Emily: And then on the second day, post a chart or slide that
• 8:16
  says, "We are the kind of class..." Refer back to the
• 8:21
  previous day's poster. If we want to have classmates and a
• 8:23
  teacher and a room that does all of those amazing things, what
• 8:28
  kind of class do we need to be? Have students help you fill out
• 8:31
  that second chart.
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  Heidi: And you might need to share a few ideas to get the
• 8:35
  ball rolling. So, for example, we're the kind of class that
• 8:38
  protects learning time. We're the kind of class that makes
• 8:40
  room for people, and we can disagree respectfully.
• 8:43
  Emily: When you have enough ideas, post the chart where it
• 8:45
  can be referenced. Then, when work time gets too noisy, you
• 8:49
  can call students' attention to their own words. If this is the
• 8:52
  kind of class that protects learning time, show me what I
• 8:56
  should expect to see you doing right now.
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  Heidi: You gotta love a tool that gets everyone back on track
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  without you having to issue a single correction.
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  So after naming it, the second step is to teach it. We all want
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  classrooms where students communicate, problem solve, and
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  include each other.
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  Emily: But those aren't personality traits; they're
• 9:15
  skills. And if students haven't learned them, telling them to
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  work together is a little like handing everyone a recorder and
• 9:21
  saying, "Okay, let's all play Uptown Funk."
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  Heidi: You'd expect absolute chaos in a room full of kids
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  turned loose with recorders. So it's no surprise we get chaos
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  when we expect kids to know how to solve disagreements or how to
• 9:36
  get in a group without any training.
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  Emily: So teach social skills the way that you would teach
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  anything. Name the skill, model it, let them practice, and then
• 9:45
  discuss how it went when they put it in action.
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  Heidi: Yes, that is right. You can tell try telly talk here
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  too. Think about the skills you want students to use in your
• 9:55
  class and start teaching them one at a time.
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  Emily: And luckily, skill lessons are usually much shorter
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  than procedure lessons. If you have visuals for students to
• 10:04
  reference, you only need two or three minutes to help them
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  understand what's expected. For example, how to respond when
• 10:09
  you're frustrated. The steps would be one, pause; two,
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  identify the problem; three, ask for what you need; and four, try
• 10:18
  a solution.
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  Heidi: And then role play at a time or two. If the culture you
• 10:22
  want requires a skill, don't assume students already have it.
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  You need to teach it.
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  Emily: Next up, it's time to practice. During the first few
• 10:31
  weeks, add lots of low stakes group interactions to your
• 10:34
  plans. Help students understand exactly what should happen
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  during turn and talk. How to form partnerships or groups
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  without leaving anyone out, and how to share materials.
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  Heidi: During this stage, keep the focus on the social skills,
• 10:48
  not academics. So, for example, my second graders worked with
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  partners several times a day. So, at the start of the year, I
• 10:55
  taught them how to be good partners, and then gave them a
• 10:58
  non-academic task like a get-to-know-you activity. My
• 11:01
  goal is to give them practice working on the partnership
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  skills without worrying about content.
• 11:06
  Emily: And you can do the same thing with group work or any
• 11:08
  other learning formats. Review the skill and invite students to
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  practice with "Would You Rather" questions instead of math
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  questions.
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  Heidi: And this is a game changer if you do centers. Stock
• 11:19
  all of your centers with simple activities, even a coloring page
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  works okay here. And then focus on giving students practice with
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  managing materials, rotating quietly, working with an
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  assigned group, people they didn't choose. All of those
• 11:32
  skills that go into making centers run smoothly.
• 11:34
  Emily: You might not eliminate the issues completely, but
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  you'll have far fewer if students know how to succeed
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  before you expect them to both manage social and academic
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  expectations at the same time.
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  Heidi: And then after the activity, don't just move on.
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  Take a couple minutes to debrief. What went well? What
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  was tricky? What will you remember to do next time?
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  Emily: And this step is easy to skip, but is crucial because the
• 12:00
  activity itself isn't building your classroom culture; it's the
• 12:03
  reflection afterward where all of this gets internalized.
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  Heidi: The next way to shape classroom culture is to notice
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  the behavior you want more of. What you notice, you make
• 12:14
  visible, and what you make visible has a better chance of
• 12:17
  becoming contagious.
• 12:18
  Emily: The catch is that generic praise does not do the same
• 12:21
  thing. Good job, Table Three. It tells nobody anything about
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  anything. So name the behavior. I just saw three people move
• 12:30
  their chairs that they could see the board better. That's taking
• 12:33
  responsibility for your own learning.
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  Heidi: Now you're not really saying this for the kids who
• 12:38
  move their chairs, although you know everyone likes to be
• 12:40
  praised. You're saying it for the other 22 because you just
• 12:44
  gave them an example of what normal behavior looks like in
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  your room.
• 12:48
  Emily: If risk taking gets highlighted, you get a class
• 12:51
  that will make a guess, even if they're unsure. But if it never
• 12:54
  gets noticed, you get 25 kids who sit and wait for you to hand
• 12:58
  them the answer.
• 12:59
  Heidi: So you can start here by asking yourself, "What behavior
• 13:03
  do I wish would spread around the room? And then pay attention
• 13:06
  for the little examples of it. Notice the student who helps
• 13:09
  clean up, the group that solves a disagreement, students who
• 13:12
  redirect themselves, and the ones who make room for someone
• 13:14
  else.
• 13:16
  Emily: This isn't about manipulating anyone into good
• 13:18
  behavior, and it's not throwing a parade every time someone acts
• 13:21
  like a decent human being. The goal is to connect individual
• 13:25
  actions to the larger well-being of the group.
• 13:29
  Heidi: Unless there's a problem later in the year, you probably
• 13:32
  don't need to schedule time all year long to practice your class
• 13:35
  norms. But noticing is ongoing because we want to keep our
• 13:39
  class norms from drifting into the half-hearted attempts.
• 13:43
  Emily: And that brings us to our fifth step: protect it. When
• 13:47
  someone steps outside a norm, the most powerful thing you can
• 13:50
  say is some version of "That's not how we do things here."
• 13:53
  Heidi: That might sound like "That's not how we solve
• 13:56
  problems," or "You don't have to like what he said, but you do
• 13:59
  have to respond respectfully."
• 14:01
  Emily: Every time you respond to a behavior, you're not just
• 14:04
  managing that individual student. You're also teaching
• 14:07
  the rest of the room what the real rules of this community
• 14:10
  are.
• 14:11
  Heidi: But if you allow the same norm violation over and over
• 14:14
  without addressing it, you're teaching the class that
• 14:18
  everything you say is optional, and that is not a lesson you
• 14:21
  want students to learn.
• 14:23
  Emily: At the end of the day, your classroom culture is
• 14:26
  whatever pattern of behavior you permit. You may have a beautiful
• 14:30
  poster that says we respect everyone, but if students
• 14:34
  regularly talk over each other, exclude classmates, and make
• 14:37
  little cutting comments, you don't have a culture of respect.
• 14:42
  Heidi: Yeah, the poster might reflect your values, but the
• 14:44
  poster isn't your culture. The tolerated behavior is.
• 14:48
  Emily: But don't feel bad if you have let things slide because we
• 14:51
  have all been there.
• 14:53
  Heidi: Oh yes, that's because consistently upholding your
• 14:57
  expectations is absolutely the hardest part of management. We
• 15:01
  talked all about this a couple weeks ago in episode 283. So go
• 15:04
  back and check that out if you missed it.
• 15:06
  Emily: And if you need to course correct, consider what's
• 15:09
  happening repeatedly in your classroom that you don't want to
• 15:12
  normalize. Maybe that's calling out, complaining, tattling, or
• 15:17
  students refusing to work together.
• 15:19
  Heidi: And then pick one of those and address it as a
• 15:21
  cultural issue. Try saying something like, "I've noticed
• 15:25
  this has started becoming normal in our room, and it's a problem
• 15:28
  because it's keeping people from doing their best. Let's talk
• 15:31
  about what we want to do instead."
• 15:33
  Emily: And doing this at the start of the year will save you
• 15:35
  time in the long run, but redirection can be done at any
• 15:39
  point in the year.
• 15:41
  Heidi: Yeah, maybe you need to reset after a long break, or get
• 15:44
  everyone back on track when spring fever hits. When that
• 15:47
  happens, gather everyone for a discussion, talk about what's
• 15:49
  going well and what isn't working.
• 15:52
  Emily: And just keep the focus on students' ideas. Ask what
• 15:55
  kind of class they want to have and what they need to do
• 15:58
  differently to get there. Then name it, teach it, practice it,
• 16:01
  notice it, and protect it.
• 16:04
  Heidi: As you settle into the regular rhythm of the year,
• 16:07
  remember that the goal is to build a classroom where students
• 16:10
  increasingly understand how to act, how to solve problems, and
• 16:14
  how to treat each other, even when you are across the room
• 16:17
  helping somebody else.
• 16:19
  Emily: That doesn't mean there won't still be water bottle
• 16:22
  flipping contests. There probably will be, or whatever
• 16:25
  this year's version of six seven is going to be.
• 16:28
  Heidi: Oh no.
• 16:29
  Emily: But when the culture underneath is strong, those
• 16:32
  moments are smaller and shorter.
• 16:35
  Heidi: That's because your students have a shared framework
• 16:37
  for making it right and moving on. And every time they work
• 16:41
  through a hard moment together, the culture gets a little
• 16:43
  stronger.
• 16:45
  Emily: If this conversation was helpful, you definitely want to
• 16:47
  join us in the Teacher Approved Club. This month, we have a
• 16:50
  resource to help you make sure that all of the lessons you're
• 16:53
  teaching students about how to function in your room stick in
• 16:56
  their cute little brains. So there's a link to sign up in the
• 17:00
  show notes, or you can visit us at secondstorywindow.net/club.
• 17:04
  Now for our teacher-approved tip of the week, where we share an
• 17:09
  actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and
• 17:11
  simplify the rest. This week's teacher-approved tip is to get
• 17:15
  multiple lunch bags. Okay, tell us about it, Heidi.
• 17:19
  Heidi: Okay, well I can't take credit for this. So, for the
• 17:22
  past few weeks, Mackenzie's Journey on Instagram and
• 17:25
  probably on TikTok has been sharing tips for how teachers
• 17:29
  can prep their homes, not just their classrooms, for back to
• 17:32
  school. And she has some really great tips that I would have
• 17:35
  never thought of. And one of those tips is getting five lunch
• 17:39
  bags. This seemed a little crazy till she explained it.
• 17:42
  So, if you like to batch prep your lunches for the week, or if
• 17:46
  you think this is something you'd like to try, you'll be
• 17:49
  more likely to stick with it if you remove as many hurdles as
• 17:52
  possible, even if all of those hurdles are small. I know when I
• 17:57
  have batched lunches in the past, I would make all my meals,
• 18:01
  and then I would have to fill up my lunch bag every day. But
• 18:04
  every extra step in a system is a potential weak spot. And if
• 18:08
  you're like me and running late in the morning, that extra step
• 18:11
  of having to load your bag each day could be the step that
• 18:14
  derails this whole plan.
• 18:16
  So to counter that, Mackenzie got five lunch bags. So then,
• 18:19
  when she's finished prepping the lunches for the week. She can
• 18:22
  load all of the bags right then.
• 18:24
  Emily: Dang, that is so smart. I guess sometimes it really is the
• 18:27
  simplest ideas that can have the biggest impact. And I think a
• 18:30
  lot of people would hear this and be like, "Oh my gosh, I do
• 18:32
  not need five lunch bags." But in reality, it probably would
• 18:36
  free up more space in your brain than you might realize.
• 18:39
  Heidi: Yeah, and I don't think it takes that much more space
• 18:41
  because you have to have all of those containers in your fridge
• 18:44
  anyway.
• 18:44
  Emily: Yes, that's just meal prepping.
• 18:46
  Heidi: Yeah, now they're just packed and ready to go. And
• 18:49
  Mackenzie even goes a step further. She has a fridge in her
• 18:52
  garage, so she can put all of her lunches out there and then
• 18:55
  just grab one as she's heading to the car. Oh, but even if you
• 18:59
  don't have a second fridge, just having those extra bags could be
• 19:02
  a huge lifesaver for you.
• 19:04
  Emily: Well, these kind of, I hate to call it a hack, I don't
• 19:07
  think it's really a life hack, but it's something you're
• 19:10
  looking at something different in your life that you hadn't
• 19:12
  looked at that way before. But I just lived for this kind of
• 19:15
  stuff. I'm like, should I? I'm staying home, but should I prep
• 19:18
  my lunches for the week and get five lunch bags?
• 19:21
  Heidi: You would feel super organized.
• 19:23
  Emily: I bet I would.
• 19:26
  Heidi: Okay, to wrap up the show, we're sharing what we're
• 19:28
  giving extra credit to this week. Emily, I get your extra
• 19:30
  credit?
• 19:31
  Emily: Okay, I'm giving extra credit to the movie Solo Mio,
• 19:36
  which is a Kevin James movie. It was in theaters, I think. I
• 19:42
  think?
• 19:43
  Heidi: I don't think so. I think it was for TV.
• 19:44
  Emily: Oh, maybe it was just straight for TV. I don't know.
• 19:47
  But I watched it on Hulu, I think. I was working on a
• 19:51
  project a couple weeks ago, and so I blew through a bunch of
• 19:54
  movies because I was just putting something on in the
• 19:55
  background, and I was like, "Oh, I'll just give this one a try."
• 19:58
  And it probably helps that I went in with rock bottom
• 20:02
  expectations because I'm like, oh, you know how Kevin James is.
• 20:05
  Although I do like Kevin James, but you know how his movies are.
• 20:09
  But I thought this was adorable.
• 20:11
  So the premise is that he is in Italy to get married, and his
• 20:16
  wife or his fiance, I guess, leaves him at the altar. Now
• 20:20
  this happens in like the first five minutes of the movie, but
• 20:23
  then he stays for the next three weeks or something for the
• 20:28
  honeymoon. So he's on this tour group basically for all that
• 20:32
  time with all these other couples and newlyweds, and it's
• 20:36
  just such a fun cast of characters. I love when a show
• 20:40
  has fun side characters, but that are not too ridiculous, I
• 20:44
  thought these were all like genuinely fun and cute. And I
• 20:47
  don't want to give too much of the movie away, but I, I
• 20:50
  honestly thought it was a really sweet little rom com watch, if
• 20:53
  you're looking for something.
• 20:55
  Heidi: Well, I'll definitely have to check that out. That
• 20:57
  sounds delightful.
• 20:58
  Emily: What are you giving extra credit to, Heidi?
• 21:01
  Heidi: This is a hard pivot.
• 21:03
  Emily: Yours usually are.
• 21:05
  Heidi: I'm giving extra credit to slim, non-slip metal hangers.
• 21:09
  Emily: Oh, ooh la la!
• 21:12
  Heidi: So I don't know why I even ordered these, but they are
• 21:17
  so nice. I've been switching out my regular hangers, and I, I
• 21:23
  have had the same plastic black hangers probably for 20 or more
• 21:27
  years. But I've been switching these out, and I cannot believe
• 21:30
  the space it has freed up in my closet just to have these thin
• 21:33
  hangers. So they're metal, but they're thicker than wire
• 21:37
  hangers. You couldn't. I don't think you could bend them, and
• 21:39
  then they're coated in like I don't know rubber silicone
• 21:44
  something, so your clothes don't slide off them. It's a game
• 21:46
  changer for how my closet looks so much neater, and I have way
• 21:50
  more room. I am frankly surprised at the difference just
• 21:53
  this little switch up made.
• 21:55
  Emily: I've had those kind of hangers for years. Mine, I
• 21:57
  think, are kind of like felt lined to keep the clothes on
• 22:01
  there.
• 22:01
  Heidi: I have some that are, I tried some like velvet ones.
• 22:04
  Emily: Maybe that's what it is, velvet.
• 22:05
  Heidi: And then, like at one point, it's like I'm going all
• 22:08
  in on wood because I'm investing. And then I was like,
• 22:11
  my clothes are, these are huge. My clothes are not nice enough
• 22:14
  to need wood hangers.
• 22:16
  Emily: They take up so much room.
• 22:17
  Heidi: Yes, and I thankfully only bought like five.
• 22:20
  Emily: Well, good thing.
• 22:21
  Heidi: Anyway, yeah, I'm a big fan. I will put a link in the
• 22:24
  show notes if you need to upgrade your closet.
• 22:26
  Emily: I committed to wood hangers for my children when
• 22:28
  they were little, and now I'm like, why did I do that? It
• 22:30
  just, I felt like it made their closets look so cute with all
• 22:34
  their little clothes, and now they their clothes are too big
• 22:37
  for all those little wooden hangers, and I need to do
• 22:39
  something with them. Maybe I'll get them some non-slip metal
• 22:42
  hangers.
• 22:43
  Heidi: There you go. I think that's the only way to go.
• 22:47
  Well, that is it for today's episode. Remember to name,
• 22:49
  teach, practice, notice, and protect the classroom culture
• 22:52
  that you want to cultivate.
• 22:57
  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm Heidi.
• 23:00
  Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
• 23:04
  or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
• 23:06
  episode.
• 23:07
  Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
• 23:09
  Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
• 23:13
  Bye for now.
• 23:14
  Emily: Bye.