Hey there! My friend Lindsay is a former high school math teacher and went through the same struggles early on in her career that I did - no textbook, terrible resources, and no little help to figure things out. 

Thankfully for the both of us, we figured things out and found success by creating our own resources and then sharing them with others. She's now got an awesome blog where she shares awesome teaching tips. Some are math focused, but many others apply to any subject and I LOVED this post on Classroom Management Tips and wanted to share it with you. 

Everything in this post resonated with me and brought me back to those early days of teaching where I'd be up late into the night trying to plan a lesson that would keep kids busy the whole period because I hadn't yet learned those important strategies to make my classroom engaging, filled with learning, and with a natural fow built on respect.

If you're just starting out or want some important ideas to review before the school year starts, definitely check out the post. 

While all of her advice is great, I definitely have to second how important it is to learn kids names right away.  It's definitely hard to do when you have 100+ students as a high school teacher, but it is a powerful way to show every student that you care about them and respect them 

Lindsay even has another great post about the name game she used to help learn students' names on the first day of school. I love this idea and used to do something similar. Now, with new SASI attendance software, we have pictures of every student that I can study at night. If your school has that program - I definitely recommend using it to study names and quiz yourself before the next day. 

The reason this is so important is because it immediately shows your students that you care about them. Many students have told me about teachers still needing an attendance chart and not knowing their name weeks into the year. 

When you can greet them at the door on Day 2 with a smile and a, "Hey Ricardo, how was the rest of your first day?" It is a powerful way to connect. Kids immediately get a sense that you aren't just another teacher, but a special one who values them. 

When it comes down to it, I promise you that you'll barely have any classroom management issues if the kids know that you care about them and respect them. That is always my number one classroom management tip. Get to know the students, show them that you care, and build mutual respect. 

If you want to check out more great advice from Lindsay, her site can be found here. 

Happy teaching everyone!