You can combine two or more classroom routines into one or add steps to an existing routine. Either way, longer routines are better.
In fact, they’re a must.
Here’s why:
Purpose
Your students need goals to accomplish. They need targets, lined up one after the other, to shoot at. They need their dormant internal drive mechanism awakened and engaged.
In other words, they need purpose. It’s the only way to transform bored and listless students into purpose-driven goal hunters seeking mountains to climb.
Challenge
Routines are by nature boring because they’re routine. By adding challenge via more steps—even nonsensical steps—they become interesting.
And it’s easy to do. Two-second dances, favorite-sport poses, spins and twists, exercises, hops, vocabulary word call-outs . . . anything different or unusual adds fun and interest.
Note: I will describe exactly how to do this in tomorrow’s (11/9/25) Facebook video.
Behavior
Boredom, low-bar standards, laziness, and indifference are the death knell of healthy classroom culture. They cause misbehavior, bad attitudes, and the desire to sabotage your teaching.
You must avoid any infestation of negativity by pushing the envelop on what your students can do. Challenge them. Surprise them. Ask more of them, not less by lengthening routines.
Focus
You must ensure your students maintain a level of focus throughout the entirety of their time with you, whether for one period or the whole day. You can never lose them.
Because it’s far harder to get them back on track. It also wastes precious time. Thus, you must keep them engrossed in the present through novelty, challenge, and goal after goal—including routines.
Excellence
Excellence isn’t something you can turn off and on in your classroom. The faucet must be wide open every moment. It’s a habit that routines help develop.
This means asking for perfection even between lessons. Transitions and routines/procedures must be done a certain, specific way—again, with some challenge thrown in.
Transference
Hard work, good performance, and motivation all transfer. And so do their opposites. Therefore, if you accept mindless and sloppy routines, student work will suffer.
Everything must be done to the highest standard. It’s the only way to establish a culture of serious learning and polite attentive behavior.
Routines ≠ Routine
Adding an additional step or two or combining routines is simple to do, taking little to zero planning.
But it pays big-time dividends.
The same old, same old just doesn’t work anymore. Times have changed. You must adjust or this job will crush you, as it’s currently doing to so many teachers.
With the right knowledge, however, it’s still possible to have the happy, well-behaved class you want. It’s still possible to avoid long hours and teach (relatively) free of stress.
Here at SCM, we’ll continue to provide the tools, but you must apply them.
Reading and nodding along doesn’t cut it. You must put what you learn into practice and then make it part of your everyday. Details and discipline win.
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