211 | January Reset: Managing Classroom Behavior After Winter Break

In this episode of That Music Podcast, Bryson reframes January as an opportunity, not to overhaul everything, but to reset with intention. Instead of reacting to behaviors or doubling down on consequences, he shares three small but powerful mindset shifts that help you increase engagement, reduce chaos, and set your classroom up for success for the rest of the year.

You’ll hear how simple adjustments can transform the way your classroom feels, without adding more to your plate. If January feels heavy, overwhelming, or just plain exhausting, this episode will help you reset in a way that feels realistic, supportive, and sustainable for you and your students.

Episode Chapters:

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:06 Embrace the Power of Pacing
• 4:29 From Correction to Clarity
• 6:17 Granting Implicit Permission
• 8:41 Takeaways

Links and Resources: 

• The Elementary Music Summit®
• Elementary Newbie Guide
• Disabilities Guide
• Steady Beat Survival Guide
• Join Elementary Music EDGE™

Use coupon code PODCAST at checkout for 50% off your first month of Elementary Music EDGE™ today!

Grab your free ticket to the Elementary Music Summit®: January Refresh -> www.thatmusicteacher.com/summit

Have questions or want to share feedback? Reach out to us at hello@thatmusicteacher.com - we’d love to hear from you!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:56 Embrace the Power of Pacing
• 5:19 From Correction to Clarity
• 7:07 Granting Implicit Permission
• 9:31 Takeaways

Transcript

Bryson Tarbet: 0:50

It's the first week back from winter break. It's cold outside, it's snowy. Or if you're here in Ohio, it's just muddy and gross and the attention spans are just not there. Your teaching routine's out the window and it feels like you're starting from scratch. Again, if this feels like you, you're not alone, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today, how we can use January. Has a little bit of a reset.

Speaker 2: 1:10

You are listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tart, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher in the elementary music summit. Each week, Bryson and his guest will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show notes and resources mentioned in this. Episode can be found@thatmusicteacher.com.

Bryson Tarbet: 1:44

Hello and welcome back to that music podcast. I totally get it. January is an energy drain. You finally, you know, had some time off. You were able to take some time in the, the, you know, over the holiday break. But let's be honest, we weren't really just relaxing the whole time. Uh, you likely were doing a lot of travel, dealing with snow, dealing with this, that, and the other thing. If you're feeling like January is just the big energy drain, you're not alone. And I think the biggest thing is that January isn't about not knowing what to teach necessarily. It's about managing the chaos and figuring out how you're gonna make the best of the situation you're in. And music teachers, it can be really easy to, for us to focus on consequences when really we should focus on engagement whenever possible. The key here is from shifting, from being reactive to being proactive, so we're not chasing behavior, we're designing success and setting our students up for it. We're gonna make three small, actionable mindset shifts this week in the podcast that are going to instantly help you increase your engagement and reduce your classroom management chaos. As a little bit of a teaser, these shifts are part of a larger proven framework that I use to create a joyful self-managing classroom culture. So if this is something that is interesting to you, stay tuned and you're gonna learn how you can dive in even deeper. Let's dive right in with shift number one, embrace the power of pacing. If you've been in my world for a while, you know, this is something that I really believe in because when we think about when things fall off the rail in our classrooms, it's typically. When there are lulls in our lesson when students are bored or if they have too much waiting time, this monotony often leads to misbehavior, big, bad, small, you know, all the different kinds of things. But it, you typically comes from improper pacing. So what you can do to make this shift is really focus on purposeful planning. I challenge you, this is a challenge for you. I challenge you to implement what I call the seven minute Rule. And for me, this has always been kind of an arbitrary number. Like seven is not this magic number, it's just basically what I chose and what I've. Been using, um, for, in my classroom, in my lessons. I don't want my students in the same place doing the same thing for longer than seven minutes. That doesn't mean we're not ever meeting, you know, exceeding that rule. But that's kind of my guideline. So my challenge for you is to shift the activity type, the group configuration, or even the location. Um, for instance, you know, if you're still used doing the same thing, but maybe instead of doing it all in one place, you do a little bit of a at the chalkboard and a little bit at their spots, a little bit in a circle, whatever, to kind of give them some little mental bookends to be able to restart their focus clock. And this is something that I have found to be super, super helpful. Every about seven minutes or so is what I use in my classroom. I want you to pick the number of minutes that feels good for you, but I wanna make sure that you're keeping the developmental age of your students in check and in in the back of your mind as you're making these decisions. I found that this type of shift has been really helpful, especially. If you're implementing Purposeful Transitions, I have plenty of episodes in the podcast about this, and I dived even deeper into a masterclass inside Elementary Music Edge. So if you're an Edge member, there's a couple trainings actually about transitions and the brain science behind them that I highly recommend you check out. But all this to say is basically use the time you have more efficiently give your students more purposeful kind of structure so that the misbehaving, the chaos, the. Testing rules because you know, it's January we're coming back, is kind of removed a little bit. You're giving them something specific to do and that's going to be really helpful. Shift number two is moving from correction to clarity. The problem that we often see a lot is that we would say, you know, stop doing that or make sure we're not there. Be respectful. But sometimes students don't necessarily know what doing that means. So instead of just saying things. Let's really be clear. Let's make a shift to be proactively present. My challenge for you here is to proactively use clear descriptive language to coach success in your students. Don't just correct mistakes. This is going to allow you the opportunity to communicate your expectations consistently, but also like show what they are. So just like at the beginning of the year, we talked about how you can give all of your expectations, but you know, if you're just saying them, you're doing your students in disservice. Have your students do the expectations. If one of the expectations in your classroom is that students can move through space safely, have them practice that January is a perfect time for you to firm up your expectations, but to also reinforce and reintroduce them for those students that might need to hear them again or see them again or feel it in action. And this is gonna be really helpful, especially as we, let's be honest, the, the, you know, the time between now and the end of the year. Whether we like to say it goes fast or not, a lot happens. There's a lot that we need to do. You likely have a lot of concerts typically coming up, so we have a lot we need to get done. So putting some time in now in January to reinforce those expectations is going to pay off. In dividends. So here's an actionable tip. Instead of just saying, stop playing the drum, give them something to do. Say, all right, we're gonna go in a rest position. Our rest position, or our hands are our shoulders or hands in our head, or our hands up in the sky, whatever. This is going to empower students to choose a different path by giving them exactly what you want to see as an option, making it explicitly clear what the good answer is. Shift number three is all about granting implicit permission. The problem that we often see is every time a student has to raise their hand to ask permission for all of these different things, maybe they need a fidget. Maybe they need to stand up for a little bit. Maybe they need an opportunity to take a breath. It's gonna drain your energy and interrupt your classroom flow. So the shift that I wanna offer here is what I call personalized permission. And I want you to slowly build, and the emphasis here is slowly build a trust-based environment that is going to allow students to have autonomy to meet their own needs without having to necessarily ask for explicit permission. Now, am I saying that students can do whatever they want without asking? No. But are there certain things in my classroom that students can do without asking? Yes. For instance, one big one for me is I always have fidgets, uh, available for all of my students, fidgets and over the ear headphones. I've talked about this a lot before. Um, but the purpose of that is to make sure that they're accessible to anyone that needs them. And I know that for me, if I had to have a student stop the lesson and ask every time they wanted one, that would cause my lesson flow to just like fully get halted. So my students know once we've implemented, you know, how, what the expectations are for headphones and fidgets. They know that if we're doing a lesson where it's like, maybe I'm reading a book or something where we're not actively using our hands, they can go up and grab a, grab a fidget. They don't have to ask me. It's not a whole, you know, go, you go over there and you've gotta, you know, you look through all of them. You take all time. No, you go over there, you pick one up, you bring it back. And my students know that I've shown them those expectations, kind of like I did in the last shift, and they know what they're able to do. By doing things like that. And I also had a water fountain in my room, so my students knew the expectations around that. You know, if we were playing a game, they can go get a water, you know, if we're actively doing a heavy duty, you know, working on the board, that's not the time. So by making those expectations clear, I'm also giving my students permission within those expectations to take care of themselves and do what they need to do in order to not get in the way of me teaching, but also just to like make sure that they're okay and this implicit permission and personalized permission. Is what I've seen my students really, really thrive with and really help them have the understanding that like I care about them as a person, and I'm also kind of showing them that they sometimes have to do something to help themselves and modeling what that might look like in the moment is really important. So drop all this up again. We have three core shifts that I wanna offer you this January. Using pacing to eliminate lulls, using clarity to coach success, and using implicit permission to build trust with your students. These tips are powerful, but they're just three pieces to a larger puzzle. If you wanna move beyond these quick fixes and actually get the entire framework that I use for a transformed classroom culture, the one that helps you shift from managing behavior to proactively creating joy and fun, um, this is really where my upcoming workshop is going to bring. I'm gonna walk you through the entire proactive and playful music classroom framework. Inside Elementary Music Edge, this masterclass is gonna cover four pillars of this, this framework. So purposeful planning, proactive presence, playful partnership, and personalized permission. If you're already a member of Elementary Music Edge, this training will be inside your library soon. And if you're not already a member, check out the description, wherever you're watching your listening, because there might be an extra exclusive offer for you to join us inside. With that being said, I wanna offer the wonderful from the bottom of my, what on earth is wrong with my brain. With that being said, I want to wish you the best 2026. I hope that you have an absolutely phenomenal year, and as always, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of the students.