I student taught for 14 weeks with Ellen Applebaum (pseudonym) and her fifth grade class at the West Street School in Geneva, NY. I was a starry-eyed 21-year-old who had only discovered I wanted to be a teacher during my sophomore and junior years of college.

Mrs. Applebaum had a great reputation. She was probably the age I am now, but she seemed very mature and experienced (characteristics I don't necessarily embody all the time now). I remember that she was organized, a firm disciplinarian, and just a little traditional in her methods of teaching. At the same time, she was very warm toward me, gave me lots of responsibility quickly, and was open to my trying new things with her class. She said she liked having student teachers because they offered daily professional development around progressive pedagogy. I really admired Mrs. A. and soaked up all the mentoring she offered. We became close during that semester, and a couple of years later, when I got married in Maine, she was there!

West Street School worked in close partnership with the college I attended. I had done fieldwork at the school with grades K, 1 and 4 previously, so I felt comfortable in that setting from the start of my student teaching experience. I don't remember interacting with the principal at all, but I can still see her face (and not remember her name). The school was somewhat diverse with African American kids being the most visible racial group; socioeconomic status among all the children varied. Geneva was not an affluent town, but it was on the shore of Seneca Lake, which attracted wealthy 2nd homeowners, and faculty from the local private college sent their kids there. I remember feeling like expectations for hallway behavior were overly-emphasized (all kids walking in single file along one side of the hall, no talking and no dragging your hand along the tiled wall--seriously, who can resist running his/her hand along those cool, smooth squares with the rough seams at regular intervals? To me it was therapeutic.)

I remember my college supervisor said I would remember my student teaching experience in surprising detail for many years. He was right. I could write about lots of stories, but I'll share one management technique that I borrowed from Mrs. Applebaum and ended up using through my own tenure as a teacher for 8 years.

I learned about Mrs. A's freeze/share idea in the hallway--surprise, surprise. To help the kids practice appropriate hallway decorum (I mean really, they were in 5th grade. If they didn't know the expectations by now, they were NEVER going to learn), Mrs. Applebaum would line them up and take a demonstration walk down the hall. If she said, "Share", the kids were expected to keep walking, but to stop all talking. If she said "Freeze", they were expected to stop walking and talking. We never really used this in the hall, but it was good practice for the classroom where we used freeze/share a lot. For example, if the kids were working on a group math exercise using manipulatives, there were plenty of times when we wanted them to keep working, but to listen to instructional clarification or praise. In this case, we would say, "Share". At other times, if things were really off track, or if we wanted to add a new dimension to a task, we could use "freeze" to stop the action and redirect.

After a couple of weeks, we could practically whisper "freeze" or "share" and the kid were so attuned to these cues that they would respond immediately. Eventually, we invited the kids to use "share" if they needed the class's attention during an activity. At first, a few kids took it too far, but we were able to squash those impulses quickly and the word became a great community-building tool.

As I said, I used this strategy to great effect in my future classrooms. And I'll admit that at the beginning of every year I had my students practice freeze/share in the hallway!

I've always been attracted to management techniques that are respectful, purposeful and flexible. Freeze/share meets all these criteria. I'll be interested to know what you both embrace as management strategies in your classrooms this fall.