In the classroom, you can have phenomenal content knowledge (strategy), amazing lesson plans (tactics), but if you don’t have your logistics in place, you might as well be a seat-warmer for all the effect you’ll have on your students.

Logistics in the classroom take the form of procedures and rituals. This can range from how you pass out papers to how you grade; from how students find their seats to the way you manage student behavior.

Last year, I had to have a talk with my 4th period class. Their entry into the classroom was sloppy and they were taking several minutes to really get going on the work at hand. We spent about 10 minutes brainstorming a proper procedure for classroom entry, then continued on. One student asked why we had wasted so much time talking about this, and so we did the math.

The class estimated that they weren’t getting down to business until 3 minutes after the bell on average — not too bad, they thought. But once we started doing the multiplication, their assessment changed. This startup delay meant that in just one week, we would lose 15 minutes of class time. Over a quarter, that became 2 hours and 15 minutes. Over the course of the year, that would total up to 9 hours.

The students (mostly) agreed: 10 minutes is a worthwhile investment to try to reclaim 9 hours. Left to themselves, classrooms will bleed time, and it’s nearly always worth stopping to treat the wound.

Anything that is repeated needs a procedure. Tasks that occur daily need to become rituals — procedures that the students know how to carry out blindfolded and which they feel are important. Training students in procedures is a lot like voting in Chicago — do it early, do it often.

Notice that I used the word “training” in place of procedures back there.  I’ve come to the conclusion that teachers, particularly middle-school teachers, have two jobs in the classroom. The first is the one that gets all the attention: teaching the content. With our focus on right answers on one particular day, we practically require teachers to think of nothing but getting through the content.

But I think we’re also in the business of training students in how to handle themselves in school and in life. This is best done by creating procedures that, when followed properly, mimic the world outside the school and enhance classroom efficiency. With these predictable structures in place, students know what to expect, and content teaching becomes dramatically more efficient.

That’s the idea, anyway. Getting there is much harder than it looks!

Jeremy Sebens is a 2010 WW Indiana Teaching Fellow and taught at Harshman Magnet Middle School in Indianapolis.