Bell to Bell Instruction: Exhausting Teachers and Students

Have you ever played the game cookie clicker? If you haven’t, it is a game where you click a giant cookie in order to gain currency called cookies. The more times you click, the more cookies you get, and the faster you click, the faster you get cookies. You can also buy upgrades to increase the output of your cookies and get even more, calculating the amount of ‘cookies per minute’ you are generating. Therefore, the goal is to maximize productivity in order to gain the most amount of cookies you can. In a funny and sad comparison, this is how our classrooms are beginning to be structured.

An idea that has been consistently adopted by educators is bell to bell instruction. It means that from the second that class starts to the last second of class, students are constantly working towards their learning goals. The idea is that if we maximize every second with students towards learning content then we can help them achieve their learning goals. Sounds good right?

When I first started teaching, I was very involved in making sure that every minute in my classroom had an activity that students were doing. In my lesson plans I would make a time stamp for everything, even the questions I was going to ask during class. I was very calculated in how I would walk around the classroom and which student I was going to work with that day, to the point of scripting out my possible conversation.

But as I continued teaching, the complex lesson planning stopped and the focus of draining every last second of class time disappeared.

After my third year of teaching, I decided to stop dedicating myself towards bell to bell instruction. It is an exhausting and unrealistic expectation set for teachers and students. Teaching is a highly demanding career, and to add in the expectation that we should always be “on” for students to address their every need during class is unrealistic and another reason why teachers leave the profession.

This article today is addressing bell to bell instruction, the difficulties that it places on teachers and students.

What is Bell to Bell Instruction?

Bell to bell instruction means that every minute in the classroom counts towards the student learning goal. It expects that at all times during the class period students are doing something to educate themselves on the subject at hand or better themselves. For instance, students should be learning something every single class and practicing that learning through some sort activity. It can be a worksheet, project, or group work that the outcome is that the teacher will grade it.

This also means that there is no “free time”. If a student finishes early, then teachers need to create more work for them to complete. Does not matter if the student has mastered the skill, give Timmy more practice problems to do. Finish the lesson early and have 4 minutes to spare? Students should not be talking about their plans after school, spend the 4 minutes reading a DEAR book so students can increase their literacy scores.

And if you think I am exaggerating at the last paragraph, I am not at all. I have actually been told to do this during my first year teaching, and I did. Bell to bell instruction has been taken so far and literally that every single second of class time counts. So what does this mean for us as the teacher during this constant stimulation of student minds?

Exhausted Teacher Mode Activated

Bell to bell instruction also means that every minute in the classroom the teacher is doing something to support student learning. Now of course teachers should be doing something during class and in 99% of cases it is helping student learn the content. However, you do hit a point in the lesson where you have taught the material, students have practiced, you have gone over a few problems, and students are able to self monitor and work by themselves. At this point, you would think students are better off completing it themselves and you can commit some time to all of the other multiple tasks as a teacher right? Nope.

Bell to bell instruction means that a teacher is standing and constantly monitoring the classroom to support student learning. All students master the skill? There is always more to learn. No sitting down (a peer of mine had all their chairs removed by ghosts), no grading, no writing important emails, no lesson planning; only supporting student learning. Bell to bell instruction means a teacher must always be “on”. You need to catch every small misbehavior, incorrect answer, listen in on every conversation and make sure students are talking about the content, ensure everyone is answering each question with rigor, and make sure you mark it all down on your clipboard.

Now lets imagine that you have to do that 5 times a day for 50 minutes each. You are looking at a little over 4 hours of constant teaching and being on with students, nit picking their every behavior. Now if that was all of it, then it wouldn’t seem bad.

Teachers do not get “breaks”

Teachers have a plan period that they can have a break during while they need to plan for the rest of the week and more coming up. Furthermore, teachers also have to do recess, lunch, arrival, dismissal, restroom, and lead homeroom classes where they are expected to be on. Hopefully your plan is in the middle of the day so you can use the restroom at a decent point, if not then no worries, you will probably be all consumed by the bell to bell instruction and will not ever think about needing to use the restroom.

Bell to Bell Instruction is Exhausting for Students

For some reason, people think that students learning is like Cookie Clicker: if we spend every single second on student learning then we can maximize their educational attainment and increase their tests scores. But learning does not work like this. Learning takes attention, engagement, and repetition of recalling information. Therefore, wasting 4 minutes to allow students to talk to each other is not going to lead to them “losing knowledge”.

Furthermore, students rarely get many breaks through out the school day. If we are enforcing bell to bell instruction, the most breaks students get are transition/passing periods and lunch. To be clear, transition periods and lunch are not breaks; students have outcomes they need to do such as eat, go to the restroom, get water, gather their materials and go to the next class. Yes there is some socialization and downtime during it, but let us not confuse it with an actual break where students have unstructured time.

To add the icing on the cake, students attend multiple classes a day. Assuming they get a 3 minute actual break between each class, with a lunch somewhere in there, they are marathoning to the finish line. I always notice that my last periods of the day are either exhausted or frustrated at the end of the day because of the constant need to be on and focused.

Does every minute really count?

My favorite argument for bell to bell instruction goes like this: There are 180 days in the school year. Lets say you waste 4 minutes at the end of every class. This adds up to 720 minutes, or 12 hours of learning lost! Therefore, we need bell to bell instruction to maximize student learning.

It is pretty persuasive, but faulty. Just think about what usually happens the last four minutes of class. Most likely students are not learning anything. Most of them are packing up their things and getting ready to leave while chatting. And suppose we did have them read those last 4 minutes of class everyday, I doubt they would even be able to pay attention. They are most likely burnt from completing the lesson prior to it and need a break. If I make them read, then they have to waste time into their transition period and it takes away from their break even more. Thus the argument is very persuasive, but not realistic.

What is the solution?

It is difficult finding research around students being impacted by bell to bell instruction. Therefore, the solutions I impose are more suggestions and based on my own experience with students.

1. Give students time to socialize

Finish a lesson early? Let students talk to each other. Set expectations around making sure students stay in their seats, talk at an appropriate level, and know when they need to line up. I believe that this supports classroom culture, allows students to connect with each other, and gives students an opportunity to relax and be a kid.

2. Have activities you can let students choose if you have left over time

If a student finishes their assignment early, have an activity for them to do that is more relaxing such as coloring or a crossword. I have also allowed students to play games on their laptop when the finish, provided that they have completed their assignment with great effort.

3. Take a Seat

Literally just sit down, it will be okay. If students are involved in their work and you have 3 minutes to relax and breathe, take it. It will not be the end of the world and it can help alleviate tension and stress that teaching builds up throughout the day.

4. Plan your seating chart methodically

An inside joke in teaching is that if you can plan the perfect seating chart, Harvard will give you a PhD. To help alleviate tiredness in the classroom, work on planning your seating chart well. Put students who work well together with each other so that they can stay on task more often. Also group together students who are big helpers to help others around them. This may seem small, but helps a ton with managing our larger class sizes that are dumped upon us.

5. Designate classroom jobs

If there is any small task that can be delegated, do it. Have students pass out papers, grade papers, and clean the classroom. Advocate to admin if you can have a student assistant to help support you during their elective classes. It helps immensely and saves you the stress of having to do all the jobs in the classroom; it also helps everyone build community within the classroom.

As always, I hope this helps. Teachers are rarely recognized as having human needs such as breaks or using the restroom, because the focus is always on the students. Education takes both adults and students, so let us not neglect a part of it.