By Connie Michaels for Sanford Harmony at National University
I teach fifth grade about 15 miles from the Hardin border, in a small community in southeastern Montana. Nearly all of my students are Crow, with some Cheyenne kids too. Every one of them qualifies as a second-language learner, and poverty runs deep here. Once they finish fifth grade, they head off to public school in Hardin, so my classroom is often the last place that feels like home before that jump.
Most of my students have known each other since kindergarten. You’d think that would make my job easier, and in some ways it does, but it also means the same stereotypes and the same pecking order have had years to set in. Undoing that takes real, repeated work. The framework I lean on is called Sanford Harmony, and a few lessons I have learned from it have genuinely changed my classroom this year.
1. Start every day the same way, on purpose.
We circle up every single morning — student pledge, school motto, and whoever’s Helper of the Day runs the meeting with Harmony’s conversation cards. It sounds small, but my kids now ask to circle up even on field trips. Last year’s class never really bought into it the same way, and I could feel the difference in how the room ran all year. The consistency is the point. A routine only becomes something kids trust once it stops being negotiable.
2. Role-play the hard conversations before they happen.
That trust gets tested fast when two kids disagree. A lot of my students simply don’t have the English yet to talk their way out of a conflict in the moment. Without the words, an argument either turns physical or someone just shuts down. So we use Harmony activities to give kids an actual script to reach for, something besides a fist or silence when tempers flare.
3. Protect the time it takes to build trust, even if the pacing guide disagrees.
I spent years in bilingual education before this job, and the lesson that stuck was that language grows out of relationships, not the other way around. It’s what I tell people when I speak at conferences: connection and belonging come first, or nothing else you’re teaching actually sticks. It’s why I’ll always try to protect a longer circle time over staying perfectly on pace with the guide.
4. Find your version of a conversation starter
I wear little Lego figures clipped to my lanyard — a small, easy reason for kids to walk up to me, even before they even have the words to create a connection. Reaching for a figure becomes its own kind of hello. My “Nemo” figure alone has broken down more walls than almost anything else in that room. I follow local community pages on Facebook to track the events students are participating in, so I can tell them “good job” when it actually matters.
I had zero behavior write-ups in my classroom last year. A group of kids who averaged 60% attendance in fourth grade hit 90% with me over the first two months of school.
Teachers never stop believing our students can change and grow. If you’re looking for a place to start this year, start with the circle.
Connie Michaels is a fifth-grade teacher in southeastern Montana. She has been recognized with a $27,000 science grant and as a Crumbl Cookie Teacher of the Year. Michaels serves on the Sanford Harmony Education Advisory Group.
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