By Angelo Ross, PSIA-AASI Education Development Manager

Content & Control: Parts of a Larger Whole

I taught science in a public high school for 20 years and often half-joke that it was sometime during year three when I finally realized there were kids in the room.

During my first few years as a classroom teacher, I was primarily focused on my course content. I read and reread upcoming material, completed all section and chapter review questions, and, as often as possible, watched documentaries, visited websites, and explored physical sites like state parks and museums related to my content because I wanted to answer questions confidently to maintain an air of competence. 

I sometimes used packaged curriculum materials for student assignments but, more often, designed my own or at least modified what the textbook company had provided to make it more relevant to my students. I completed lesson plans, created viewing guides to accompany supplemental videos, or designed worksheets to accompany hands-on activities and labs I designed. 

In a profession that can be overwhelmingly hectic, especially early in one’s career, content is one of the most controllable variables. 

A phrase often overheard in schools captures the novice educator’s reality perfectly: “I’m just trying to stay one step ahead of the kids.” In my experience, this statement is accurate.

Another major concern during my early years in the classroom was control: my quiet hope that the room wouldn’t burst into flames with a major behavioral issue (and a science classroom bursting into flames isn’t too far-fetched an idea). 

Under the duress of being a new teacher trying to integrate into a complex culture, learning clockwork-like processes (it doesn’t get much more like clockwork than a bell schedule), in a building with hundreds of young strangers and dozens of colleagues who I was trying to convince I was legit, and with the constant mental presence of an administration and community with high expectations, my strategies for managing behaviors—mine and my students—were often rigid, reactionary, random, and ultimately, counterproductive.

As I gained experience, I realized these two aspects of educating—content and control—are actually intertwined parts of a larger whole rather than isolated and independent. Students engaged with relevant content are by definition on task and as a result behavior issues diminish.

Knowing Your Subject, Knowing Yourself

By being a fly on the wall in the teachers’ lounge, I began to see that the teachers dealing with the most behavior problems likely played a more causal role in their classroom issues than they were aware. Some kids never pass up an opportunity to dig their heels in and revolt under the rule of an iron fist or a milquetoast adult. Teachers with ineffective people skills emit palpable blood-in-the-water vibes and certain kids or combinations of kids wouldn’t hesitate to pounce. 

By contrast, my colleagues who were more comfortable in their own skin generally seemed to deal with fewer behavior issues. They seemed to navigate the building and the job unflappably, wearing an invisible coat of confidence. When behavior issues came their way—which they did, everyone dealt with them at some point—these folks managed them with grace that made me wonder where their magic came from. 

The more I observed, I realized there was no magic after all, and that the recipe for success has two ingredients: knowing your subject and knowing yourself.

I see this same content-control phenomenon play out in snowsports instruction. 

In my experience, aspects common between being a new schoolteacher and being a new snowsports instructor include navigating a complex new culture, learning labyrinthine administrative systems, figuring out when and where lunch is and whom you will sit with, a drink-from-a-firehose amount of new content not only to understand, but to teach others, the pressure of expectations of yourself, the pressure of expectations of others, and not enough time to feel like you own any of it. 

The parallel phrase to “staying one step ahead of the kids” in the world of new snowsports instructors is, “I thought I was a good skier/rider; I had no idea how much there is to know.”

When I was a technical director, I was asked regularly by snowsports school management to offer training on class management for the staff. I would design and offer sessions that included what you would expect: buddy system, head count, clear and consistent rules and reactions, clear meeting locations, rotating through assigning kids to be the “ski patroller” at the back of the group to keep eyes on everyone—all the classics. 

The problem with these clinics, as I reflect on them now, is they dissect control from content which creates a false dichotomy between the two and positions undesirable behaviors as an isolated hemorrhage and group handling strategies as a bandage. While this approach can have success, I think more holistic preparation, which admittedly takes more time and effort, reaps higher rewards overall. 

Many factors can contribute to disruptive behaviors: attention seeking, task incongruence (too difficult creates frustration, too easy creates boredom), teacher tone (sarcasm, criticism, favoritism, perceived disrespect, inconsistency), downtime and vague expectations (particularly during transition times), perceived teacher incompetence, and external conditions (fatigue, hunger, fear, anxiety, previous failure or perceived failure, trouble at home or school). Of these factors, we are wise to focus on those we can control—ownership of our content and selves—to prepare for those we cannot.

Below, I offer the most current version of my Rules of Engagement. Current because my teaching philosophy and practice are fluid—new facts and experiences necessitate adapting new behaviors—and engagement, not with disruptive student behaviors but rather active and purposeful engagement with my role as a teacher with the intention of delivering content in such a way to nip behavior problems in the bud.

My Rules constitute an ongoing reflective and active process through which I continually filter new experiences and information and reevaluate my beliefs and behaviors as an educator. Experienced instructors with a purposeful reflective practice can parse through one-off clinics, like the Group Handling 101 sessions I developed as a training director, and position relevant pieces into their practice appropriately. 

It is critical, honest, self-directed, ongoing professional development, a life’s work, and well worth it. New instructors provided with scaffolded training programs that incrementally introduce them to on-the-job information they need as they need it can use this process to organize, understand, and frame their experiences as teachers.

Rules of Engagement:

1. Know your stuff
2. Prepare
3. Set the tone
4. Give yourself options
5. Reflect, reevaluate, repeat.

Rule 1: Know Your Stuff

Own the PSIA-AASI curriculum: Intimate knowledge of the American Teaching System provides the shared professional language, values, and evidence-based best practices that anchor sound instructional decisions.

Apply content from other fields, disciplines, or experiences: Integrating relevant knowledge from external sources (e.g., attending training offered through National Ski Patrol or U.S. Ski & Snowboard) expands instructional creativity, strengthens transfer, and deepens the authenticity of learning experiences. Completing the online undergraduate certificate program in Professional Snowsports Education through the Penn State World Campus strengthens one’s knowledge base and provides college credit.

Practice: Practice converts conceptual understanding into reliable habits, improving fluency, confidence, and adaptability under real teaching conditions (alone and with others).

Rule 2: Prepare

Visualize: Visualization reduces uncertainty by allowing instructors to mentally rehearse likely interactions, crowded areas and liftline times, and weather and snow conditions before the day begins. Visualize yourself in your uniform. Visualize your demeanor. Visualize your demos. Visualize conversations walking to the lodge, in the locker room, at line up. Visualize what you want your classes to look like to outside observers. Visualize yourself enjoying working with your students. Visualize how good you want to be at the job in a year, five years, 20 years.

Expect the unexpected: Anticipating a variety of circumstances based on prior experience supports professional flexibility and helps instructors respond to disruptions as manageable realities rather than destabilizing surprises.

Rehearse: Rehearsal strengthens the language, movement and behavior patterns, routines, and decision pathways instructors are most likely to need during lessons. Preparing for and rehearsing a variety of responses for an array of situations is more desirable and effective than planning, which tends to be more rigid—better to have options than to go down on the sinking ship of a failing plan.

Rule 3: Set the Tone

At the start of a lesson: Suggest a sequence of events to students for how you see the day unfolding: terrain you’d like to use, when and where restroom breaks and/or meals may occur, and the type of culture you like to establish in your lesson. Be honest and clear. In lessons with kids, include parents in planning to have a contingency (phone numbers and meeting locations) in case things go sideways.

Maintain the tone: A learning environment remains productive only when the instructor consistently reinforces the emotional and behavioral climate they established at the outset. Having visualized (see Rule 2: Prepare) your ideal learning environment, respond calmly, compassionately, clearly, and consistently to deviations from what you’ve visualized. If the deviations happen to create a better learning environment, be flexible enough to embrace it. This gives students agency and is truly a student-centered adaptation.

Rule 4: Give Yourself Options

For People Skills: Know yourself, your behavior and communication habits, and your triggers. Knowing yourself is foundational to having a broad range of options for connecting with diverse personalities, motivations, emotions, and family dynamics. Self-awareness is foundational to self-control, interacting effectively with others, adapting communication, and establishing trust.

For Teaching Skills: Having multiple strategic teaching options increases the likelihood of matching explanations and demonstrations, tasks, pacing, terrain, and tactics to the students in front of us. Reference the PSIA-AASI Teaching Snowsports Manual, check out these articles, and search the web for learning strategies to help your students put new learning into long-term memory effectively.

For Technical Skills: Technical skills include understanding human movement, equipment design, and applications; accurately evaluating performance; selecting effective activities for customized student improvement; having a variety of tactics; and conveying accurate information through demonstration. Study, discussion, and online work support technical skills, and there is no substitute for on-snow practice.

Rule 5: Reflect, Reevaluate, Repeat

Reflect alone or with others while the memories of the day are fresh: Immediate reflection preserves the fidelity of the experience and makes cause-and-effect relationships easier to identify. Options include journaling, apres get togethers, and reflection during drive time. Journaling is highly valuable as it engages multiple modes of learning (thinking, writing, and seeing the words) and gives us something tangible to which we can refer in the future.

Ask for feedback: This can be from colleagues, supervisors and trainers, and even your students. Growth accelerates when instructors intentionally seek perspectives that challenge blind spots and receive them with humility rather than defensiveness. Plan a graceful response for information that may be uncomfortable to hear and work to change things that don’t work (see Rule 1: Know Your Stuff).

Use the Learning Connection^SM framework to examine individual components of your lessons: The Learning Connection provides a structured lens for isolating and evaluating the effectiveness of people, teaching, and technical decisions. After examining components of your lessons individually, you can take it to the next level by reflecting on how the components interacted in reality and the impact they had on your students’ experiences and learning.

Loop back to Step 1: Know your stuff to confirm what you believed before—or go back to the drawing board to try to understand contradictory information. Professional growth depends on the willingness to either strengthen well-supported beliefs or revise them when new evidence reveals a mismatch with reality.

Doing the Deeper Work

In the end, whether we teach science, skiing, riding, or any other human endeavor, the real work is less about managing others than it is about continually managing ourselves. Associations, workshops, department meetings, colleges, universities, clinics, and manuals all matter because they give us language, frameworks, and shared standards, but no outside system can do the deeper work for us. The day-to-day craft of becoming excellent at teaching is, in many ways, a largely solo endeavor—an ongoing personal discipline of study, preparation, self-awareness, experimentation, and honest reflection.

This is why the Rules of Engagement are less a checklist than a professional stance. They are a way of actively engaging with the work rather than passively waiting for expertise to arrive from somewhere else. While behavior management is most often discussed in the context of children, anyone who teaches adults knows that tone, clarity, psychological safety, relevance, and task congruence matter just as much with grown learners. Adults may express resistance differently, but disengagement, fear, boredom, ego protection, and frustration still shape behavior in ways that can either diminish a learning environment or add to it.

Effective learning environments are not built through control strategies alone. They are built through competence, composure, and the steady discipline of knowing our subject, knowing ourselves, and continually refining the space between the two. That work is never finished, and that is exactly what makes teaching a life’s work.