The idea is simple.
If your students like you, they’ll want to please you and seek your approval.
Which gives you leverage—leverage to influence behavior like almost nothing else.
And the best news is… it’s automatic.
Your students will automatically behave better simply because they like you.
The prevailing wisdom says that teachers need to be grim-faced and serious or students will walk all over them.
Hogwash.
This old way of thinking doesn’t work with today’s kids. What does work is creating leverage and rapport through, among other things, likeability.
Five Simple Ways To Be More Likeable
It isn’t difficult to become more likeable to your students. Anyone can make a few changes in how they relate to their students and see results quickly.
Commit yourself to following the list below for just one week, and behavior in your classroom will improve—both because your students will be happier to be part of your class, and because you’ll have more influence over their behavior choices.
1. Relax
Stress will permeate your classroom like a thick fog, creating excitability in your students and negative feelings about you. So before greeting students every day, take a deep breath and shake the tension out of your arms, legs, and shoulders. Just let it go…
You’ll be more likeable, feel more confident, and carry the calm, relaxed demeanor of a teacher who knows what he or she is doing.
2. Smile
Deadlines, test scores, meetings, paperwork. When you’re under the gun, stressed, or not at your best, your smile is the first thing to go. And with it goes your likeability. You can’t be influential with a furrowed brow and a frown.
A smile is the first step to creating a mutual admiration society with your students; the more you smile at them, the more they’ll smile back. And the more you’ll like each other—a little known key to exceptional classroom management.
3. Be Yourself
Too many teachers hide their true personality from students for fear of inciting misbehavior. But enjoying your students and having a good laugh doesn’t cause misbehavior. It does the opposite. It makes you more likeable and gives you more power to command the behavior you want.
Keeping your personality under lock and key stifles your charisma, making you appear dry, dull, and humorless—which is the death knell of effective teaching. It inhibits that part of you that is the most inspiring and passionate; the part that students take notice of and put their faith in.
4. Tell stories
Nothing is more effective in creating leverage and admiration than being a good storyteller. Its transformational powers can put your students into the palm of your hand.
Start with simple 3-5 minute anecdotes. Share your travel experiences, embarrassing situations, or funny moments. As you get more comfortable, branch out to include fictional stories and stories to introduce lessons and units of study. (For more info on how to become a great storyteller, see Dream Class.)
5. Have fun
Having fun as a class is a potent leverage builder, but if you join your class in the fun, if you take an active part in it, your likeability will skyrocket. The key, however, is not to attach a secondary motive. Have fun just for the sake of having fun.
Not only will your students look at you differently after a game of Giants, Wizards, and Elves, but it will provide a wonderful shot in the arm for a sleepy, restless, or unmotivated class.
How Does Your Soup Taste?
Increasing your likeability will sharpen the contrast between being a contributing member of your class, and being separated from it (time-out).
For students in a majority of classrooms, everything feels about the same—muddled together in a lukewarm bowl of flavorless soup. The class is bland, the teacher is bland, time-out is bland. What’s the difference?
One of the smart classroom management goals, on the other hand, is to create extremes for your students.
The wider you can make the gap between what it feels like to be part of the class (savory, delicious soup), and being separated from it (bitter, unappetizing soup), the more effective you’ll be.
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Related posts:
- 2 Easy Ways To Build Rapport With Your Students
- Why You Should Care If Your Students Dislike You
- 3 Simple Strategies To Get Your Students To Pay Attention
- How A Simple, First-Week-Of-School Classroom Procedure Can Inspire Excellence In Your Students
- 8 Ways To Fuel Your Students’ Intrinsic Motivation
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
I have been here at school reading your articles for about 2 hours and have about 90 more to go. I have been teaching for 25 years. Last year I moved and took a job at a residential treatment school. Some people call them “special acts” schools. These are the kids that regular school districts pay $75-150,000 for the chance to place them here because no one has been able to “do anything” for or with them. I used to talk about how much I loved teaching, but in the last year or two, I have become frustrated and defensive. I loved teaching in many areas, especially 3rd grade, but jobs are few and far between, especially when one gets older. I know I am slowing down and don’t have as much energy as I used to and that isn’t helping. So I am here and need to make this work for all of us. (My students as well as myself). I know one of my students “like” me, but he is only here because he threw a book at a teacher and hit her in the eye. He is generally a really nice kid. Another student is very funny, but often insults my weight, or worse, he insults his classmates and I can’t seem to make him stop. He also interrupts constantly. I have another student that talks almost constantly, but he was put in ISS indefinitely because the other kids can’t stand him talking so much. He always has to have the last word. Another student, who I’ll call Eli, should be called Eyore. He never stops complaining, but beyond that he is terribly racist. He is Hispanic and can list all the other races that he hates and everything that is wrong with them. I have been trying to teach lessons about other cultures to help him appreciate the differences and similarities between different cultures. Recently, they put a female in my class who has been running out of every class in school and has been put in my class because it is self-contained. She has been doing “better”. She is coming to school far more often and is in the halls far less often, but I am not satisfied with that as her only accomplishment. Because of this mix of students I rarely get to teach anyone. There are other kids in class, but I can’t keep writing about every single kid. Most of them are just mixes of the aforementioned kids. None of them can do any math above third grade and don’t know their times tables. Two of them are non-readers. Most of the others read as approximately a 3rd grade level. One
18 y.o. student can’t tell time. I spoon feed everything to them, and my lessons are so dry I can’t even get more than a few sentences out before things fall apart. When I read another teacher’s comments where she asked another teacher who has been having trouble, “How boring are you?” and was terrified I have lost my “it” factor. I have tried classroom rules, but there is little I can do as far as consequences anyway, because they misbehave so frequently. I can’t keep them after school, I refuse to give up my lunch, there is a “redirection room”, but most of them would be in there all the time with this plethora of misbehavior. I am asking for help, but I don’t even know the right questions. The year is half gone, and I fear I will never be able to turn this around. I know I am a good teacher (or was). Last year I taught math and two of my students were math phobic. Out of all the students in the school 8 of the ten top students were mine and two of them were the math phobic kids. I can’t seem to make this work, though. Can anyone out there help me or am I just asking for too much?
Thanks for listening.
Hi Sarah,
I’m sorry about the problems you’re having. I’ll email you and we’ll try to get you on the right track.
Michael
I look forward to hearing from you.
Hi Sarah,
I emailed you a few days ago, but I’ll resend it just in case.
Michael,
What Sarah wrote, I could have easily written myself. is there anyway you could include me in your e-mail what you wrote to her, to me? I am literally having almost the exact same issues. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!!!!
I found the site because of trying to find answers to these questions.
Hi Mark,
Yes, I’ll email you.
Michael