Without spot-on classroom management, dealing with unruly students can be maddening.
It’s easy to lose your cool.
And when you do, when you yell, scold, and wag your finger, you’re often rewarded with immediate improvement.
A thorough dressing-down can stop misbehavior in its tracks. But the price is exorbitantly high.
Yelling is a costly mistake.
Here’s why:
1. Improvement is temporary.
Yelling only works in the moment. Like a playground bully, it’s used to intimidate students into compliance. The only reason why it works is because the teacher has an unfair size and/or authority advantage.
2. It doesn’t change behavior.
Behavior only changes when students want to behave better–which is the result of strict accountability combined with a teacher they like and trust. In the end, yelling causes more misbehavior, not less.
3. It weakens your influence.
Yelling will cause students to secretly dislike you, distrust you, and desire to disrupt your class. Let’s face it. Even one revengeful student can make your life miserable. You need your students on your side.
4. It replaces real accountability.
Teachers who yell tend to do so instead of following their classroom management plan. Students learn quickly that if they can endure their teacher’s outburst, they can be on their way without being held accountable.
5. It sabotages real accountability.
Teachers who lecture, yell, or scold while escorting students to time-out, drive a wedge through the teacher/student relationship, causing anger and resentment. So instead of sitting in time-out and reflecting on their mistake, your students will be seething at you.
6. It causes students to tune you out.
When you yell, you train your students to listen to you only when you raise your voice. In other words, they learn that unless you’re shouting, you must not really mean it. Before you know it, you’ll be giving directions like a carnival sideshow barker.
7. It’s stressful.
Yelling is a sure sign that you let misbehavior get under your skin. It’s an expression of frustration, of taking behavior personally, and of trying to get even with students. It’s also terribly stressful. It’s bad for your health. And it makes teaching a cheerless slog.
8. It’s difficult to defend.
Yelling at students is near the top of the list of parent complaints. And it’s difficult to defend. “I’m sorry, I just lost my cool” is about the best you can do. The fact is, no misbehavior, and no level of disrespect, warrants yelling at students.
9. It’s graceless.
Have you ever seen yourself on video losing your cool? Probably not, but one thing is for sure: it ain’t pretty. You might as well grab a megaphone and shout, “Hey everybody–students, fellow teachers, administration–I don’t have control of my class!”
10. It provides a poor model.
Students are more influenced by what you do than by what you say. When you yell, react emotionally to misbehavior, or otherwise lose your composure, you provide a poor model for your students for how to behave when things don’t go their way.
Instead Of Yelling…
No matter how frustrated you may get with your students, yelling should never be an option. Although it often works in the moment, the cost of gaining momentary control is much too high.
So instead of being that teacher, the one with the reputation for yelling and for “being mean,” why not be the one that every student wants as their teacher?
To start, create a classroom management plan that works–and stick with it. And then work on building influential relationships with students; the kind of personal leverage that causes them to want to behave.
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{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Keep up the good work, Kalua. Your students are lucky to have you.
Michael
Dear Michael,
My son is in the 2nd grade and a very distracted child, borderline ADD. When he’s drifting off and losing focus his teacher yells at him to get his attention and this is bothersome to me. My husband and I have found that when we have raised our voices to get him on track (before we realized this was a problem) it never worked, however now we come up to him, get on his level and bring him back to where he needs to be mentally, it’s much more effective. I expressed this to his teacher and she seemed to dismiss it. She too realizes he’s not drifting off on purpose, however she still yells. Because he’s in the gifted program at school, there is a higher level of responsibility for each student, although I believe yelling just doesn’t get the job done. Suggestions?
Sincerely,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
If the teacher dismissed your concerns that she is yelling at your son, then I would take it up with the principal. There isn’t any justification for yelling at students. And it never gets the job done, never encourages students to grow and develop into better students.
Michael
Hi, I teach pre-k children and work with the school age after care. There are so many days that I feel overwelmed and stressed not by the children so much as from the other teachers around having a negative attitude and constant yelling problem. They are blaming children for the way they behave now in the classroom because of the loss of control. I believe its from the influence of the others working in the classroom. I realize they are my co-workers but I feel like there was a break in consistancy and now I am recieving the ” I don’t care” from the children now as well. The other thing is setting up an classroom management when the corporate office has my hands tied. Can you help me please before I lose all the respect from my kids, whom I dearly love?
Hi Sarah,
It sounds like there are some things out of your control. I would focus only on what you can control–which is yourself and your reaction to your co-workers. It’s a decision whether you let them bother you or stress you out. As for the students, as long as you don’t go down that same negative path, there is no reason why your students will lose respect for you. To the contrary…because your students will see a clear difference between you and them, your influence and respect can only grow. Don’t consume yourself with others and their complaints and drama. Focus instead on being the best teacher you can be for your students. Ignore the rest.
Michael
Hi Michael
Thank you for your article. I am a school nurse, and often offer a respite from a yelling teacher. Kids think they need to fib about an illness when all they need is a break. I often have 4 or 5 children from the same teacher, all with headaches. We talk and than laugh (sometimes eat something good) and back to the yelling teacher they go. We all need to be good examples of adult behaviour, or what are we doing in schools???. You hit it right on the head. Thanks. Elena
Thanks Elena! So glad you’re providing a loving example.
I’m really grateful that you addressed the issue of what to do after you lose your cool. I feel very guilty because I have yelled at classes before. I’ve had other teachers say to me “They say you shouldn’t yell at your classes, but sometimes it’s necessary.” So I sort of went along with that, thinking “Well, they have more experience working with inner city kids than me, so they must know.” I’m grateful to have found this website, because I was wondering why I felt so awful about it if it was “necessary”.
My fricken teacher yelled at me for a project that I specifically wasn’t done with . I had the amount of time to present it towards the class but she is going to give me 2 zeros even if I did my outline! Its not fair. She ridiculed me in front of younger students and my whole class. Now I cant find the respect I once had for her.
Michael–
I would love to hear some ideas about how to better manage my inner city choir class. Now, I try very hard not to yell at the students. Often, if I do yell, they just curse at me and create a bigger scene.
However, there are many times when they themselves are yelling very loudly and pretending like I am not in the classroom. As a result, I have to raise my voice just to be heard. I’ve tried lots of different strategies:
-writing names on the board
-using a timer
-writing referrals for detention
-using green, yellow, and red cards to indicate behavior
-re-arranging seating charts
-using a low speaking voice
-using “silent signals” such as group hand clapping or shushing sounds
Each of things works once, maybe twice, but then the students return to life as normal and ignore me again.
The only strategy so far which has worked is calling parents in the *middle* of class, but I can’t do this all the time because of the amount of class time it takes up. (Not to mention many, MANY of the students parents do not have working phones.)
What can I do so that I can get consistently appropriate behavior when, as a music teacher, I have to sit at the piano all day?
William
Hi William,
You must be very specific. Decide exactly what behavior you don’t want from them, show them what this behavior looks like, create a set of rules that matches this behavior, and then implement a set of consequences they don’t like. Initially, you will have to interrupt your classroom. You will have to prove to them that you really mean what you say. And it might be a challenge at first to stick it out. But it will work. And the better, more interesting your class is, and the more they look forward to coming to see you and singing with their friends…the more leverage, the more power, and the easier classroom management becomes.
Michael
A great big thank you for all of the information! I have had yet another morning with a difficult student, disruptive to entire class, disrespectiful, telling me “NO”, etc etc… He enjoys pushing all of the buttons. I am going to take the golfer’s attitude of machinelike. I also liked the mind set of ‘parents standing behind them’. finding this iste came at the perfect time. I was ready to quit!
Great, Jeanie!
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