Smart Classroom Management

Perhaps more than any other profession, teaching requires you to be mentally prepared before the heavy lifting of the day begins.

If you’re feeling hurried, stressed, or distracted in the moments before the students arrive, teaching can be unforgiving—particularly in the area of classroom management.

This is why it’s important to spend a couple of minutes every morning reminding yourself of the core classroom management principles needed to effectively lead your classroom.

I created a checklist to help you.

Reviewing it every morning will put you in the same, consistent state of mind and guard against making the mistakes that lead to unfocused, inattentive, and misbehaving students.

Your Daily Classroom Management Checklist

Before your students arrive in the morning, shut your classroom door and allow yourself a few minutes of privacy.

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

Now remind yourself of the following:

Smile and enjoy your students.

The more likable you are, the more leverage you have with your students and the easier classroom management will be. Greet your students with a smile, tell a joke or two, and enjoy teaching them.

It’s okay to have fun and love your job.

Stay calm.

Far too many teachers let students and certain circumstances get under their skin and, as a result, react emotionally to misbehavior. Set yourself apart from the pack and don’t be one of them.

A troop of kangaroos could bounce through your classroom, but you will remain the picture of poise.

Take your time.

When you rush, you create nervous energy in your classroom, making students excitable and prone to misbehavior. A good rule of thumb is to never speak or move on to the next activity until every student is quiet and looking at you.

The great basketball coach and teacher John Wooden was fond of saying, “Be quick but never in a hurry.” Keep your lessons and transitions sharp and moving, but with an efficient, deliberate pace.

Be specific.

Tell your students exactly what you expect from them. Be clear and direct and then get out of their way. Give your students a chance to meet your expectations without micromanagement.

If at any point you become unsatisfied with how they’re fulfilling your expectations, have them do it again.

Enforce every rule.

Follow your classroom management plan and enforce every rule violation. It doesn’t matter who the student is or what their situation, understanding that poor choices have consequences is a critical lesson for all students.

By strictly enforcing your rules, you’re merely requiring behavior from your students that is necessary for success in school.

Don’t react, respond.

Decide that yelling, scolding, lecturing, arguing, and sarcasm won’t be part of your classroom management repertoire. These reactions cause students to distrust and dislike you and lead to more misbehavior and less leverage.

Instead, respond by calmly following your classroom management plan.

I encourage you to print out this checklist and run through it each morning before your students arrive. I’m certain you’ll see a difference in your students’s behavior as well as your enjoyment of each day.

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Let’s begin this weeks article by looking at a common scenario.

You’re leading your students to class after visiting the library one day, and you notice Andrew kicking the heels of the student in front of him.

He is clearly doing it on purpose.

You stop the line, walk over to Andrew, and say, “Andrew, please stop kicking Karla.”

Andrew replies, “I wasn’t kicking anyone.”

“Yes, you were. I saw you.”

“I wasn’t doing anything. I was just walking.”

You are now officially in an argument.

And you don’t want to give in and lose the argument because, you think, it will encourage more bad behavior from Andrew, as well as from the rest of the class.

So you become determined to prove Andrew wrong and make him admit that he was indeed kicking Karla.

You go back and forth for several minutes until he takes responsibility for his behavior and apologizes to Karla.

But while you’re battling it out with Andrew, your students are waiting and growing bored, your upcoming lesson is on hold, and the smooth momentum of your day is lost.

If you feel like you have to prove to misbehaving students that (a) they did what you saw them do or (b) that their behavior was wrong, you’re going to find yourself in these situations a lot.

Why You Should Never Argue With Students

Here are the biggest reasons why you should never argue with students:

• It’s stressful.

• It can make you lose your cool.

• It can cause you to behave in a manner you’ll regret.

• It wastes time.

• It creates friction between you and your students.

• It weakens your relationship with students.

• It makes you less likable.

• It encourages students to challenge your authority.

Some students will try to goad you into an argument because it puts you on the same level. In other words, it becomes just two people disagreeing.

But is it really just two people disagreeing?

Of course not. You know Andrew is guilty and he knows he is guilty. So what is there to argue about?

How To Avoid Arguments With Students

I’ve had teachers tell me that you can’t avoid arguments with students altogether unless you’re willing to give in or let some things go. Based on how often I see teachers arguing with students, I think this is a common belief.

But with the right strategy, avoiding arguments with students isn’t difficult. It can even be a means of strengthening your classroom management effectiveness.

Here are the five steps to avoiding arguments with students.

1. Follow Your Classroom Management Plan – Arguments begin when the teacher asks a student to stop doing something rather than enforcing a consequence. Your classroom rules should cover every possible misbehavior. So when a student breaks a rule, simply follow your plan.

2. Give A Warning – Your classroom management plan should include a warning for the first offense. For example, when you see Andrew kicking the heels of the girl in front of him, make eye contact and say, “Andrew, you have a warning because you’re not keeping your hands and feet to yourself.”

3. Move On – After giving a warning, or a time-out if it’s a second offense, turn away from the student immediately and continue with whatever you were doing. Don’t give your students an opportunity to argue or explain their behavior. There is no need.

4. Pause/Repeat – If you find yourself in a situation where a student is determined to stand in front of you to plead his or her case, maintain eye contact, pause several seconds, and then repeat, “You have a warning because you are not keeping your hands to yourself.”

5. Enforce A Consequence For Arguing – If the student continues to argue, enforce the second consequence. “Andrew, you’re being disrespectful to me, which breaks rule number three. I’ll walk you to time-out.”

Following these steps will garner respect from students and dissuade them from attempting to goad you into any more arguments.

And the best part is you’ll never again have to prove to your students what you—and they—already know to be the truth.

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When a teacher seeks help in handling a difficult student, typically one of the first things recommended is a behavior contract.

Behavior contracts are popular because they give teachers a definite plan for improving behavior.

And where there is a plan, there is hope.

If you’re unfamiliar with how they work, behavior contracts are created collaboratively—usually the teacher, the student, and his or her parents. A principal or counselor may also sit in.

They consist of one or two agreed-upon goals and are supported by incentives and consequences that are tailored to the individual student.

At first glance, a behavior contract seems like a good idea: clear-cut goals, a student willing to try, parental support. And initially, behavior contracts do improve behavior—sometimes dramatically.

So what’s not to like?

Well… a lot.

Here’s why:

Behavior contracts label students

Anytime you treat difficult students differently than everyone else—by applying a different set of rules, incentives, and consequences—you’re communicating to them that they’re different, that they can’t control themselves like normal students and thus need special attention.

This doesn’t necessarily make them sad. In fact, they may appear quite thrilled with the stamp or sticker they earn for having a good day. This is why behavior initially improves.

But it undeniably lets them know, deep down inside, that they don’t measure up, that they’re not as “good” as everyone else. It becomes who they are, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And children will always behave congruent with whatever label they’re given.

We want to inspire our students to believe in themselves and in their ability to listen, learn, and follow the rules of the classroom. Behavior contracts do the opposite. They demoralize students and make them feel helpless to change the course of their academic life.

Breaking rules and causing trouble then becomes not merely something they choose to do—which can be fixed—but rather it becomes who they are—which can’t.

External rewards are short term

At first a student on a behavior contract will be excited about earning stickers or prizes from the teacher or extra video game privileges at home.

But soon his or her interest will wane.

It’s human nature. The novelty will where off and motivation will weaken. External rewards alone only work short term and do little to improve behavior over time.

There is nothing wrong with using a prize box, and passing out smiley pencils or cool stickers is fun. But if used as the primary means to motivate students to behave, these external rewards will fail every time.

Being a member of a classroom they love is the greatest incentive. This offers a teacher powerful leverage, even with the most challenging of students.

Follow through is a bear

It’s great to have support from parents, and I think it’s important to get them involved. But anytime you have to count on that support for classroom management success, you’ll be disappointed. Parents get busy, lose interest, and become complacent. They just do.

Emails and notes home to parents should merely inform; to let parents know what is happening at school. Communication with home should not be used in the hope that it will change behavior.

Transferring any responsibility for the behavior in your classroom to someone else—whether it be a parent, principal, or counselor—weakens your ability to do it yourself.

The power to control your classroom should remain solely with you.

So What Is The Alternative?

The alternative is to treat every student the same. Any and all unwanted behavior by students should fall under the rules and consequences of your classroom management plan.

A behavior contract is nothing more than a replacement for a classroom management plan that isn’t being followed. The difference is that a classroom management plan doesn’t label students or chip away at their self-confidence.

For more information on this topic, please check out the article One Classroom Management Strategy For Every Student.

Thanks for reading.

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Have you ever noticed that some teachers don’t have to work as hard at classroom management?

Certain teachers can walk into a classroom, and almost magically, the students become calmer, more mature, and more receptive in their presence.

These teachers may use the same classroom management plan as everybody else, but somehow, year after year, their students are always better behaved.

What are they doing differently?

The answer to that question is this week’s topic. By virtue of how they communicate with students, both verbally and non-verbally, some teachers are able to command an almost effortless respect.

Lessons From The Dog Whisperer

Have you ever watched the television show “The Dog Whisperer?” When Cesar Milan enters a house to work with an unruly dog, the dog knows within seconds who is in charge. You can see it in the dog’s eyes and body language.

It’s amazing to watch.

Cesar is able to command respect from a dog he has never met before just by the way he walks into a room. Forgive me for comparing dogs to students, but in this one regard, the comparison is accurate.

Students, too, know whether you’re in charge or not as soon as you enter the classroom. The way you present yourself in front of them has a profound effect on their behavior and the ease in which you are able to manage your classroom.

10 Ways To Command Respect

To command respect from students, you don’t have to be born with a royal bloodline or have the bearing of a drill sergeant. And you don’t have to have any magical powers.

Follow the guidelines below, however, and it will appear that you do.

1. Use confident body language. Keep your head up, shoulders back, and look directly at students when speaking with them. Confident behavior earns immediate respect.

2. Slow down. Rushing around creates negative, excitable energy and makes you appear as if you’re not in control. Work on moving efficiently and gracefully.

3. Be decisive. Don’t argue with students, appear wishy-washy, or let them dictate your response to misbehavior. Make decisions quickly and then move on.

4. Pause before speaking. Always wait until every student is attentive and looking at you before giving instructions. This shifts control to you and adds more importance to whatever you say.

5. Do exactly what you say you will do, especially when it comes to your classroom management plan. Your students will respect this above all else.

6. Practice brevity. Talk less and your words will mean more.

7. Keep your cool. When you overreact, yell, or lose emotional control, you provide a poor model for your students. And they’ll lose respect for you because of it.

8. Listen. Let your students speak and wait until they finish before responding. If you don’t respect them and what they have to contribute to your classroom… they won’t respect you.

9. Be prepared. Your students won’t respect a leader who is unorganized, has poor time management, or is not in complete control of the classroom.

10. Radiate confidence. Like dogs, children can sense fear a mile away and will prey upon it if given the opportunity. If you’re feeling unsure of yourself, practice confident body language until you begin to feel it on the inside.

Students quickly clue in to behavior that appears weak and not worthy of following. A teacher who doesn’t command respect will always have a more difficult time with classroom management.

On the other hand, most students are craving for a leader, for someone to look up to. So when a teacher comes into their life that displays the qualities they respect, they bend over backwards trying to please her/him.

Practice the ten points listed above and be cognizant of the image you’re projecting to your students, and you’ll notice a big difference in how they respond to you.

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Recently, I overheard a teacher confronting two of his third-grade students after they ran through a hallway on their way to recess.

He stopped them, called them over to where he was standing, and said, “Congratulations, you two just lost your recess.”

With an index finger jabbing the air, inches from their sullen faces, he spent the next few minutes lecturing them on the merits of walking in the hallways.

The teacher’s intentions were good.

He sought to make sure the hallways were safe and wanted to hold the two boys accountable for breaking rules. But in doing so, he was making classroom management more difficult for himself.

He made two critical mistakes:

1. He Used Sarcasm

Besides being difficult for children to understand, sarcasm is cruel. It is meant to make the target of the remark feel inadequate and elevate the speaker to a position of superiority.

It also causes students to dislike their teacher.

2. He Showed Anger

Anger is a sign of frustration and manifests itself when a teacher feels he or she has no other recourse or when poor behavior is taken personally.

It, too, can cause students to dislike their teacher.

The Problem With Being Disliked

If you are disliked, the only influence you have with students is negative (i.e., lecturing, scolding, yelling, and sarcasm). And negativity only works to curb bad behavior in the moment. It does nothing to improve behavior over time.

Thus, it is a battle you’ll have to fight every day.

Being disliked also weakens the power of your consequences to curb unwanted behavior. When you enforce a consequence, instead of taking responsibility, your students will most likely blame you.

Do your students get angry at you when you send them to time-out? If so, then your time-out is not going to be very effective.

The Benefits Of Being Liked

Likeability, on the other hand, gives you leverage to influence students to behave as you desire. If your students like you, they’ll want to please you. Your consequences, then, become symbolic of your disappointment.

Likeability gives meaning to consequences and underscores the feeling of separation students feel when held apart from the classroom they love being a part of, by the teacher they admire.

This can be a very powerful consequence.

I’m frequently asked my opinion of whether a certain consequence will work for one grade level or another. In response, I always want to ask, “Well, how well do your students like you, and how much do they enjoy being in your classroom?”

The more your students admire you, the more effective your consequences will be.

Yin And Yang

The most effective teachers are able to balance an influential relationship with students (i.e., being fun, likeable, creating exciting lessons) with an unwavering commitment to their classroom management plan.

You can’t have one without the other.

A positive relationship with students is what makes your classroom management plan work. If you’re grumpy most of the time, if you lecture individual students or use sarcasm, you will always struggle with classroom management. If you’re admired, however, classroom management becomes… dare I say… a breeze.

Likeability is just one of many ways of building leverage and influence with your students. In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing more about this topic, but in the mean time, please check out my book Dream Class.

Dream Class explains everything you need to know about building the kind of relationships with students that make classroom management more effective and much, much easier.

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