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 [...]
A reader posted a question this week asking what to do if a student, in this case a kindergartner, crawled on the floor and under tables after being sent to time-out. Playing, straying, and not sitting quietly in time-out can happen regardless of grade level.
And this problem can be especially frustrating. It pulls the teacher [...]
Your classroom management plan doesn’t have to be complex to be effective. Four rules and three consequences will usually do the trick. Indeed, there is no magic in the plan itself.
It’s the stuff in between, the strategery (see Will Ferrell), that determines whether classroom management is successful or not.
Time-out is an excellent example. Undoubtedly the [...]
Confidence is an important trait in a teacher, but so is humility. Although I don’t subscribe to the belief that a teacher never truly arrives or can never reach a high level of excellence, I do believe in the continual need to be self-aware of one’s mistakes and open to new ideas. A dose of [...]
I’ve watched the same students at recess every day for years. They emerge from their classrooms a minute or two after their sprinting classmates. They shuffle slowly toward a lunch table or an empty bench carrying a fluttering sheet of paper or a book with no bookmark. They often get a drink of water or [...]
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