It starts with a perceived injustice then builds quickly from there. Vibrating deep within the body, anger rises to the surface, turning down mouth corners, narrowing eyes, and flushing the skin.

Pouting and stewing over the “unfairness,” the student loses the inner battle for control and loosens a torrent of outrage, tumbling from the mouth and quaking through the body.

“That’s not fair!!!”

Fists slam on desks. Papers are thrown. Tears are shed. And it happens right in the middle of your classroom.

Although more common in primary grades, lapses in emotional control seem to be happening more and more with upper elementary and middle school students.

Such behavior is grossly immature—of course, for any school-age student—and not worth getting worked up over. But it can also be dangerous. And if handled poorly, you can make the situation worse or cause it to repeat itself over and over again.

Follow the steps below to take fast control of explosive situations and lessen the chances of them happening again.

1. Protect

Your number one responsibility is the safety of your students. So as soon as you notice a student losing control, shift your focus to the rest of your class. Ask them to stay clear of the ill-tempered student. Situations like this underscore how important it is that your students respect you, trust you, and follow your directions as soon as you ask.

Note: If ever you sense an incident escalating beyond your control, call for help immediately—an administrator, campus police, or teacher next door.

2. Wait

Resist the urge to rush in and try to calm the student. For at least the next several minutes, jumping in to try to fix things could put you and your class at risk and incite more aggressive behavior. Unless you absolutely have to step in to protect one or more of your students, keep your distance.

3. Observe

Continue waiting while keeping an eye on both the student in question and the rest of your class. Don’t say anything to the student. Simply observe until the student calms down and returns to his (or her) seat. As the student begins to settle down, it’s okay to say to him calmly, “Have a seat and we’ll talk about it later.”

4. Continue

It’s important to return your classroom to normalcy as soon as possible. Continue with your lesson or activity as if nothing happened. If the student doesn’t choose to participate, so be it. Let him marinate in his own decisions for a while.

5. Stay Clear

Stay clear of the student for at least a couple hours. If the tantrum happened at the end of the day, let the student leave and deal with it in the morning. Only when the student is behaving normally and the incident is forgotten should you approach.

6. Enforce

Although it’s important to follow your classroom management plan, there are times when you must change the script. For potentially dangerous situations, you reserve the right to jump past the warning and time-out steps and go directly to an extended time-out. A half day is reasonable.

7. Inform

For serious behavior issues parents must be notified. Because an emotional outburst is difficult to communicate in a form letter, it’s best to call home—not to discuss the incident, but to inform. Just give the facts. Tell the parent what happened and what you’re doing about it. How they handle it at home isn’t your concern.

Accountability Works Best

The prevailing wisdom says that a student who has a temper tantrum should talk things out with the teacher or other trusted adult—why he acted the way he did, what he could have done differently, etc.

Too often, though, talking it out has the effect of absolving the student of responsibility. It gives credence to the perceived injustice. It justifies his selfish behavior. It shifts the burden of responsibility away from the student and places it with either the source of his anger, with outside circumstances, or with his inability to control himself.

The problem, though, is rarely a lack of emotional control. The problem is that the adults in his life have a hard time saying no to him. They indulge him. They appease him. They cave in to his demands, arguments, and histrionics.

He throws temper tantrums because they work.

To ensure it doesn’t happen on your watch, to do what is best for the student and his future, don’t let him off the hook. Don’t give him stickers when he handles himself the right way.

Don’t talk it out.

Instead, hold him accountable for his behavior. Allow him to feel the gravity of his actions. Send the message that we can’t always get what we want; that in order to learn, to grow, to mature, to become better and more successful people, we have to behave with grace in the face of disappointment.

Most children who lose emotional control have been subject to too much talk.

And not enough action.

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- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

Your lesson ends, the recess bell rings, and you release your students to the playground to let off some steam. But on the way you notice one of your students, call him Anthony, rudely shoving others aside on his way out the door.

How dare him, the little bugger.

So you run out, pull Anthony off the playground, and let him have it. You give him a fire-breathing, finger-pointing, he’s-got-it-comin’ lecture, topped off with a stern, “Do you understand me?”

He hems and haws, looks at his shoes, and mumbles an apology. Semi-satisfied, you send him on his way and head back to your classroom with a sigh.

Of course, not all lectures are so vigorous. More often, teachers lecture because they believe that with the right words their students will see the light and suddenly be transformed.

But does it work? Is lecture a viable classroom management strategy?

On the surface the answer appears to be yes. Lecturing often works in the immediate aftermath. But in the long run, it’s a costly mistake that makes classroom management more difficult.

Here’s why:

1. It’s stressful.

Using words to try and convince students to behave is perhaps the number one cause of stress among teachers. And because lecturing kinda-sorta works in the short term, teachers feel encouraged to keep on doing it—despite the tension headaches.

2. It replaces real accountability.

When you lecture students, they know that your talking-to is the accountability. And so if they can just endure it and tell you what you want to hear, then they can be on their way—free and clear and with no real accountability.

3. It sabotages real accountability.

If you send a student to time-out but give a lecture along the way, then from the student’s perspective your not following your classroom management plan as promised. It feels like a double consequence. So instead of sitting in time-out and contemplating their mistake, they’re simmering with anger over the injustice.

4. It tempts students into argument.

When you lecture, you all but dare your students to argue with you. In fact, it takes a strong-willed student not to. When backed into a corner and forced to listen to something they already know, they’re going to want to fight back.

5. It causes resentment.

Few students respond well to a lecture. More often than not, even the most genteel dressing-down causes resentment. Whether they deserve it or not doesn’t change this fact. Truth is, teachers who lecture struggle to build behavior-influencing rapport with their students.

6. It’s time-consuming.

If you rely on lecturing as a classroom management method, then teaching and learning will be affected. Lecturing students takes time, brings tension into your classroom, and takes you away from preparation, instruction, and the joy of teaching.

7. Actions speak louder.

Your words will never carry as much weight as your actions. And the longer students are in school, the more this is true. By the time they get to you, they may have been on the end of dozens of lectures—making it unlikely yours will have the desired effect.

Speak Less, Act More

The next time a student misbehaves, try saying as little as possible.

Simply tell the student what rule was broken, then enforce a consequence and move on to more important things—like teaching your class. This ensures three things:

1. You won’t be stressed-out.
2. The misbehaving student won’t be resentful.
3. Accountability will do its job.

Instead of lecturing and telling your students what lessons they ought to learn, which go in one ear and out the other, let accountability work…

And they’ll soak up those lessons on their own.

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- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

Why does it pain teachers to hold students accountable?

Why are some so quick to ignore misbehavior, look the other way, or make excuses for it?

Accountability is important, right? So what’s the problem?

I have a few ideas.

Teachers are slow to hold students accountable because…

• It can be stressful and at times seem more trouble than it’s worth.

• They fear that strict accountability could make students resentful and therefore increase bad behavior.

• Holding students accountable hasn’t worked well for them in the past; the same students break the same rules over and over again.

• Ignoring misbehavior can seem like a better, less stressful option.

• They have deep compassion for students with tough home lives and can be reluctant to hold them accountable.

• They don’t want students to think they’re mean.

I understand these concerns. They’re valid and can feel too big to overcome. But it’s possible to hold students accountable for every incident of misbehavior while eliminating these concerns.

Here’s how.

Accountability Is An Attitude

Effective accountability requires a particular attitude on the part of the teacher. It is a way of thinking that produces (in the teacher) behaviors that eliminate the concerns associated with holding students accountable.

Acquire the attitude, and accountability will work the way it’s supposed to.

This accountability attitude is easier to remember if condensed into a single strategy. I call it the it’s-not-me-it’s-you strategy.

It’s Not Me, It’s You

The it’s-not-me-it’s-you strategy is a personal reminder that student misbehavior is not about you. It’s about them.

You’re not the one who misbehaved. You didn’t decide to play around and be silly during literature circles. You didn’t make fun of another student. You didn’t leave your seat without permission. They did.

So why should you carry the burden or suffer any consequence, angst, stress, fear, or guilt for doing so?

The it’s-not-me-it’s-you strategy says that:

1. Breaking classroom rules is a choice students make.

2. The responsibility for making such choices lies solely with them.

3. You are bound by your classroom management plan and therefore have but one choice when a student misbehaves: enforce a consequence.

4. In holding students accountable, you’re doing what is best for them.

Once your students understand the first three points, accountability will become much more effective. Number four is a reminder for you that you’re doing the right thing despite how difficult some students have it outside the walls of your classroom.

Rest assured, holding your students accountable is an act of compassion.

Carefree Thinking

According to the it’s-not-me-it’s-you strategy, when a student breaks a rule, your thinking should go something like this:

Oh man, Joey. You didn’t raise your hand. And that’s your second time today. That’s too bad, dude. What does the classroom management plan say? We better look at it.

Oh, no. You’re going to have to go to time-out. Gosh, sorry you have to miss a part of the cool science experiment. That’s a shame. Oh well… next time follow the rules and this won’t happen to you.

You might not actually speak this way to your students. But your attitude will. Sending students to time-out is something they decide, not you. You’re merely doing your job: following the plan you agreed to in the beginning of the school year.

And here’s what is so cool about this:

Your students will adopt the same attitude. They will mentally separate the consequence (which they’ve earned of their own accord) from the enforcer (which is you).

Suffering a consequence is a disappointment for students to be sure, but there is no reason for them to harbor ill feelings toward you. Instead, we want them to look inward, take a critical look at themselves, and consider the cost of their poor choices.

But they won’t do this if (A) they are angry with you or (B) you don’t actually hold them accountable.

Stand Apart

There are scores of teachers willing to lighten the load on their students by ignoring poor behavior, looking the other way, or giving second chances. And by doing so, they are harming their chances for success.

Ironically, these are usually the same teachers who resort to hurtful methods in order to control behavior.

Don’t be one of them.

Stand apart from the crowd. Really mean what you say. Really do what you say you will do. And stop taking on—mentally or otherwise—what are your students’ burdens and responsibilities.

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- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

World-class archer Kristin Braun practices six hours a day trying to do the impossible.

Standing 230 feet from her target, she takes a deep breath and, while simultaneously lifting her bow into place, draws a steel-tipped carbon arrow.

She peers over her left hand, taking aim by lining up the target’s bulls eye with the tiny pin sight attached to her bow.

Her goal is to place each of six arrows into a 5-inch diameter gold ring in the target’s center. Physically, the task isn’t difficult. Anyone with reasonable strength can draw Kristin’s bow into shooting position.

Mentally, however, it is another story entirely.

What separates elite archers from everyone else is their ability to care without caring. Put another way, Kristin must care enough about her sport to dedicate thousands of hours of practice time, but then not give a rip about the results.

The reason is because frustration and discouragement over a bad shot can interfere with one’s ability to focus on the next one, and the one after that, which renders success a near impossibility.

To Care Without Caring

In this one important way, classroom management is like target archery. To be most effective in the classroom, you have to care about your students’ behavior… without caring.

Let me explain.

There is no doubt that you care about your students and want to see them succeed. This is good. But if it bothers you when they misbehave, if it gets under your skin, it will negatively affect your classroom management effectiveness.

Consider this common thought process:

Oh no! Karla is out of her seat again. I’m so sick of her disrupting my classroom (sigh). She is driving me crazy! Maybe I should just let it go this time. If I ignore her, maybe it will stop. No, I’m not going to let her do this to me. I don’t care if I have to interrupt the lesson again. I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m in charge of this classroom, and I’m not going to let her control it!

“Karla! Meet me outside the door right now!”

Is this you? Do ever you think like this when a student misbehaves?

This frame of mind—taking behavior personally, letting it affect you emotionally—will sabotage your ability to build relationships with your students and make classroom management infinitely more difficult.

A Better Way Of Thinking

So Karla broke a rule.

So what? It’s not your issue. Other than enforcing a consequence, it has little to do with you. You didn’t break a rule, so why should you be burdened by it? Karla made the choice to venture beyond your classroom boundaries, so she alone must accept the consequences for doing so.

You are not responsible for the choices your students make.

Every time a student breaks a rule, one way or another, someone pays. Either you dispassionately enforce a consequence and the student pays. Or you pay in the form of stress, frustration, and disappointment and more frequent and severe behavior from your students.

Far too many teachers—and parents—lighten the responsibility on kids and take it upon themselves. They end up discouraged and angry, and the students are running around without a care in the world.

Not only is this unfair to you, but it’s bad for them.

By enforcing a consequence for every rule violation, you’re helping your students understand the cost of their actions. And by not “caring”, you can do this without causing resentment—in you or in your students—allowing you to build influential relationships with them.

So the next time a student breaks a rule, enforce whatever consequence your classroom management plan calls for, and then move on without giving it a second thought.

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- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

Most teachers talk to difficult students—those with a proclivity for misbehavior—way too often. If you’re spending more time on these students than others, it’s a sign you’re not curbing their behavior.

It’s also not fair to the rest of your class.

There is a correlation between the amount of time spent on difficult students and a worsening of their behavior.

The reason is simple. By giving difficult students more time and attention than others, you’re telling them that they’re different, that they can’t control themselves and thus need your constant attention.

You’ll often hear teachers say, “Oh my gosh, I have Anthony on my roster. It’s going to be a long year. He needs so much attention!” The fact is Anthony doesn’t need any extra attention.

Though now he thinks he does.

Every teacher he has ever had has spent precious minutes of every day cajoling him, admonishing him, lecturing him, getting angry with him, and indulging in his ever-growing need for attention.

The solution is to simply cut difficult students like Anthony off from any extra time and attention (from you). Instead, let your classroom rules speak for you. If you treat difficult students like everybody else, they’ll start behaving like everybody else.

Following your classroom management plan every time a student breaks a rule frees you from being forced to use your words to get students to behave as you desire, which not only doesn’t work, but is also a major cause of teacher stress.

As soon as a student like Anthony realizes that you’re going to treat him like everyone else, his behavior will change.

Part of the reason for this change is because he is being held accountable for his actions without the added commentary from the teacher—which makes him resentful (see article on lecturing). The other part is because he’s thrilled to finally not be treated like an outcast.

If Anthony is new to your classroom, the change can happen quickly. If, however, he has been in your room for a while and has grown accustomed to your frequent conferences, reminders, warnings, and the like, it may take awhile.

Cutting difficult students off from the attention they’ve been receiving doesn’t mean you should ignore them. It means that, when it comes to behavior issues, they should be treated the same as anyone else who breaks a rule. However, you must go out of your way to let them see this new reality for themselves.

Let difficult students see you enforcing rules for every student, regardless of who they are. Let them experience the same level of praise as other students. Much too often, difficult students are praised for things that aren’t worthy of it, which hurts your cause and is detrimental to them.

If a difficult student does something well, let them know in the same manner you would all of your students. And when they break a rule, tell them what rule they broke and then enforce a consequence.

And if they keep breaking rules, keep enforcing consequences.

Lasting improvement doesn’t come from frequent pow-wows, lectures, or feel-good pep talks. Difficult students improve because of the lessons learned from being held accountable for their actions.

Focus your attention on creating an enjoyable classroom experience for your students, and refrain from speaking to individual students about their behavior or giving more attention to those that misbehave more often.

Instead, follow your classroom management plan and heartily let your students know when they’re doing well.

Your most difficult students will appreciate being treated the same as everyone else and, as a result, seek to be a contributing member of your classroom rather than the outcast “behavior problem” they’ve been in the past.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

If you’re looking for elaborate or decorative classroom management ideas, you won’t find them here.

Though prevalent, such ideas are unnecessary, even counterproductive, for classroom management.

On this site, we’re focused on only two things:

1. What works best.

2. What is simplest for you.

The goal of classroom management is to eliminate distractions, disruptions, and poor behavior, so you are free to inspire your students.

The results are happy and high achieving students.

Anything that interferes with this goal, or doesn’t contribute to it, should be thrown out.

Too many teachers chase the next great classroom management idea and are continually disappointed. They try one thing after the other, searching for the magic solution that will finally “get through” to their students.

In the meantime, they’re stressed and tired of dealing with behavior issues. For them, teaching becomes an act of drudgery rather than what it can and should be:

An act of joy.

So instead of chasing trends, why not focus on what is proven to work? All students respond predictably to certain principles and strategies. Master them, and you will never worry about classroom management again.

True, your fellow teachers may not “ooh” and “ahh” over the cleverly contrived classroom management charts or newfangled methodologies you’re using, but they will marvel at your ability to control your classroom.

And, most important, you’ll be able to focus your energies on what attracted you to teaching in the first place: the chance to make a lasting impression on your students.

A couple of days ago, I spoke to a former student on the phone. I was his sixth grade teacher. He is 24-years old now and a recent college graduate. I’m thrilled with his success and couldn’t be prouder of the person he has become.

But as we were talking, it saddened me to hear him say that he couldn’t remember his fourth or fifth grade teachers. He couldn’t even describe them to me.

Until you have a solid understanding of classroom management and how to implement the strategies that really work, your classroom will be forgettable too.

You can’t be the inspiring, influential, and memorable teacher you want to be unless your students—all of them—follow your rules.

Classroom rules are a fundamental tenet of classroom management, and they form the core of your plan. They’re important, to be sure, but they don’t need to be complicated. In fact, the simpler, the better.

Here are four keys to creating classroom rules that work.

1. Clarity trumps all. Your students must clearly understand your rules in order to follow them.

2. Use only four or five rules. Any more than that will make your rules harder to remember and, thus, harder to follow.

3. Make sure your rules cover every eventuality. You can’t enforce a behavior unless it falls under the banner of one of your rules. Doing so is confusing and unfair to students.

4. Make them specific. Everyone, especially you, needs to know when or if a rule has been broken.

Many years ago, I discovered a set of rules that fit the criteria listed above and have used them ever since. They’re nothing special. In fact, they’re really quite boring.

But they work.

Remember, the rules themselves don’t motivate students to follow them. You do. (To learn how, see other articles, sign up for weekly updates, or read the book Dream Class.) To repeat an often-used refrain on this site, there is no magic in your rules.

But they are an important part of your classroom management plan, and creating them thoughtfully is the first step to having complete classroom control.

Drum roll, please:

1. Follow Directions

2. Raise Your Hand Before Speaking Or Leaving Your Seat

3. Respect Your Classmates And Your Teacher

4. Keep Hands, Feet, And Objects To Yourself

These four simple rules should cover every behavior that threatens to disrupt your classroom and interfere with learning. However, if you need to, you can always add one more.

Notice that these rules are related to behavior only. I know some teachers like to include learning expectations as well, like, for example, Complete Work On Time or Work Independently. But combining them with behavior rules can be confusing.

Keep your learning expectations separate from your behavior rules.

I’d love to read your comments. I know writing them can be time-consuming, but they’re very much appreciated.

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- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

The sight of a teacher lecturing an individual student is commonplace on school campuses. This classroom management method seems to be preferred by a majority of teachers, but is it effective? Does it work to curb unwanted behavior?

Another common sight on campus is the stressed-out teacher. They’re easy to spot: furrowed brow, tight smile, and frequent sighs. Stress has been blamed for the surprisingly large numbers of teachers who leave the profession in less than three years. But is stress just part of the job or is there something else at work?

The answers to these questions about both seemingly unrelated topics are, in fact, intertwined. It is my belief that the number one cause of stress among teachers is a reliance on one’s words to try to convince students to behave as desired—i.e., lecturing students as a method of classroom management.

If I woke up every morning knowing that I had to rely on the creative use of language and speech—to intimidate, persuade, plead, demand, explain, and otherwise get through to my students—as a major tool in my classroom management plan, I probably wouldn’t get out of bed.

I shudder at the idea of having to rely upon finding the right words to say and striking the right tone to convince my students to follow my directions.

Yet many teachers get up in the morning and fight this uphill, no-win battle every day.

And unless you’re Vince Lombardi, lecturing individual students is near the bottom of the list of effective classroom management strategies. It doesn’t change behavior—though it may temporarily suppress it—and it will make your goal of having a dream class made up of well-behaved students a more difficult proposition.

Lecturing individual students isn’t an effective classroom management strategy because it doesn’t work in the long run, it creates resentment in your students, and it’s stressful to you.

The goal of this blog, as well as my book Dream Class, is to provide you with sound classroom management strategies and tips that really work, that anyone can do, and that will make your job—and life—easier. Secondarily, the goal is to help you steer clear of those methods that seem right because everyone else is doing them, but are in fact minimally—if at all—effective.

Lecturing individual students falls into this second group you should stay away from.

Words can be powerful, and when used to encourage or praise students, they can be an important part of your classroom management plan. Whole class lectures, too, for the purpose of rallying or motivating your class can be effective. But words used in the form of a one-on-one lecture will hinder your ability to manage your classroom.

When you pull a student aside to speak to him or her about a behavior issue, what you’re actually doing is delivering an act of discipline—or consequence. At least, that is how students see it. They know that as soon as you single them out for a “talking to”, stiffer consequences are more than likely not forthcoming.

Listening to your criticism is the consequence. If they can weather your lecture, they know they will be free from further consequence when it’s over.

Moreover, lecturing often degenerates into an interrogation. As in, why did you do this and why did you do that? Again, answering these mostly unanswerable questions is the consequence for the student because you (the teacher) don’t really need to know why.

Why a student breaks a rule is, in most circumstances, irrelevant. Very few students, or adults for that matter, are able to articulate why they made a bad choice. They just did, or they wanted to at the time. Knowing does nothing to curb the unwanted behavior.

Forcing answers from students does, however, goad them into an argument, which is the last thing you want.

Arguing with students lowers your leadership stature and authority to the same level of the student—which it is not. You are the teacher and leader in the classroom and you make the decisions.

Rules are rules. Other than for the purpose of gathering information, there is nothing to talk about. If a student breaks a rule, you give him or her a consequence and move on. That’s it. And if you send them to time-out, leave them alone.

When I see a teacher lecturing a student already in time-out, I want to say, “Stop, you’re messing it up. Let the time-out be a time-out. Don’t make your students dislike you because you promised a time-out but added a scolding for good measure.”

Lecturing a student about a particular behavior issue or incident draws more attention to the behavior and to the same misbehaving students over and over again. Inevitably, your other students will privately begin to resent you and the few students you spend most of your energy on.

The reason teachers lecture students is because they don’t know a better way. They look around and see so many other teachers doing it and think it must be the best method. They want so badly for their students to do well and pulling them aside seems to be the most direct way of accomplishing this. But it doesn’t work.

What does work is following your classroom management plan exclusively.

Lecturing doesn’t support your plan; it hinders it. Let your consequences do the job of dissuading bad behavior, and stop relying on lecturing students to convince them to behave as you desire. Doing so will lower your stress level and allow you to focus your attention on creating the best learning environment for your students.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

- Smart Classroom Management - Copyright 2009-2011, All Rights Reserved.

I received an email yesterday from a teacher who wondered how I would have handled a couple of her most challenging students. It seems that these two students have caused her nonstop headaches throughout the school year, and she was relieved her summer vacation was beginning in a few days.

She mentioned in her email that she had ordered my book, Dream Class, earlier in the day and was going to read it over the summer.

The book is clear about how I recommend dealing with chronically disruptive students, and I have no doubt it will give her greater confidence and a brand new strategy going into the next school year.

Some of my classroom management solutions run counter to what many teachers are doing, and in the case of students who repeatedly disrupt the classroom, this is also true. For example, I don’t speak more often to misbehaving-prone students or give them more attention than I would any other student.

Dozens of times I’ve heard teachers say that they feel bad for the rest of their class because they spend so much time and energy on just a few students. And they’re right. It isn’t fair to the rest of the class. It fact, attending to some students more than others likely hurts the balance of the class academically.

It’s also detrimental to the very students these teachers are trying so hard to control.

Giving more attention to troublesome students increases the likelihood that their unwanted behavior will continue. Yet, in my experience, this seems to be the preferred method.

Lectures, scoldings, arguments, empty threats, warnings, behavior contracts, counseling sessions, reminders, exhortations, pep-talks, hugs, and hi-fives. When done too often and with the same few students, these time-consuming interactions cause more problems than they eliminate.

When you attend to poorly behaved students more often, you’re communicating to them in a subtle but clear way that they’re different, that they don’t have what it takes to control themselves like other students, so they need extra attention.

This causes them to lose belief in themselves. They think being a troublemaker is just who they are. Many of these students have terrible self-esteem. And year after year, they get the same near-constant attention from their teacher, and it doesn’t work—even for more than a few days.

The goal isn’t to have short-term successes or mild improvements. It’s to change behavior, to turn them around so that they become well behaved, contributing members of your classroom.

So what is the solution? Ignore the behavior and hope it goes away? Tiptoe around the student(s) and hope they aren’t too disruptive? No, the solution is to treat them just like everyone else. Allow your most challenging students to feel what it’s like to be a regular student.

To do this, you must follow your classroom management plan to the letter. Stick to it no matter what, and acknowledge your students when they do something well. Stop pulling them aside to explain this or that, stop lecturing or trying to get assurances from them, and stop telling them how wonderful they are because they sat quietly for 15 minutes during a read aloud.

Simply praise them for the same things you would praise other students for.

And resist the urge to discuss their behavior-related issues with them. If they’re angry or upset, don’t speak to them or let their anger bother you. It’s not personal. They have every right to be angry. It’s not your issue. Otherwise, smile and talk to them about the same things your other students like talking about—sports or movies or whatever feels right.

When you begin using this strategy, the first couple of weeks or so may be tough. One or more of your students may be in time-out a lot, they may act out more than usual and more dramatically, and you may have to spend recess with them more than you would like. But like so much in effective classroom management, a little work in the beginning pays dividends for the rest of the year.

In my experience, those students with disruptive tendencies love this style of classroom management. It’s fair, and because it isn’t arbitrary or based on personal feelings, it completely removes tension between the student and his or her teacher. There is never any confusion. They know exactly what is expected of them.

This strategy of treating your most disruptive students like everyone else only works if you have a solid classroom management plan that you follow precisely and every single time.

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