When students get bored their minds drift.

And while some settle on daydreaming, tile-counting, and general inattentiveness, other students are drawn to more…ahem…destructive pursuits.

For where there is boredom, there is misbehavior percolating just under the surface, ready to pounce.

Although there is a lot you can do to counter the onset of boredom, understanding what not to do is the first step to avoiding its negative effects.

What follows is a list of the most common things teachers do to cause boredom. By steering clear of these eight attention killers, your students will spend more time on task and be far better behaved.

And you’ll be a more effective teacher.

1. Sitting too long.

Although it’s important to increase your students’ stamina for both paying attention during lessons and focusing during independent work, if they’re made to sit too long, you’re asking for trouble. Good teachers are observant and thus learn to know precisely when to switch gears and get their students up and moving.

2. Talking too much.

Students need room to breathe or they’ll form an unspoken mutiny and turn your classroom upside down. Talking too much is especially smothering. It communicates that you don’t trust them, teaches them to tune you out, and causes their eyes to glaze over. The more economical and concise you are with your words, however, the more attentive your students will be.

3. Making the simple, complex.

Many teachers misunderstand the oft-heard mandate for more rigor. They take it to mean that they need to make their instruction more complex, more involved, more verbose—which is a major reason why students don’t progress. Our job, if we are to do it well, is to do the opposite. The most effective teachers simplify, break down, and cut away the non-essentials—making content easier for students to grasp.

4. Making the interesting, uninteresting.

Most standard grade-level subject matter is interesting, but your students don’t know that. In fact, many assume, based on their learning experiences in the past, that it’s boring. It’s your job to show them otherwise. It’s your job to give them a reason to care about what you’re teaching. So many teachers just talk at their students, forgetting the most critical element: selling it.

5. Talking about behavior instead of doing something about it.

Teachers who struggle with classroom management tend to talk endlessly about behavior. They hold class meetings. They hash things out. They revisit the same tired topic over and over, much to their students’ eye-rolling chagrin. Effective classroom management is about action. It’s about doing and following through and holding students accountable. It isn’t about talking.

 6. Directing too much, observing too less.

Most teachers are in constant motion—directing, guiding, handholding, and micromanaging students from one moment to the next. This is not only remarkably inefficient, but it dampens enthusiasm for school. Instead, rely on sharp, well-taught routines to keep your students awake, alive, and responsible through every transition and repeatable moment of your day—while you observe calmly from a distance.

7. Leading a slow, sloppy, slip-shod pace.

Good teaching strives for a focus and efficiency of time, movement, and energy. The day crackles and glides cleanly from one lesson or activity to the next. As soon as one objective is met, it’s on to the next without delay. Moving sharply and purposefully forces students to stay on their toes, their minds engaged. Boredom never enters the picture.

8. Failing to adjust.

Regardless of what you’re trying to squeeze in by the end of the day, or how important it seems, the moment you notice heads wilting, you must make an adjustment. It’s never worth it to plow through. Sometimes all your students need is a moment to stretch their legs or say hello to a friend. Other times, you’ll simply move on to something else.

Learning In The Spotlight

The ability to concentrate over time is a critical and often-overlooked aspect of learning, and so pushing the time-on-task envelop is a good thing.

But there is a fine line.

And when students cross that line and into boredom, misbehavior is sure to follow. The good news is that by avoiding the common mistakes listed above, you can keep boredom at bay…

And inspired learning in the spotlight.

Note: I wrote an article last week for Jessica Balsley’s excellent blog, The Art of Education. If you’re an art teacher, or you just want to improve art in your classroom, I recommend checking it out.

Also, 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.

Your students love video games.

They love action movies and bawdy comedies. They love snowball fights, skateboards, birthday parties, and action sports.

They love laughter and thrills, challenge and daring-do.

They want to leap off thirty-foot cliffs into murky water below. They want to go on zip-lines, amusement-park rides, water slides.

They want to score the winning goal, hang out with their crazy friends, and eat pizza seven nights a week.

They spend their waking moments thinking about, pursuing, or engaging in their desires.

And then they walk into your classroom.

Boredom Equals Misbehavior

I know, I know… It’s not your job to entertain your students or compete with the excesses of the world.

True enough.

But if you can’t grab their attention and enchant them with your lessons and teaching style, you’re going to lose them to boredom and disinterest.

And, as predictable as the rising sun, unengaged students misbehave, break rules, and seek fulfillment in less-than-acceptable ways.

Just the way it is.

Four Desires

The key to capturing your students’ attention, and keeping it, is to tap into four desires nearly every student has in abundance.

1. Adventure

Students crave adventure, and if you can give it to them, even in small doses and in vicarious ways, they’ll love being in your classroom.

Organize scavenger hunts and walking field trips and outdoor art lessons. Choose read-alouds that transport to other worlds. Act out scenes of scientific discovery. Perform your favorite book passages. Reenact moments in history instead of just reading about them.

Dive headlong into the dramatic stories of adventure behind the yawn-inducing curriculum you’ve been saddled with. Be wary of the current push in more and more technology, and get your students up and experiencing their learning.

2. Laughter

Bring regular doses of fun and laugher into your classroom, and your students will follow you to the ends of the earth. Besides storytelling, nothing compares to the rapport-building, behavior-influencing power of humor. Be open to it and you’ll find it everywhere you look.

There is no place like a classroom full of kids to find the comically absurd, the notably amusing, and the downright hilarious. No, you don’t have to abandon your rules or waste learning time.

The truth is, when your students are happy to be in your class, when they can have a good laugh once in a while, they’re less likely to misbehave and more open to learning.

3. Challenge

Among the happiest of people are those whose work challenges them—without it being unreachable, undoable, or discouraging. And this is what you must do with your students. You must continually give them challenges they think they can do, but aren’t absolutely sure.

The best way to do this is through provocative questioning: Who thinks they can teach the class how to perform the experiment? What group wants to try to tackle this problem? Which pair can do this the best, the fastest, or without making a mistake?

Your job is to know what your students can do so you can ask for a little more—in tempting challenges dangled before them throughout the day.

4. Fascination

This is where your skill as a teacher and showwoman (or showman) comes in. I’ve found that in every lesson and in every activity there is an opportunity to infuse a dose of fascination and wonderment.

This strategy can be so powerful and can be used in so many different ways, limited only by your imagination. Find the one thing in your lesson that is unique, unusual, magical, shocking, incredible, secretive, special, exclusive, or in some way different and use it to lure your students in.

Now on the surface this one thing might not be very compelling. The trick is to visualize your lesson objectives through the eyes of your students. Find the one thing that stands out and then make it compelling. Make it something your students can’t ignore, even if they tried.

Teach To The Heart

If your classroom doesn’t include these elements, if you’re simply following along with the paint-by-numbers curriculum you’ve been provided, then classroom management will be a never-ending struggle.

And academic progress will be teeth-pulling slow.

When you regularly tap into your students’ natural desires, however, when you speak and teach directly to their hearts, rather than into their ears and over their heads…

Then their eyes will widen, their backs will straighten in their seats, and they’ll be filled with the love of learning.

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.

Several years after beginning my teaching career, I went back to school to earn a second master’s degree. I wanted to reach the end of the pay scale and was hoping to learn something new in the process.

After researching colleges near my home, I chose a university that catered to working adults. You know the kind: gigantic national chain, classes held in an industrial park, no sports teams.

The first evening of my first class, I sat in the front row—hand raised, bright-eyed. But slowly, as the semester wore on, I inched my way to the back of the room.

The instructor was painstakingly boring.

A typical class period consisted of theory regurgitation and a slow, scratch-the-surface plod through the coursework. Before long, I found myself in the last row next to a special education teacher from Wisconsin.

Her name was Monica and she, too, was exasperated with the slow pace of the class. We became friends—she was hilarious—and I’m ashamed to admit that during lectures we often played meaningless games to pass the time.

She’d slide a piece of notebook paper over to me with the headline, “Hair Bands Of The 80s” or “Classic Cartoon Characters.” I would write Motley Crew or Fred Flintstone at the top of the list and slide it back over. Then she would add a name, and we’d go back and forth until one of us was stumped.

I had mixed feelings about doing this. On one hand, I felt I owed the instructor a level of respect and should at the least feign interest. On the other hand, I had to sit in a hard chair and listen to him paraphrase from the $65 textbook lying open in front of me.

But despite my mixed feelings—and no small amount of guilt—I continued playing silly pencil and paper games, passing notes like a seventh grader, and chatting under my breath with those around me.

I couldn’t help myself.

After class one evening, I joined my classmates for dessert at a local restaurant. There, I heard story after story about how the rest of the class was biding their time while waiting for the class period to end.

They, too, were passing notes, playing hangman, and watching the clock.

It didn’t matter that we were adults. None of us, 8 years old or 80, is immune to the force of boredom, which can make us do things we know we shouldn’t.

The only difference between my classmates and a group of fifth graders was that we were more covert in our bad behavior.

The fact is, if students are bored, misbehavior will follow.

The “Say Hello” Strategy

One solution is to use the “say hello” strategy. It’s a quick and easy way to reinvigorate your students, improve their attentiveness, and stem the tide of boredom.

Here’s how it works:

When you notice your students’ attention waning and boredom seeping in, simply let them get up, move around the room, and say hello to their friends and classmates.

Interacting with friends has a unique way of energizing tired synapses. It feeds and revitalizes the brain, gets the blood flowing, and releases the pent up urge to engage in minor, though disruptive, unwanted behaviors.

Surprising your students with the strategy works best. Just blurt out, “Stand up and say hello to your friends!” And then leave them alone and let them visit for a couple of minutes.

Like everything else, your students need to know what your expectations are, but I’ve found students to be appreciative of the break and thus exceedingly respectful of the gesture.

You can also use this strategy shortly before a lesson that requires prolonged attention, or right after. But be careful not to over do it or it will lose some of its effectiveness.

Few students can sit and attend for very long without active engagement. Sometimes the solution is as simple as giving them exactly what they want: A moment to talk with their friends.

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