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.
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