Your new students will likely be on their best behavior for the first few days of school. But by the second week, you and your classroom management plan will be tested.
After all, your students don’t really know you.
Maybe you’ll be like the pushover teacher they had last year. Maybe you’ll be inconsistent or easy to fluster. Maybe you won’t really mean what you say.
Maybe some of your students have never had firm boundaries. Maybe they’ve never known an adult they could look up to and count on. Maybe they’ve never had a teacher they liked or even trusted.
And because you haven’t spent enough time with your students to earn their confidence, you’re going to be tested.
But when it happens, when Anthony says something crude to try to shock you, when Karla talks back and disrespects you, when your students interrupt you, ignore you, and misbehave three feet in front of you…
You’ll be ready.
Here’s what to do:
Pause.
Your first reaction to misbehavior should be no reaction. Don’t rush over and put a stop to it. Don’t call out and try to interrupt it. Just wait, observe, and let it play out. There is no reason to be in a hurry. Take a 20-second pause, letting the incident hang there a moment before responding.
Hide your disappointment.
Never show hurt over misbehavior or disrespect. Never show disappointment if your class isn’t the perfect group you hoped for. Never show your students they can get under your skin or raise your ire. Instead, keep your cool—and send the message that you’re in complete control.
Lose the battle.
If a student is directing his (or her) misbehavior toward you, disrespects you, or talks back to you, be willing to take it. Resist the urge to lecture, scold, or put the student in his place. You have to be willing to lose the battle, so to speak, in order to win the war over the hearts and minds of your students.
Follow through.
Do as you promised and follow through with your classroom management plan. Look the misbehaving student in the eye and say simply, “You have a warning (or time-out) because you broke rule number three: Respect your teacher and your classmates.”
Move on immediately.
Turn your attention away from the student and continue on with what you were doing. Leave to him the responsibility to get back to work or walk to time-out. Send the message that misbehavior is never more than a blip in your day, barely registering on your emotional meter.
Don’t take it personally.
Misbehavior in the beginning of the school year is about your students and their experiences with teachers and adults in the past. It’s not about you. So don’t take it personally. Never take it personally. If you do, you’ll do more harm to your classroom, and your desire for peaceful and joyful learning, than your students ever could.
Build rapport.
Your classroom management plan is designed to hold misbehaving students accountable. So lean on it. Let your plan do its job. Concentrate instead on building behavior-influencing relationships. Enjoy your new students and their unique personalities. Have fun with them. Create a learning experience they love being a part of.
Handle it yourself.
Whenever students test you, remain steadfast. Cling to your integrity. Calmly enforce a consequence without getting sucked into arguments, lectures, or drama. And don’t send your students to the office to let someone else handle it. To be viewed as a leader worth following, you must be the one your students answer to.
It Isn’t Just Your Dream
Many teachers dig themselves into a hole the first few weeks of school because they overreact to being tested.
They take misbehavior personally. They begin reasoning with students. They threaten, scold, and raise their voice. They dole out false praise and unworthy rewards. They fall into the same quicksand of ineffective strategies so many others blindly tumble into.
We talk a lot on this website about creating a classroom you have always wanted, your dream class. But the other side of the coin is that in doing so, in following the advice on this website, you’ll also be creating a dream class for your students.
The guidelines above are a good first step, leading you down a lightly trodden but sure-footed path of respect, admiration, and influence—well on your way to becoming the teacher your students have always wanted…
The one they’ve been waiting for their entire short lives.
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.
Hello MR. MICHAEL LINSIN:
I have returned to translate one of your posts and have hung it on my blog respecting your authorship. If you had some problem make it known to me and I will withdraw it immediately. I am grateful again for your attention and amiability.
A cordial greeting,
Jesus Hernández
No problem, Jesus!
I’m a 25-year veteran teacher trying to learn how to do it all over again the right way. I’m in my fourth year at an urban Title I school with 70% of my students getting EIP or on IEPs. Most of the time there are *multiple* incidences happening in my room simultaneously. I teach in an Orff music classroom and I’ve set boundaries for playing instruments and movement, but someone will look at someone else in what is viewed as threatening or insulting, and that’s all it takes to set off another incident. My administration is not at all supportive, and one of the factors in my salary and contract renewal is the number of students I’ve referred to the office. I teach almost 700 students and had 17 office referrals last year, mostly for physical fights. I was still admonished for having so many. I need to keep it at zero this year but also keep my sanity. Help!
Hi Denise,
You’ve come to the right place. If you apply the techniques and strategies you learn on this website, you’ll gain the classroom control you’re looking for. No doubt about it. I recommend starting in the Classroom Management Plan and Rules & Consequences categories of our archive (top right-hand corner of page). Then go from there. There is a lot to read and a lot to learn, but all of the advice described in the articles are doable for anyone. They’re simply stated–with no teacher-speak or regurgitated theory. You get only what works. If after reading you have any questions, shoot me an email. I’m happy to help!
:)Michael
Hi,
I love your approach to classroom management and I am determined to put it into practice with my grade 2 class this year. What would you do about children who are diagnosed ADHD and are more impulsive than others? It seems that these particular children will be spending a lot of time in time-out and will receive many letters home. On only the first day of school this was already quite apparent. Would you give children of this age the chance to “start fresh” half way through the day?
Hi Amanda,
I believe it’s best to have one classroom management plan for all students. I think you have to be very careful about changing your plan for some and not for others. Not so much because of fairness, but because you don’t want to label any student as a behavior problem. However, if you do have that rare student who clearly is going to take longer to get on your program then, perhaps, you might want to think about a slight tweak here or there.
Michael
Hi Michael,
I appreciate all of the work that you have put in to writing these articles. They have helped me a great deal! I am an elementary Spanish teacher. There are a few things that I am still struggling with that I wanted to get your opinion on. In my class, there are many times where children share things about themselves (in Spanish) with the rest of the class. I remind students that the only person who should be talking is the student that I have called on to share. However, with some of my classes, students will quietly whisper to one another a comment about what another student has shared, such as “Wow, thats cool!” or “I didn’t know that!” Or, sometimes they will laugh if the student I have called on shares something comical. Other times, when students first enter the Spanish classroom and sit down to begin working on the warm-up activity, they will quietly ask the person at their table for a marker. Technically, all of these instances are disobeying the “raise your hand before speaking” rule, but do you think it is necessary that I enforce a consequence in each of the above scenarios? One other question I had was regarding transitions. Sometimes when I am transitioning between activities and ask students to put something away in their folders, students whisper to one another quietly. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell who all is talking. I feel sometimes as though it is unfair to enforce a consequence upon only the students that I “catch” talking. Do you have any suggestions for this? Last question, I promise. How are some good ways for me to build leverage with my students, as I am an enrichment teacher and only see each of the classes I work with twice a week for thirty minutes? I sometimes feel down on myself because I feel as if all of the other enrichments at our school are non-academic (music class, art class, gym class, etc.), and are therefore more fun. I feel that elementary Spanish is more of a core academic class, such as math or language arts. These other enrichment areas also do not follow a specific classroom management plan, as I have asked them about this. I feel it is difficult sometimes for me to create leverage with students due to the fact that I only work with them for an hour a week and because elementary Spanish is an academic enrichment class, rather than free time with their friends (as some of their other enrichment classes are). I sometimes just hate feeling like all the other enrichment classes are more fun than my class, as I follow a classroom management plan and have high academic expectations for the children. Any suggestions for how I can overcome these negative feelings and work on creating more leverage with students? I greatly appreciate any input you have to give. Thank you very much!
Hi Jessica,
Your first question depends on your classroom. If these comments, which are wonderful by the way, don’t lead to disruptive behavior, then no, definitely don’t enforce them. I would, however explain to your class why you’re not enforcing them. As long as you define it for your students, you can create the exact classroom experience you want. Your second question: You can’t be everywhere, so it’s impossible to always catch everything. However, if you see it or hear of it, you have an obligation to enforce it. Again, that is unless you define what is and isn’t okay. You’re not perfect, nor should you concern yourself with trying to be perfect. Finally, if your class isn’t inherently fun, interesting, or exciting, so be it. No worries. The teacher far and away determines how excited students are coming to class. You have the power to improve leverage, no matter what you’re teaching. I’m going to write a lot more about creating leverage in the future, but I recommend reading the article How To Have Fun Without Extra Planning. Then work your way through the Rapport and Influence categories of the archive. Finally, if you haven’t read it, Dream Class is for all intents and purposes a book about creating leverage.
Michael
I am a 5th grade teacher, 9 years teaching. This year I have a challenging class, 24 students 12 boys 12 girls. some of my students are ADHD, they do not listen, I have classroom rules but they do no care about it. I have taking recess away, calling parents but so far nothing works, they love to talk, they go to music class, PE or lunch and get in trouble. What canI do to improve behaivor? I have tried different techniques, some days are better than others.
Hi Nancy,
This website was created for teachers like you! Spend some time in the archive (top right-hand corner of the page), apply the strategies you learn, and you will see improvement.
:)Michael
I’m sorry to ask so many questions, but your philosophies really resonated with me. This year I have had a lot of problems with talking. I’m confused with the advice you gave to Jessica–I liked that in your articles it says to enforce something 100% of the time but you were telling her to make exceptions to the “raise your hand” rule based on the content of their remarks. When I did this it always ended up leading to more talking with my students. I know in one of your other articles, you said that you can’t sometimes have a rule and sometimes not. I liked how you always mean exactly what you saybut now I’m unsure–do you really mean that “raising hands to speak” applies 100% of the time when you say that’s the rule for a certain activity, but that maybe it’s really 99% with exceptions? Making judgement calls based on the nuances of the situation or the content of their talking was so stressful for me this year.
Hi Allison,
Yes, you enforce your rules 100% of the time. The key, though, and the part you’re misunderstanding, is how they’re defined for your students. Like Jessica, I like my students to laugh appropriately when something is funny. We laugh all the time, but here’s the key: This is how the raise your hand rule is defined for them. They know that they’re allowed to laugh, thus it isn’t breaking the rule to do so. Jessica also likes her students to be able to respond to each other when they’re sharing. Again, as long as her students understand when and how it’s okay to do this, it won’t lead to a problem or loss of control, and she isn’t in any way going back on her word. Finally, just because it’s right for Jessica, doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. An eighth grade physics class, for example, would likely have a different definition for handraising than would a kindergarten class. Smart Classroom Management, after all, is for teachers–human beings all–and not robots.
Michael
I understand the fact that you may have to lose the battle when it comes to a disrectful student. I get that you can’t let the other kids see that the student’s disrespect gets under your skin. My only question is this: when you do give up the battle against the disrespectful student, how do you set the tone with the other students in the classroom? If they see you, in a sense, do nothing about the disrespectful student’s behavior, how do you keep the other students from getting the idea that they can do the same thing if they saw you did nothing about it?
Hi James,
You’re not reacting emotionally, but that doesn’t mean you’re doing nothing about it. You respond by following your classroom management plan and enforcing a consequence. In other words, you’re holding the student accountable for their disrespectful behavior, rather than taking it personally.
Michael
How can i control a year 6 pre school students whenthey dont listen to me? what can i do tio control them?
Hi Ranjini,
Your question is what this website is all about. I encourage you to spend some time in our archive, beginning in the Classroom Management Plan category and going from there.
Michael
Michael,
I’m baffled about how to handle students who misbehave and I must send to time- out because it’s their second warning but they REFUSE to go to time- out. Or if I give them a letter to take home to notify their parents of misbehavior and the student doesn’t return it signed. What to do then?
Hi Diana,
Here’s an article to help: http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2012/03/31/what-to-do-when-a-student-refuses-to-go-to-time-out/
As for your second question, you mentioned you were reading Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers. The book will answer this question.
Michael
Michael,
I really like your philosophy and pian to put into action this coming school year. I’m an art specialist and am reading your book for Specialists.
My question is what if I do not see the misbehavior happen but that 1 or more other students tell me about it. Then the accused student denies it. What do I do then? Thank you !
Hi Diana,
I’ve written extensively on this topic. Here are just two articles:
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2014/11/22/how-to-handle-students-who-lie-and-deny/
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2010/11/13/how-to-get-the-truth-from-untruthful-students/
Michael