I often hear from teachers who in long missives describe awful behavior towards them.
They describe angry, argumentative, and aggressively disrespectful students.
Students who tell them off and try to disrupt and sabotage their class.
Students who roll their eyes and refuse to look at them or listen to their directions.
They go on to talk about how nothing works.
How every day with 10-20% of their class is a battle.
How behavior is getting worse, not better, and that these particular students don’t care a whit about grades, consequences, or anything else.
The emails are typically written in the form of a challenge, as if to say that their class is too difficult for any strategy or approach.
Now, there are, without a doubt, students with a proclivity to misbehave.
There are students who are hurt and angry by sins done to them in the past and whose default setting is to rail against authority.
But here’s the thing, here’s what I’d like to say to those teachers who are convinced that there is nothing they can do to stop certain students from being disrespectful:
It takes two to tango.
Although it may not feel like you’re contributing to the problem, if you show any outward sign of frustration or annoyance—even a sigh, a tightening of your jaw, or standoffishness—they assume that you’re just like all the rest.
They lump you together with all the other adults in their life who have scolded them, lectured them, battled them, and otherwise let them down. By proxy, you become the target of their anger.
It may not be fair, or make much sense from your perspective, but it’s reality.
Even pulling them aside and giving them a measured rebuke can push them to the point where, out of spite, they’ll want nothing more than to prove to you that they really don’t care.
You see, they know that it’s the one thing you can never control, the one thing that is guaranteed to hurt you and destroy the vision you have of yourself as a good and caring teacher.
They have so much pride and youthful recklessness that they’re willing to fail and endure any consequence just to not let you win or impose your will over them.
And if you do lose your cool . . . if you do argue back or try to put them in their place, your relationship—and their behavior—will crater, until they won’t even look at you anymore.
But the remarkable truth is, and what they keep hidden from anyone who doesn’t understand where their behavior comes from, is that they do care.
Sometimes more than any other student in your class.
To tap into that treasure buried down deep inside, however, takes a complete release of animosity. It takes warm compassion in the face of disrespect. It takes standing alongside them rather than opposite them.
You have to prove to them through your words and actions that you’re in their corner and that your modes of accountability aren’t personal, but are for the benefit of every member of the class—including them.
Practically, how you do this is laid out in detail in the elementary and high school e-guides along the right sidebar.
But it’s your day-after-day kindness, gentleness, and good humor, when freely given no matter what’s happening in their life or how they’re behaving, that turns the tide.
That wins them over.
It’s an unstoppable wave that crashes into that part of them that cares, that causes them to want to succeed, that instills in them a desire to please you and behave for you.
Only when you remove yourself as an opponent, offering instead a leader they can trust, respect, and admire, will their behavior change, and change dramatically.
So, initially, how do you become that sort of person under the hot, harsh lights of disrespect, even hatred?
Empathy.
Empathy, borne of knowing what it feels like to be in their shoes or imagining just how extraordinarily difficult it is, makes your refusal to ever create animosity and friction the easiest and most natural thing in the world.
It’s a strategy that works with the angriest, most wounded souls to ever enter a classroom.
And it works for every teacher, every time.
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How do we conquer or control the battle with cell phones!
I had a box. Students were allowed – per school rules set by the principal – to have them on their person, but if they dared look at it it went in a box blatantly marked until the end of class. Of course they said 1hat if someone takes it – but I told them that wouldn’t happen and the best way to avoid that is to have a code and better yet don’t look at it!
Only happened a couple times at the beginning of the year after I explained my rules clearly and then they learned not to look at them. 3 infractions and it stays in the locker and parents get a call.
https://smartclassroommanagement.com/2018/01/20/how-to-eliminate-cell-phone-use-in-the-classroom/
why do you not have a middle school plan?
Hi Suzy,
It’s on the list of future e-guides.
MS plan needed now!
I SOOOOO Agree!! They are different than high school and elementary. A class of their own!
Seriously, with all due respect you need to post that middle school plan right now! It is SO needed these days!
You are very clear about the importance of consistency with enforcing classroom rules. How do you hold a student like this to the rules with kindness and sympathy so that they still believe that you care, even when you are giving them the consequences you give the rest of the students?
Hi Natalie,
I’ve written about this topic extensively. A good place to start is the Rules & Consequences category of the archive (at right). Also, the CM Plan e-guides.
As a special education teacher who has worked day in and day out with the population of students that are being described, I wholeheartedly agree with the entire passage written by Michael! Having chosen to attempt on a daily basis to put myself in my student’s “shoes”, I have proven to myself that it works! The other thing is…..students can read teachers without a doubt. I genuinely love my students and they know it…I would quit teaching if it was any other way!
I teach in a super low income rural town where 75% of the students live in project housing. They are not treated well at home or have adult responsibilities that no 4th grader should have. I finally cracked my one tough nut by simply telling him in a firm but soft voice that Inwasnt his momma, I believed in him, that he can do great things. He came to school the next day and made his own behavior chart. I talked to him softly even when correcting him, and he earned a treasure box prize the second day. I am so proud of him.
Truth. Struggling to learn this.
Thank you for this post. I am an academic library director, & I have found your blog helpful with adults, as well. It has taken over two years, but one of the people who reports to me could definitely have been described as aggressively disrespectful. Long story short – & with a slip-up or two along the way…I am human – by viewing them through the lens of empathy, listening to the content of their words rather than the delivery, taking them seriously, & showing them I care, we now have an incredible relationship. They care deeply about our work, & they keep me on my toes. By staying calm, refusing to take anything personally, consistently showing this person how I expect those who work in our library to act, & most importantly, showing them that I care, I know I have helped this person find the person they want to be. They are still much more intense in their communication than I would be, but it is okay. It takes time, & people will tell you you’re too nice & shouldn’t take that nonsense, but listen to your heart. In my experience, it is worth it.
Thanks Jennifer.
Agreed. Only problem is the logistics. In other words, that child or children are distracting from the other 25 children who need your time and energy. All suffer in tgese situations it is very sad.
Hi Ms. P.,
SCM is a comprehensive approach to classroom management. You may want to look through our archive or check out one of our books.
Yes, the children who are screaming or throwing chairs are very distracting to others! How do you form these close relationships with kids you see for a very short time once a week?
Hi Michael,
I just read the article above and can not express how much I can relate to every inch of it. I’ve been trying to connect with a couple of angry, aggressively disrespectful first grade students for the past few months and before reading the article above, had almost given up hope!
I especially made a connection to what you mentioned about not “loosing your cool,” and the part that mentioned “youthful recklessness.” The two students I am struggling with are perfect examples of, “youthful recklessness,” and have deprived themselves of numerous earned classroom rewards, such as, extra recess, class fun day, dance party and pizza party! “Imposed will,” as you mentioned in the article, is what I have been experiencing with two students in my classroom. Hence, these students would rather endure any consequence to keep me from imposing my will over them. As a result of this article, I am seeing this situation through new lenses!!!
Thank you so much for sharing!
Fondly,
Stephanie Bennett
Stephanie
My pleasure, Stephanie.
What if the administrators are doing what’s causing the animosity? Yelling, threats, blowing a whistle, giving empty threats of punishment that never happen, and then suddenly hammering with excessive punishment?
A girl showed up to school after standardized testing began because her mama had taken her to a doctor appointment, and she was told to go to ISS- even though 3 teachers were holding students who were not testing for various reasons, and a few off-schedule kids were testing in the counselor’s office.
These kids bring me their misdirected anger. I’m just a sub, met the kids just 2 weeks ago after 8 months of bad management, and now they’re angry because they can’t understand test questions they didn’t learn. Sigh.
I had some good engagement from a fee this week after the kid barking in my face was banned from my class and sent to a buddy room.
I cut the kids’ names to their own personal snowflakes, even the “bad” kids gave genuine smiles and one got tears in his eyes….
I am a sub and deal with difficult students all the time. I don’t have the luxury of seeing them every day but rather more like once a month. But I make any interaction a positive one, even if it starts out badly. I don’t exclude. I tell them all students can reach their potential. The ones that give me a hard time in class, I make a point of saying hello to them in the hallway, and asking “How are you doing?”
I had one student say in a high school class, “This is a stupid project. Too easy. I am not doing it.” I asked why did he take the class? (Marketing I ) He said, “I didn’t know it was going to be this dumb.” And I replied, “Well, you are smart, you should be able to knock this out in no time at all.”
He took this as a challenge and worked on the project very diligently and then handed it in to me at the end of class.
There was no judgement or malice in my voice, just
“a matter of fact” tone.
Among my first graders, I tell if they are quiet and working hard, they get a star. I end up giving all the students a star-even the “bad” kids when they are quiet and working. Some of the bad kids have never gotten any kind of sticker before in school. In doing this I am saying, you are included, I believe you can do this, you count.
I clicked on this because I have students who fit this description; sadly, I teach college students…and while I do employ the strategies you list (to great success), my colleague is struggling, and I intend to share this with her. Thank you!
I have come to realize that I am part of the problem. Coming to terms with having to change for the betterment of my teaching and my relationship to my students is an ongoing process. I really need to change.
I am home recovering from surgery due to an accident in my classroom. I am struggling with my decision to teach next year or not. Not because I don’t love my students,and teaching but only because I question now, whether this is a safe environment for me. My classroom is much like you described with only a few needing my focused attention in a way that hinders me from giving my attention to all the students as I should to be an effective teacher as you so well describe.
I NEED TO READ THIS EVERY DAY,
BEFORE THE START OF CLASS.
Thank you. You are so right.
You’re welcome, Beth. 🙂
Thank you for this. I’m a first year teacher, just about finished my first contract teaching Gr 8 and 9. I have one class where the behaviour has been getting consistently worse in the past month and I have been wondering if it’s me. I have parent meetings scheduled this week, but am going to work super hard at implementing these ideas before…and see if our meeting goes a little différent than expected!
You’re welcome, Sarah.
This article is brilliant -and so very tough to carry out, but it works! The relationships you build with your students (though they may seem one-sided at times) are the key to your own sanity and their learning. After many, many years of teaching, I have come to learn that a few kind words to those who misbehave do show them that you are not like the rest – you care about them and can separate them from their behaviour. As Michael says, you need to stand alongside them, not opposite them… love this visual! Thank you so very much!
I’m glad you like the article, Michelle.
Ms. Peterson, my first graders helped me, through a simple plan, to redirect a student’s terrible behavior in class. At this young age, he was expelled from two elementary schools already. This student could not sat quietly for more than 5 minutes. As simple as this plan looked it worked. It was just a paper map that needed to be filled up with stickers that would led him, at the bottom of the map, to a pirate treasure by the end of every week. Then the class would earn a happy Friday with pizza. Well, my adorable kids keep him quiet and reminding him to still seating and, wherever I was, I showed him that he was earning another sticker. The happiness I saw in his little face every time he got a sticker made my day. He also made it to second grade!
I would like a copy of the behavior treasure map. Could it be posted here?
I think that what you write, Michael, is beneficial for the person who practices it. I agree that some kids will respond to that. Some will not. Not because of the method, but because of human nature. Some people (they begin as little kids) have simply decided to be bad for whatever reason or no reason. I think the response of calm and kindness is good for one’s own soul regardless of whether the misbehaving ones respond by changing for the better or not. In other words, we owe it to ourselves not to get sucked into other people’s stream of hate.
Hi Lu,
It’s human nature that they will, not won’t.
I am greatly enhanced with your experience as documented above. I am currently working in a school that has behaviour issues as number one reason for the growth and development of the school. do more.I have taken note of areas I have been missing out.
Thanks sir
I have been using this strategy but majority of my colleagues see me as a weak teacher who can’t dish out punishment. This piece has really energized me to
So while we teachers console, nurture, compassionately and calmly discuss their inappropriate and in some cases dangerous behaviours, tell me what happens to the 32 children sat waiting to learn, being respectful and often pleading with you and indeed that disrespectful individual to “let me learn”?
There comes a point when senior leaders must interject and that pupil must be cajoled, nurtured and boosted out of the regular classroom, until such time as they can control their behaviour. I’m some cases sadly this never happens.
Protecting a safe environment for the majority whilst supporting the student clearly in emotional distress must be managed effectively by the school or else teachers become counsellors not educators.
Hi Mel,
I can tell you’re new to SCM. When you get a chance, check out our archive. There are nearly 500 articles addressing your concern.
I really believe on what you’ve wriiten! Thanks.
You’re welcome, Carol.
This article rings with a truth I’d like to aspire to but can’t seem to maintain throughout an entire school year.
“Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” At some point, it can wear you down especially if by some quirk of scheduling or fate you wind up with four or five high need students or one extremely difficult student in the same class.
This year I had one class that had this sort of mix. Mid year or so, I slipped, lost my patience and it seemed to set a bad tone for the rest of the year that I could not overcome with anything except tolerance.
As other people posted, the frustrating part is when you feel the few are hurting the group. It became hard to stand shoulder to shoulder with both the blatantly disrespectful students and the innocent who just wanted to learn.
As you said so truly, it destroyed the vision I had of myself as a good teacher and drags over into home life as well. All that weight despite the other 80% of the classes carrying a much more positive tone.
Thanks for an excellent article. It is definitely worth multiple reads!
You’re welcome, Charlie!
Mr. Linsin,
I literally did my happy dance after reading this article! Talk about being on point and someone who truly gets it. It will be one year this June that I officially retired from teaching after 31 years of serving and walking in my calling. I taught with “mother wit” and was a hard, firm, fair, respected and loved teacher. There is always a story/reason behind students who are aggressively disrespectful. You just have to get to the real truth of why they’re doing what they do. There were many days that I did go toe-to-toe with them, because the “old school” in me was not having it. I didn’t sell wolf tickets and I didn’t rely on administration to do deal with my unruly students. I was responsible for every thing and everyone in my classroom. I taught for 31 years, because teaching is love in action. My journey with ALL the students I have been blessed to teach (even the unruly ones) have made ME a better human being.
Way to go, Pamela! Congratulations on your amazing career, and thanks for sharing your wisdom.
What if the student does not care about their grade or moving on to the grade level? Holding them accountable seems to make it worst.
Hi Adam,
If you get a chance, please reread the article. You may also want to dig deeper into the website. This is a topic we’ve covered extensively and often.
Your articles are extremely helpful. I strongly feel that these techniques would work for some students. I am seeing some students with a lot of anger and emotional problems. It seems to be difficult to reach second graders who have extreme anger issues.
Hi, I’ve been an English preschool teacher for almost 10 years. This week I was “promoted” to 4th grade. 30 kids on each group. They’ve already had two teachers before me and there’s only one month left to finish the school year.
One of this groups is specially disrespectful and I’m looking for strategies for improving my relationship with them, since I recognized I made a lot of mistakes since the beginning. The thing is, that the school authorities had stated that they “disapprove time out” as they believe it’s an aggression. What can I do?
I took their cellular phone 📱 I gave them back the following day, it never happened again.
How do you deal with a student who collapses on the carpet while you are teaching the class on that said carpet? Just attempt to ignore that? Should I invite my students to go back to their seats and do a different activity so they are away from the fit-thrower? Or during partner reading time- if they refuse to read with their partner? I would normally just grab the partner to read with me and ignore the student, but I had a student chase me and sit right next to me wailing. Suggestions for that?
Hi Rachael,
I’ve covered this topic in several different articles, which you can find in the Difficult Students category of the archive.
Thank you so much for this advice …,,however I teach high school and I have a very disrespectful student who doesn’t care about her grades and cheats whenever she can and rolls her eyes and even blurts out bad words . I really don’t know how to approach her , she is known to be a spoilt brat who thinks very highly of herself and I don’t know how to apply empathy here .
I have, what would be considered in this article, an aggressively disrespectful child.. But only with one teacher. My cold had autism and every day is a feeling of dread on all sides (mother, soon, & teacher).
I’ve printed this article and am going to ask that the school staff out this in said teacher’s mailbox. Some of your examples describe my son to a T.
I would hope that your book covers children with special needs and how to work successfully with what they would think it’s aggressively disrespectful, but is just autism traits.
I try kindesd, softness, focusing on the good (great job breathing) while they punch holes in the wall, push over the book case and throw computers across the room. Day after day I don’t lose my cool or flinch or shout. Day after day I do my best to win them over and find a currency that works. It’s been 69 days. They cuss me out, hit me, destroy my property and classroom. I try to make it. They might kill me but I’ll stay calm and not let them know I’m terrified. Really not sure what to do. Most likely not returning next week. I need my life.
Your life matters. In these circumstances you might not survive long enough to win them over.
I have a child in my class at the moment who tends to sulk a lot and will storm out of the room for a while if things don’t go his way. After talking to his mum I found she is having the same thing at home and that there was a lot happening at home that they were dealing with lately. As I am job sharing with another teacher this year and I only see him in the afternoons, I think this boy is struggling to deal with this change of expectations as well. Two days ago, he tried everything he could think of to get a rise out of me, tried to rip up his book, stand in front of me and refuse to do the task he was given, and even tried to trip me up as I walked past his chair. I did what you suggested and remained totally unemotional about it all, but did let him know that he needed to finish the task just like everyone else if he wanted to do the craft activity he really wanted to do. After storming out of the room, I left him for about 5 minutes( he goes as far as the cloakroom), I asked him to come back and we did some negotiating about the amount of work he needed to do before he could do the one he wanted. He was fine for the rest of the afternoon and was amazing all afternoon yesterday. Today he totally disrupted the group he was working with doing a fun experiment, which was upsetting for them . He insisted he would be the scribe for the group but in the end realised that he couldn’t do the work. I told him he could give the job to someone else if he wanted, but he threw it on the floor and disappeared out the door. I understand that he felt inadequate, but I’m finding it hard to know what to do. Often minor things are causing him to overreact. My question is – How can I get him to stay in the room? I have given him a place he can go when he needs to calm down, but he doesn’t want to use it. Any ideas? As it Week 4 in a new class for him, am I being impatient and wanting him to trust me too quickly?
Without administrative and parental backup, the teacher will usual fail to win such students over. One has to recognize that the goal of some States Board of Education is to obtain Federal funds. Period. By getting everyone to pass
EOCs, the states get Federal Funding. Teacher turnover remains high. Every teacher is replaceable.
I was literally told they took me because I was the cheapest option. Nobody can effectively teach without the background support. Everything else just sells books.
I need to find some strategy ones to help bond with a challenging student in 3rd grade