No, it’s not when your class has gone off the rails.
It’s not after a chaotic lesson.
And it’s not when your teacherly sense tells you you should.
—Although these are all indeed good reasons to review your plan.
No, the best time to review your classroom management plan is . . .
When everything is going perfectly.
Here’s why:
It reinforces your students’ trust in you.
By revisiting your behavior expectations out of the blue, as well as the precise boundary lines that protect learning, you send the message that you’re the same consistent teacher day after day.
Your unwavering defense of their sacred peace and enjoyment of school will never change. It really is true. For as long as they’re in your classroom, they’re part of something special, something worth safeguarding.
Their friendships. Their new-found confidence. Their steady but sure academic progress. It’s a reminder that they can breathe easy and focus on all that school has to offer with you at the helm.
It provides a hedge against misbehavior.
A surprise lesson on classroom management, when things are going so well and no teacher in the world would do the same, keeps misbehavior far from shore.
It says perhaps more than anything else that you really do mean it. It highlights the supreme importance of boundaries in the life of any successful person, classroom, or organization.
It’s a message that stays with them, that makes the leap from the safe and warm environs of the classroom to the icy cold of a sure-fire consequence a long one, not worth attempting.
It serves as an example.
Taking the extra step, when good enough is the cultural norm, is something only those who pursue excellence ever do. It’s an example your students can’t help but notice and be moved by.
Your dogged pursuit of what is right and true and best for them, as well as the high standards you set for yourself and your class, is something they’ll never forget.
It means more than a thousand lectures and pep-talks.
Because you walk the walk, you’ll leave an indelible mark on their character and work habits that they’ll pay forward to those they meet along their own life’s journey.
Great Teachers
Great teachers are outliers.
They’re independent thinkers. They’re rebels as well as rule followers. They’re essentialists and simplifiers, gentle souls and iron stakes hammered into the frozen ground.
They’re shrewd and refined, bold and reserved. They’re as steely-eyed as fighter pilots and forgiving as Labrador Retrievers. They’re passionate yet steady, kind yet direct.
And they’re there, every day, doing what needs to be done. The ordinary and the extraordinary.
Taking just a few minutes to review your classroom management plan when there is no apparent reason to do so is a simple little thing. From the outside, it may even appear silly.
Needless.
But for those students, for those you have only a short window in a lifetime to make an impact, to inspire and set firmly on a path of contribution and empathy for others . . .
It means everything.
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Thank you, I like it.
You’re welcome, Roger.
I have been able to apply your principles into my classroom this year….and I have seen tremendous benefits. I am a much happier teacher as a result and my students are thriving in a safe and structured environment. Keep up the good work!! It is so appreciated.
Will do, J. Thank you!
This was excellent!
SCM provided reassurance and career-saving advice for me when I started out, and now I pass it on to other teachers.
One new teacher was so excited last week that the principles were working and she was seeing a difference in her classroom, whereas she had been reluctant to do the work of enforcing rules and consequences before because she felt she didn’t have time. But she finally got desperate enough to try, and the genuine smile on her face said a lot.
Thank you, Michael! I really enjoy the way you phrase these vital principles and the “why” behind them just right so I can share them more effectively others (and keep learning myself)!
Thanks Chris!
Thank you very much for these articles. I have been able to share many of them with my colleagues. We are all still learning to manage in the classroom.
Elise
It’s my pleasure to share them, Elise.
Thanks for the emails! I really enjoy them and have implemented quite a bit of what you suggest. I’m excited to go into my fourth year of teaching, still heavily focused on mastering “blocking and shooting.” I really enjoyed this year and I appreciate what you do. Please continue! You have a supporter here!
I appreciate it, Charmaine!
As always, truth and beauty so well expressed. You, sir, are a gem. Thank you for these weekly guideposts.
Thanks Teri!
Hi Michael, I’m glad I have stumbled across you and your blog.
At 35 I’m just starting out on the road to become an elementary teacher.
I’m currently studying education in my first year of University.
I have been placed in a school on practicum placement and every teacher I have come across has been very big on intimidation as classroom management.
The mentor teachers are urging me to use intimidation techniques (glaring and yelling) as general classroom management, but this is not me.
When I questioned the boundaries, they said sometimes they will go until they deliberately make the child cry. All I see is children responding out of fear.
I have no problem with taking on the disciplinary role when needed, but what I’m witnessing is too far and after spending the last couple of months in this environment, I started to wonder if this was how modern teaching has become.
I will take the time to read all your blogs and when I can purchase your books, as I feel your techniques align with me.
Can’t thank you enough.
Mike
Of course, Mike. It’s my pleasure! There is absolutely no justification, or reason, to use intimidation.