So what is brazen behavior?
I define it as anything especially disruptive, silly, or defiant.
Some examples:
Running or chasing in the classroom.
Yelling, bursting laughter, or falling on the floor.
Roughhousing and practical jokes.
Ignoring specific directions or commands.
Throwing spitwads, erasers, or other soft objects.
There are others, of course, but you get the idea.
It’s behavior that isn’t dangerous or threatening, and therefore doesn’t rise to the level of involving an administrator . . .
. . . but that creates a scene that causes the rest of your class to stop what they’re doing and take notice of your response.
Therefore, it’s critical you get it right.
Mess it up and you’ll open the door to more and more of the same behavior—and not just from the student(s) in question.
The key to handling brazen behavior is to control your desire to rush in, show your displeasure, and put them in their place.
Here’s how:
Be Patient
The tendency is to jump in right away, to get worked up and show the student, as well as your class, how unacceptable the behavior is.
But the problem with this approach is that it brings stress and tension into the classroom.
It weakens respect for you and leads to arguing and confrontation, which can draw other students into the fray. It’s best to take your time and watch it unfold until the culprit notices you watching.
If need be, it’s okay to move toward the misbehavior until it subsides.
Be Calm
Your most important immediate concern is that the incident doesn’t escalate, that you don’t pour fuel on the fire. The best response, then, is to become even calmer than your natural state.
Your students will be expecting you to act shocked and angry, like most adults in similar situations.
You must do the opposite.
Focus on your exhalations, relax your body, and allow the energy in the room to drop several notches. Just observe without speaking. Let your class see you react with equanimity, and they’ll follow suit.
Be Stealthy
Don’t enforce a consequence right away. In fact, because you want to highlight how absurdly out of place the behavior is, address the student only when you can do so privately.
Keeping it a mystery from the rest of the class sends a stronger message that such behavior is unacceptable. However, you do want to get the misbehaving student or students away from the rest of the class.
“Can you please wait for me out in the hallway?”
If you don’t feel comfortable sending them into the hallway, then just move them to a desk or table separate from the class. In the meantime, resume your lesson as normal.
Wait to speak to them at your first break. There is no hurry.
Be Thorough
As the addendum of your classroom management plan clearly states, you have the right to skip the warning stage and go directly to a stronger consequence.
Brazen behavior should be met with the stiffest mode of accountability you’re able to give. Depending on your grade level, this should involve parent contact and a lengthy detention or time-out, perhaps for an entire period or rest of the day.
In any case, be sure you know exactly what the consequence is before speaking with the student. The meeting should last no more than one minute.
Just review what they did, remind them of the addendum, and tell them what the consequence will be. Do not lecture or tell them what to think or how they should feel.
Enforce and move on.
Let accountability do its job without weakening it or mucking it up by lecturing and creating friction, giving your two-cents, or asking them why they did what they did.
An Opportunity
The strategy for handling brazen behavior is effective because it lowers the energy in the room, keeps the rest of the class out of the picture, and frees you to calmly give the strongest possible consequence.
Although counterintuitive, keeping it private better reinforces the message that your classroom is sacred and no one has the right to disrupt the learning of others.
Finally, although throwing a spitball or being momentarily defiant may seem relatively minor, it is not.
Brazenness shows a clear lack of respect for you, for learning, and for their fellow classmates. It will grow and spread unless you handle it with the shrewd craftiness it deserves.
But if you do, if you follow the guidelines above and maintain your cool, the level of respect and politeness in your class will rise, among all students.
You’ll turn a negative into a positive.
You’ll take what for many teachers is a frustrating and stressful situation and use it as an opportunity to not only eliminate brazen behavior, but get better and more mature as a class.
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Thankyou but more practical solutions are needed for calmness always isn’t enough, students could consider it weakness..
I don’t see how keeping your calm can EVER be considered as weakness??
Agreed! Staying calm I think sends a message that you’re in control – of yourself and of the situation. Reactivity only encourages the misbehaving student to be equally (if not more) emotional and reactive, which doesn’t help the situation at all.
In the inner city school where I teach, it is. Students will sarcastically immediate my calm voice; this is a culture difference for many of them. However, we should be modeling more desirable behaviors, so I try to stay calm!
I TOTALLY agree! Staying calm gives you FULL control and allows you to make good sound decisions moving forward. I think too many teachers worry about what “others” may think about how they handle discipline. I rather have a cool, calm, and collected person guiding the ship than someone who wavers and questions their own judgement.
Appearing unrattled is a strong message. Possibly you might not have been completely consistent in your calmness and the children picked up on it?
This is a very effective strategy. However, I would not make the request to wait in the hallway (or wherever) a question.
I understand that totally. Working in a Title 1 school, students often ignore directions they are given while running their mouths at the same time. I agree responding with a calm presence is a kind of discipline that has to be practiced everyday. And this article is correct in another way…admin can be totally non-supportive, mainly because neither do they have an answer. Parents can be non-existent as well. Their very absence contributes to the problem. Figuring the correct kinds of consequences is challenging yet necessary. At least in these weekly articles the author directly addresses the issues in a pragmatic way. He is doing it out of his own experience.
Hi Michael,
Thank you for sharing your expertise on classroom management. It has been very helpful to me. I was wondering if I could get your input in regards to one of the steps in this piece. In the step of Be Stealthy, you suggest talking to the student in the hallway. I understand the purpose of that, but I have a student that exhibits some of these brazen behaviors and then is defiant when I ask him to move somewhere else and flat out refuses to do so. He is a student that has experienced trauma in his life, which has led to him not caring about his education or the consequences of his behavior, however, he is very disruptive in a class that has several other difficult students as well. I write him up and call home to administer consequences, but that does not address the behavior in the moment. Any suggestions on how to respond to blatant insubordination as it is happening?
Thank you for any suggestions you can offer!
Been here … curious to hear responses.
Would it help to give options within the consequences? Ex: Would you like to sit in this desk or go to the hallway until we can talk?
Sometimes giving a choice (that you have control of) helps students feel like they have more control. Also, repeating the options (or consequence) as calmly as possible, without changing the verbiage, can help to de-escalate a situation.
I believe you cannot have a student wait or sit in the hallway without supervision. There have been cases where the student wanders off, and may even leave the building
And having them sitting at the desk may be problamatic. If they want attention, they still can sit at their desk and find ways to get it – make sounds / noises, tap a pencil, tap a foot, put feet on desk.
At this point, point blank refusal, I’m allowed to call for a Team Member to come and escort the student to a “break” from class. I’m lucky to work in a district that offers this as an option. We just have to fill out a quick form that identifies student behavior prior to call
I teach 7th and 8th grade Computer Science. I’ve had students who have refused to leave the classroom when told to do so. I then have to call for an Interventionist. Often there are none available. When that happens, I totally ignore the disruptive student. I don’t look at them and I don’t respond to anything that comes out of that student’s mouth because they are now invisible. I simply calmly continue with the lesson, acknowledging those students who are in compliance with the rules and making the lesson fun and interactive. Soon the class is paying attention only to me, no matter what the disruptive student is doing. I’ve even heard other students tell the disruptive student to “shut up.” This method has worked every time so far…at least in this particular school.
I might just defer the request to a later time. I might say something like “I can tell that you’re not ready to talk right now. Maybe it would be best for both of us to take a break and talk about it a little later.” Then, when the whole class isn’t watching and the student feels less pressured to stay in that power struggle with you, have a conversation with them about what happened and administer the consequences. Especially for students who have been through lots of trauma, they can get into a fight or flight kind of mode where they aren’t thinking clearly. Giving them 15-20 minutes to come down from their emotions might be enough to make the conversation do-able. The rest of the class will likely notice you following up with them later which will serve the purpose of the class as a whole staying under control.
I’m looking forward to the “official” answer, because this question came to my mind as well.
One strategy I have used when a student is flatly insubordinate is, “You have a decision to make. You can meet me outside, or you can __________.” (Insert nuclear option. My go-to nuclear option is to have student call parent. And when necessary, I will stop class, get the rest working on something, and do so. Videoing child’s insubordination for parent or calling office may also be effective options.)
I have the same problem
Thanks for this reinforcement. I really admire your consistency with staying calm. When you have the kid step outside until you address their misconduct, would that have been something you already explained could happen in the event of brazen behavior?
Also, out of curiosity, what age group do you currently teach and what subject?
I’m a 9th grade math teacher and I’ve really been considering getting coaching from you for assistance specifically with how to make Algebra 1 fun, since I started reading your blog and implementing my points system, I’ve found that my class is all about rules and trying to mete out limited consequences because I can’t think of any other than grade reduction in the midst of dry lessons devoid of fun.
Thank you for this reminder. We have a “no discipline/capturing kids hearts” plan, and we are not allowed to send students to admin. After two years of this, the students are well aware that there are no consequences, so I am constantly and calmly pulling them aside to reinforce positive behavior, always working on student motivation as well. For at least 50% nothing works because they know there are never consequences, and for many, academics are not a source of motivation. Your messages always provide a moment to take a breath and focus in on what I know is right and will contribute to their long-term flourishing.
The article is very well written and addresses the “brazen behaviors” very well. Can you please expand on the article by providing the next step in this plan if the teacher has performed all of the listed above items regularly and the student(s) are refusing to comply with the anything? What are your thoughts regarding these students (as there are more than just a few in every class I teach.) that flat out refuse to do anything they are asked? Even after administration & parents/guardians have gotten involved in attempting to improve the situation(s). It is impossible to make a person to something they are refusing to do.
You might like to read through Michael’s “Difficult Students Archive” of articles on this site. I know I’ve found them very helpful.
As a last resort for extreme misbehavior, Michael has this advice in “How to Handle an Out-of-Control Student.” https://smartclassroommanagement.com/2013/12/14/how-to-handle-an-out-of-control-student/
I sincerely hope this helps!
What to do when the child continues the disruptive behavior, when they will not wait quietly for you to speak to them? In other words, what to do when they ignore directions? I am not in a school classroom situation, but a recreational one. There are no desks, just several big tables, and my kids are elementary age.
Who will teach children to listen quietly when you speak. You! only you- no one else. I think you need to interact with children individually or in a group of 4. You need to link your communication level with each child.
Not possible. The entire group has to be accommodated in my room at the same time – usually between 12-20, sometimes 25 elementary age children. This is a licensed after school program, and licensing dictates children must stay in one area at a time, not be scattered between different areas/rooms. Most of the kids are fine, but we always have a number of ‘loose cannons’ with emotional or developmental issues. There are foster kids coming from troubled backgrounds in our programs as well.
I’ve had 25+ years of trainings and classes on behavior mgmt/best childcare practices, but it seems every year the out-of-control behavior escalates.
I’ve noticed that we now have a significant number of kids who seem to completely ignore every direction and rule and do what just as they please, no matter how many different ways we interact with them. These tend to be kids aged 7 & up.
Brilliant…I believe in keeping your “cool”…Not always possible…thanks for the reminder.
I’m taking time off from my own classroom, but keeping my hand in by subbing. I have a clear classroom management plan for my own classroom that follows SCRM recommendations. I’m in the middle of a 3 week sub assignment that has been an extreme example of brazen to dangerously aggressive behavior. Students are so brazenly defiant and rowdy that it is impossible to take attendance, much less actually teach a lesson. Students give fake names for themselves and their classmates. Subs do not have access to the student photo directory, so matching behavior with names isn’t possible, so detention is not possible. Even if the correct name could be discovered, in this district subs do not have permission to contact parents. Nor does the district permit the teacher of record to have contact with students or families while on leave. At this particular school administration’s response to requests for support has been lectures on students having the right to express themselves however they want. Subbing here has been a good choice for me because I now know this school and district would not be a good fit for me when I return to teaching in my own classroom. It’s also shown me what I need to change in my own practice regarding planning for a sub and including sub days in my classroom management plan.
Do you have suggestions for
1) a system for supporting subs as part of the teacher’s classroom management plan, particularly in those schools where administration does not support subs
2) subs who find themselves in a classroom or school in which brazen behavior is the accepted, even supported, norm?
I am a LT sub in a school where brazen behavior is the norm. My steps, if any of them help,
1. Demand a photo directory and a seating chart when that exists.
2. My method of taking attendance is to ignore the brazen kids, and one-on-one introduce myself to the kids who meet expectations, introducing myself and giving them a premade note that says, “dear parent or guardian, I was your student’s sub today. I want you to know your student [ ] is a star and made my sub job a pleasure!” They gladly tell me their name so I can fill in the note. They’re always happy to take it home.
3. I give only those students the assignment; brazen kids won’t do it anyway. Let them take the Zero.
4. Never ask a nice kid to snitch, they can be bullied. Just leave the attendance list blank, save the nice kids, and let the administration know you had 25 kids but only 12 would give their name, and they are welcome to come figure it out if they want. Otherwise, the brazen kids’ parents will be robo-called to say their kid was not present and accounted for. I personally have had to tell my own child to pay better attention and be quiet during roll call.
5. My current 7th hour class, where 5 kids had cussed me out two days ago and had a day of ISS, yesterday had an incident where one teased a classmate by hiding his phone which started a 5-man game of keep-away that knocked over chairs and desks and had laptops flying. The phone kid ran from the classroom and came back with his older brother and a posse of 8th graders. Hider is now suspended 10 days, as it is his 3rd offense of the semester. Several others have ISS again. Meanwhile, only half turned in assignments all week and most of those were perfunctory at best and failing grades. Anyhow, I just stood nearby and stayed calm but memorized faces and worked on listening for names. A couple nice kids asked me how I stayed calm. When the 8th graders showed up, I had to involve admin who demanded the offenders to all step up. They tried to act all uninvolved, so I simply went round touching shoulders to invite each to go with the admin, staying calm the whole time.
I’ll be with this classroom through May. Their teacher left after 6 weeks that they had her crying every day.
Wow! Thank you for your entry. Stay healthy and strong for yourself and for the kids.
I have had several students in my kindergarten like this, this is the best advice…and usually works, but it is a process, patience is key, but certainly a test of wills! I try to stay out of power struggle and offer choices often ,but sometimes student will not comply…..If I continue to ignore they usually gradually choose 1 of the choices, within a few minutes. My students have sometimes tried to run, so I usually don’t ask them to go to hallway, it depends on the student! Thanks for this article, it confirms my behavior in my classroom! Now I know I am not being too weak, but strong actually😊God bless us all! We have a work to do!
This actually does work. I’ve been doing this for years. It all depends on the students, parents involved in their lives, as well as administrators. Prayer is the key.
That is so sobering. Thank you for sharing. This opens my eyes.
Dear Karen,
You are there to face a real challenge of a professional mentor. Be innovative to devise a trick to win the confidence of students. Make them realize that you are true well-wisher- your action and behaviour must speak. You will succeed certainly.
I like the calmness approach. What if they refuse to move and are pushing more and more for attention by becoming physical (throwing a chair)?
I look right in their eyes, give a “really?” smile, and say calmly, “pick it up and meet me outside.”
I had opportunity to practice this technique this past week. Several teachers, including myself, are using our prep period to cover for a young, first year algebra teacher whose wife just had a baby. (This wasn’t the original plan but the baby came about five weeks early so we had to scramble.)
I knew most of the students in this class of Algebra I sophomores, but there was one boy who hadn’t been in my class before.
We were working on factoring by grouping and I was having volunteers come up to the whiteboard and work problems. I was asking silly questions to get the students to explain the “why” of what they were doing and we were generally all having a good time.
Then this student, we’ll call him M, decided to throw a sharp pencil into the ceiling tile.
It was a perfect shot. There it was, for all to see. You could have heard a pin drop. Not that the action itself was a shock to my students, but that it was done in my classroom.
I waited a couple of beats, just letting it all sink in. M already knew he had blown it, just based on the reaction of his peers. After taking a few breaths, I quietly said, “Please go stand in the hall, M, and I’ll come talk with you in a moment.” He didn’t move. He said, “I’m sorry.” I said, “I’m sure you are. Go stand in the hall.” This time he complied.
We finished our class exercise and I got them all working in groups on practice problems. Then I stepped into the hallway. M had obviously been crying. This is a kid who was not known for getting into trouble and I decided he’d been punished enough. So I simply said, “M, I am not accustomed to bad behavior in my classroom. Do we understand each other?” “Yes, ma”am.” he answered.
After class, before I returned to my own classroom, I had a senior boy, very tall, who was coming in, pull the pencil out.
This was last Wednesday. M came by my room after school to apologize again. He apologized before class on Thursday and Friday. I thanked him and told him he doesn’t need to apologize any more because every day I start with a clean slate and so do my students. I act as though no one has ever violated a rule and we all begin with a clean record. I’m sure next week will run smooth as silk.
I realize what I did would not work with every student in every situation in every school. Not even for my students–most of them would have gotten Saturday School for a more like that.
But the core principle of not overreacting, of taking a few breaths, of handling it in a calm manner, and not letting it ruin the class period, are key. Those principles work universally, IF you are consistently following SCM in the classroom.
Debbie,
You handled a very difficult situation brilliantly. You followed through after he apologized, and moved the distractor. Learning continued. He made amends, and he will most likely never do that again. You created real change.
As Michael says, We are the protectors of learning in our classrooms. I read this blog every Saturday morning with my coffee. I teach second grade in a school that is mostly second language (85%). We have MANY disregulated students. There is a focus on the restorative approach. I feel that this just gives attention seekers more attention, and it allows disruptive, dangerous to skip doing work. I prefer Michael’s strategies.
When our students make good progress, it gives them joy and confidence. We can’t fix students who don’t want to learn. When I remove the disrupter to a separate part of the classroom, they often realize that no one is looking. They then come over to join in the learning.
Keep working hard, everyone. We know that we are doing the right thing. Stay strong!!
Please follow up and expand on this post. So many good questions have been asked here. For me, I struggle to find appropriate consequences since where I teach, grades cannot include anything related to behaviour, but must strictly reflect the curricular outcomes, so as a languages specialist who teaches almost 280 students I have challenges with behaviour management, brazen behaviour, and I find that while I do keep calm, I struggle to avoid power struggles and to provide clear and consistent consequences. As the substitute mentioned earlier, my issue was not knowing all students’ names for the first few months, which left me powerless in some ways. Please spend a few weeks delving into this topic. For those of us who struggle with these types of behaviours, this is really standing in our way of being successful with the SCM approach.
I too would like to see suggestions for those students that refuse to move to another area or hallway.
Great advice on staying calm. Please continue on as behaviors these days are so outrageous it leaves us chasing our tails while trying to maintain classroom integrity and learning.
I like pieces of what you say, such as staying calm and talking to the student in private. If it’s a kid who never does this, proceed with a quick response. But kids who “brazenly misbehave“ and do so chronically are not doing it because they want to. They have lagging skills. I agree…don’t ask them why they misbehave. That won’t get you anywhere. Instead take some time to identify when this behavior is most common, when they have the hardest time behaving adaptively, then ask them about that. Is it mostly with a sub? In English class? During transitions? During lectures? Listen and probe to find out what it is. Model empathy and you could durably solve a problem while maintaining relationship. Check out Stuart Ablon’s book Changeable for more information. It could change the way you view kids and the way they view you.
This is a very good point. I daresay that 100% of the students I’ve had known for chronic brazen behavior either have a diagnosed issue or have already been suspected of one.
Sorry, but what does one do when faced with an ingrained lack of respect for any member of staff, including SLT, which seems to have been inculcated across the whole (very large) school. Classroom as well as across the school site. It has broken me. Signed off by GP from teaching the trigger classes – occ health agrees with GP. Problem lies with the school – not me. I have been teaching every ability and every age in secondary for 10 years. I know these strategies like the back of my hand and have used them throughout my career – they work but not where the students have no sanctions for treating staff badly. (12 staff leaving at Christmas…)
I am a huge fan and find all of your ideas that I have tried to be very effective. However, the hallways in my middle school are not controlled and troubled kids wander more or less at will. If I send misbehaving kids out there, they will probably not be there when I go looking for them. My room is too small to put more than one student apart from the group at a time. Would it still be effective to send the student to another classroom to wait? Thanks.
You are correct with sending kids to the hall. There have been cases where a student simply wanders off and may actually leave the building. Teachers will face the fury of parents (and their lawyers) if the child gets hurt.
Sending them to another room can work if it is to a teacher they do not want any part of. But sending them to any class can also be seen as a way to get out of your class and they may not do any of the work you send. Since front office staff can be very busy, the front office is not always the answer. And you have to be careful you do not abdicate your authority by passing these kids off.
As a teacher, I have often found difficulty in finding a right spot for these kids in my class where they can be away from distractions. And the defiance does not disappear simply because they change seats.
I have adult students. I teach in beauty a beauty. I’ve read several articles . No one ever addresses how to deal with the defiant adults with behavorial issues. Can you please share your thoughts on how to handle 19- 25 year old students. Alot of time the same students that are having issues in high school those same defiant traits moves right through yo higher education. I do understand that they are adults, however they can be very disrespectful in class. Alot of blurting out inappropriate suggestions, can NOT handle constructive criticism, followe other students with same exact attitude problems. Always push back. Can you give pointers regarding adult students with behavioral issues. . I really appreciate the articles. I can apply a few techniques from following you , however I believe those same students from k÷12 are the same adults I have now. Thank you in advance.
This is a really useful post, especially combined with the helpful comments which point out the complications of using the method. I have been following SCM for many years and I still “fall off the wagon” a lot but keep coming back for more, trying to stay consistent. I have experienced the effect of becoming really calm in a rowdy situation – if I relax my shoulders and just concentrate on breathing in and out – meditative! – I can actually see the energy drop in the class and those difficult high school boys relax. But you have to be really calm -forget about the clock!- and feeling positive -stop frowning!- regardless of what they do or say.
Wow. Great article, and great comments. I, too, would love to see a follow-up article, as I have had many students who have pushed things to the limit, and even the administrators have been at a loss as to what to do. When classroom teachers are left with no options, things can go south in a big hurry. And it’s the well-behaved kids who are left to pay the price. It is so unfair to them. (Yes, I know that “fair” is a place where people go to ride the rides, and it doesn’t really exist).
I’m teaching 6th grade and there are a handful of students (4-5) out of a group of 28 that have brazen behaviors. I’v noticed that there’s a spike in behaviors after our recess break. If I deliver a consequence, the other students get up in arms about it. I know I’ve lost trust and respect, but I’m not sure where to go from here. Help!
I think the “getting up in arms” is a behavior that also needs a consequence. Re-teach and model how to behave as a student when the teacher issues a consequence. Show the 6th graders in your care what that looks like and sounds like, and also what it should not look like and not sound like. After you are very sure there can be no doubt what you expect, then hold students accountable for their “getting up in arms” actions. For one or two days, then, you need to be prepared to give the appropriate consequence to almost everyone in your class, maybe especially after recess. Think through what rule they are breaking by getting upset with your decision. Then calmly let them know they broke that rule and their consequence is “x”. If they take it further, be ready for how you would respond to that. There are a couple months left, see if you can follow the SCM plan to a T. Put everything into practice on this current group of students to help you be an even more effective teacher next fall. It might sound like I am “preaching” but I am also talking to myself, still working on being very, very good at classroom management. I’m not at a Michael level. But you GOT this Lydia. For your students’ sake, follow your plan!
I gave 5 detentions to students who hid from me. The problem is, I found out about the hiding later, from a paraprofessional. I wasn’t able to address it on the spot bc I thought the students had been taking longer to get supplies for our work time. Granted, they were only hiding for a few minutes, and when our para sent them to join the class the immediately listened, but I still think they need to feel the weight of their hiding in the first place not being okay. I’m afraid that I look like a buffoon for not catching it sooner. Detention was issued the day after they hid, and by email since I didn’t have the students in person after I counseled with other teachers and acted on it. If something like this happens again, should I just wait over a weekend and address it in person when I have students in class again? I’m not doubting the need for detention. I’m doubting my method for communicating with students. School office and parents have also already been notified. Our school does Wednesday detention so that is what I assigned to these students. I welcome constructive criticism to help me do better.