Mental acuity is an often-overlooked aspect of good teaching and absolutely essential for effective classroom management.
Yet, despite it being so important, it’s never mentioned.
Well, we’re going to mention it. In fact, what follows are nine things you can do to ensure that when you step in front of your students each day, they’re getting your very best.
1. Sleep
A lack of sleep impairs brain function. This means that everything you do will be slower, foggier, and less disciplined. Your memory will be affected along with your mood and emotional resiliency.
You need at least seven hours of sleep, and preferably more. Otherwise, you won’t have the willpower and clarity needed to consistently manage your class.
2. Eat
Your brain needs good food to be at its best. It needs healthy fats like nuts, avocados, and olive oil. It needs plenty of leafy greens and colorful fruits and vegetables.
Omega 3s, antioxidants, and B vitamins are known to support brain health and improve memory. They also keep you from consuming sugar and refined carbs, which have an adverse effect on the brain.
3. Exercise
There is nothing more important to brain health than exercise. It increases cerebral cortex thickness, improves thinking and memory, and offers protection against age-related decline.
But it’s the day-to-day effects of mood regulation, anxiety control, and confidence that have the greatest impact on teaching and how you present yourself to your students.
4. Plan
No, I don’t mean lesson planning. I mean visualizing your day ahead of time. On your way to work or in the quiet moments before your students arrive, try mentally rehearsing your day.
Think through your lessons. See yourself following your classroom management plan. Watch as you smile, enjoy your students, and teach with passion. This will result in greater decisiveness, confidence, and joy.
5. Focus
Focus is the difference between top performers and everyone else. Therefore, as soon as you pull into the parking lot, begin zeroing in on what you need to do to be your best teaching self.
Focus is a constant awareness of your immediate objective and being fully present in the moment. So lock in. And if you find yourself distracted, breathe yourself back into the here and now.
6. Listen
If you’re thinking of what you’re going to say while a student is talking, then you’re not listening. We all do this. But the more you can just listen, the more in tune and in touch you’ll be.
Listening is a superpower that gives you so much more insight and empathy than the average teacher. It allows you to predict, understand, and always know just what to say.
7. Decline
If you say yes to gossip or hanging around the staff lounge discussing the latest math program, then you’ll be spread too thin to be effective.
Unless you say no—and say it a lot—you’ll be drawn into time-wasting conversations and additional meetings. Use your limited capacity for your job and leave the rest for others to hash out.
8. Read
I know it’s hard after a long day of teaching. I know how much you’d rather sit on the sofa in front of the television. But if you set aside time to read, you’ll keep your mind agile and strong.
You don’t have to read professional books. Anything will do. But the act of reading improves concentration, brain connectivity, verbal abilities, and sleep readiness.
9. Ready
If it all possible, it’s best to get to work early rather than staying late. You’re at your mental peak first thing in the morning and will make better and more efficient decisions than in the afternoon.
In fact, you’ll get double the work done. Use the time after school to clean, organize, and close up shop and leave planning and deep thinking to the next morning.
Pursuing Excellence
It’s hard to have high expectations of your students when you’re not asking much of yourself. This isn’t to suggest that you’re not working hard enough or that you need work longer hours. Not in the least.
It’s to suggest that being smarter will raise your level of excellence, which in turn will impact your students.
You see, pursuing excellence isn’t just a personal commitment. It’s something you do. It takes action. You first need to acquire the knowledge and skills to be an excellent teacher—hopefully through SCM—but then you have to execute.
You have to perform. You have to put your knowledge into practice. In order to do that more effectively you must to be at your mental and physical best.
Like any other profession, to be an excellent teacher takes a holistic approach. You have to shrewdly leverage the tricks, hacks, and shortcuts to make what can be a difficult job not only doable, but incredibly enjoyable.
Our goal here at SCM is to give you everything you need to be the teacher you desire. Seeing to your brain health may not seem like a high priority.
But if it makes everything related to teaching and classroom management easier—perhaps even a lot easier—then it’s in your best interest to pursue it with the same urgency you give to lesson planning or building relationships with students.
You don’t have to embrace every suggestion above. Just a handful, or even two or three, can make a big difference. The key is to start slow. Eat just a little better. Read or exercise for just ten minutes a day.
Good habits you enjoy and look forward to begin gently. They begin easy and with little resistance.
They begin with a single step.
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.
THANK YOU very much!!! These pointers are very valuable to pursue!
Too true Michael. I call it emotional equilibrium in the life of a teacher. If you cultivate it, you will be more able to deal with unexpected disruptions, e.g., in family life, when they do take place. Teachers should try not to be constantly busy or think that multi-tasking is the ideal.
I am so grateful for the tips in this article and many others – it’s refreshingly clear. Thank you for sharing.
These pointers are extremely invaluable. You couldn’t have put them any better. Straight talk, Michael!
Thanks so much.
Worth reading over and over again.
I left my PGCE training a year or two ago and some of the best advice I’ve been given has been on your pages.
When I returned to University last year to see one of my tutors, I gave your site as one of the best resources I use.
I love your down to earth advice and everything you say rings so true with me, so thank you so much 🙏🏻
I was just thinking about this in particular lately, and up pops this article!
One can’t help but notice after a while that it’s one thing to know what to do for classroom management, which your approach provides, and entirely another thing to have the mental and physical sharpness to carry it out well. Definitely will continue to work on these things.
By the way, this week I was reaching the end of my rope with constant disrespectful interruptions during instruction in one of my classes. What I could easily get done with one group was an endless struggle with the other, and I was getting exhausted in every way. I finally reread your article on this topic plus some others for inspiration.
Yesterday I arrived in class to the usual nonsense that I used to waste time dealing with, but I now I took your advice and just stood and looked at them silently until they sat and quieted down. Then I announced I would no longer be putting up with nonsense (describing exactly what I meant by that and why), and that whoever wanted to interrupt from now on instead of doing their job of listening while I did my job of teaching would be welcome to take their book to the office and learn alone there, and they could also explain this reason for any subsequent lowered grades to their parents. I also took responsibility, as recommended, for not properly enforcing the hand-raising rule in the past, and promised to do so in the future. What a change! I can’t remember ever having such a respectful group during their instructional time! (Of course, a good night’s sleep helped tremendously with my resolve, which they could both see and hear.) I even got the gift of a drawing later from one of my quietest students, who had never given me one before. Indoor recess also went exponentially better, and I was able to shut down mean-spirited disputes more quickly and firmly than in the past, because again, I was taking no nonsense while still listening to each side, and they knew it.
Thank you for helping to save my sanity and wellbeing!
I think you missed one. Routine, is invaluable to me. It is a checklist that I have on a card on my desk. This year it starts with “Plug it in!” But I see it, do it, and the day goes so much better. 2nd is Padlet – opening assignment kids work on as they come in…
I have a list, for what to do when I get there, and what to do, when the kids leave. It just makes my world rock. If I get a problem that keeps occurring, the solution is it needs to be in my routine.
Thank-you, again, for your amazing comments! Always good to learn new tips for teaching!
Thank you so much for this nine point , God bless you
Great article Michael!
One of your best!!! In my top 5 favorites category!!! Feeling very grateful for all your efforts Michael!
Thks
thank you so very much. I am a sub and still learning and need all the pointers I can get.
The GOAT 🐐 SCM article! These steps confirmed my preparatory madness as a Teacher.
I am in agreement with your point of view.
I love the tips so much and how the whole validate the fact that some of the things that I have been doing truly work. I have been teaching for 30 years and dedicating the past 8 years for students diagnosed with Emotional Disturbance. Regardless of how the morning starts, I have to stay calm and focused to be able to manage the day gently and confidently. My students are violent – defiant, disrespectful and aggressive. They can be very harmful if they notice that their teacher is not firm and consistent. However, they know and feel my unconditional love and unwavering commitment to support them no matter how bad their day goes.
Thank you Michael. Your articles are priceless.
Bernadette