Extreme behavior. Impulsivity. Disrespect. Poor motivation. Attention issues. Hyperactivity.
You name it, doesn’t matter.
There is one strategy that works better than all others combined.
It isn’t even close.
Boasting maximum influence, this one thing renders every other effort to change behavior hardly worth doing—at least until this one thing is in place.
Can you guess what it is?
It’s not rewards or behavior contracts (of course). It’s not praise or improved relationships or stronger rapport. It’s not even accountability.
It’s you, the teacher, being great at classroom management.
Because, you see, your class, and the way they behave collectively, has far greater power and influence over difficult and challenging students than you ever will.
Therefore, if you can create a classroom culture of hard work and impeccable behavior—through expert classroom management—then the peer pressure to do right becomes impossible to resist.
All students are tremendously swayed by their classmates and the learning environment pressing in on them. It seeps into their pores. It overwhelms their sensibilities. It causes them to mimic the posture, conduct, demeanor, attitude, and habits around them.
They even copy mannerisms, customs and mores, and manner of speaking. Most importantly, they imitate behavior. It becomes part of who they are, like membership in an exclusive club.
However, there is one caveat to the strategy: You can’t be just good at classroom management. It will help, for sure, but it won’t promise actual change.
You must be great. You must be able to take any group of students anywhere in the world and turn them into your dream class.
You must be able to create an environment your students can’t wait to get to every day. Like Hall-of-Fame coaches Nick Saban or Dawn Staley, you must build an intrinsically motivated team driven to succeed.
But if you can, if within the first weeks of school you’re able to guide your charges to the promise land of polite and hardworking, then your most challenging students will be profoundly and everlastingly altered.
—To the degree that they’ll no longer pose a problem or distraction. They’ll no longer interrupt or waste class time. No longer annoy their classmates. No longer battle you, bring drama to the classroom, or get under your skin.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be perfect.
But day after day and hour after hour they’ll see everyone else doing what they’re supposed to. Again and again they’ll try and fail to get attention or have their classmates laugh at or even notice their shenanigans.
The peace and focus and communal fun will overpower them. The culture will grab hold of them and turn them upside down. They’ll be drawn inexorably into something they can believe in that is bigger than themselves.
And they too will get down to work. They too will raise their hand. They too will produce their best work. Just like everyone else.
Oh, but you say, they still have ADHD. They still have impulse control problems and anger issues. They’re still at their core indifferent toward learning.
Maybe, or maybe these are just labels they’ve been carrying around with them like a leaden backpack, just waiting for someone or something to remove their burden. Maybe they haven’t had the right teacher or environment to unlock their dormant capabilities.
But what you’re saying, you may be thinking, is unrealistic. For some students, it can’t be done. No teacher has that much skill and mastery unless they’re born with a gift reserved for the smallest few.
You’re wrong.
Not only do I see it with my own eyes every bright and blinking year, thousands of other teachers have reported the same success using SCM principles.
Our approach was designed for any teacher, no matter their personality, grade level, or school, to become a true expert in classroom management using simple, repeatable, real-world strategies that work synergistically.
This is a crucial point.
Most teachers rely on a hodgepodge of tricks and tactics that work temporarily, if at all, and contrary to one another. They’re a band-aid that may get you through each day, but won’t safeguard the kind of focused learning experience that your students deserve.
SCM is a unified approach, whereby everything you do makes everything else easier and more effective.
The good news is that it’s free. We don’t hold anything back on this website. Our more than 600 articles cover everything you need to have the class you really want.
Yes, you can have it all at your fingertips with our books and guides. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, the core of what you need can be found in our archive (bottom right sidebar).
I urge you to try it, to throw away all the stressful tokens and manipulative strategies that may drag you exhausted to the end of the year, but offer little in the way of actually helping your most difficult and challenging students.
So go all in. Stop dabbling. Stop searching and guessing. Stop doubting and looking for reasons why you can’t. The hard and glorious truth is, you can.
All it takes is the courage to say enough is enough and the decision to finally release the fear of being great at what you do.
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.
The
Problem
Is….. where to start? What exactly should we read first and what should we start with???? I wanna do it but have been confused about where to begin with your materials!! Thank you for any insight!!!
Hi Niki,
I recommend The Total Classroom Management Makeover.
I just read it and agree it’s a great place to start even though I’ve been reading SCM for a few years. I also was able to read it under an hour (on a flight), and I was frequently re-reading passages I thought were important.
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just pick what holds your interest and go from there. You will find it so helpful that you will just want more.
The Happy Teacher Habit is amazing!!!!!
Many many thanks
Hi Michael,
Kate here in Australia. I agree that rewards based systems don’t work – I hate them!!! But every school I have worked in has a whole school system that I am told I have to use. At the moment it is the class dojo system, at my previous school it was PBL and Icon assemblies etc. Should I try and change the school, get a job somewhere that aligns with my thinking-
Or go rogue!!! Help!!!
Here’s the article from the archives on this topic:
“How to Teach at a Rewards-Focused School” https://smartclassroommanagement.com/2017/01/28/how-to-teach-at-a-rewards-focused-school/
Thanks Chris!
Kate,
I minimise that by having clear and specific ways to receive points. I have a class list (a strategy I got from here) and record things like: didn’t bring a pen, paper, needed a toilet break, didn’t complete work etc. I do have consequences for those things, but anyone who had no issues recorded – was completely organised that week – gets a point. I also give points sometimes for good answers on challenge questions. I truly hate having to pick “kid of the week”, and haven’t worked out how to get around that.
Thanks Barbara – I will give that a go:)
Hi Michael,
In this article, you spoke about disengagement, ADHD, anger, impulse control etc. Thanks to all of your advice over the years, I do quite well with those kids.
What about kids who are on drugs, have a cultural hatred of white women, are out until 3am stealing cars, in fist fights with their parents, hungry, unwashed, living on the street and completely off the rails etc. Do you really think that those kids can be brought into line with others in a classroom?
I had a short stint at a difficult school and had trouble with some of those things. Part of me wanted to stay and figure it out, but the part of me that was strung out all night worrying about tomorrow jumped on the first train south. Do you honestly think those kids can behave like others in a normal classroom?
We have a school system too. The only way I made it work was to give a token to every student; my whole class. Every few mornings they got one for coming to school, and some afternoons usually Fridays, the whole class got one for being ready to go home. They thought it was great that everyone got a token so when it was time for rewards from school the whole class was rewarded. The behavior system in my room was SCM with token parties. It was the only way I could figure out how to make it work.
I NEED to break FREE! I am a successful educator with many years under my belt!! With that said, I have soooo much to say, but, even more, I know should be demonstrated, modeled, asked, and explained during countless PLC and PD offerings , however, I’m regarded as “Old School!” Teachers and administrator rather use the latest “go-to” tactics which unfortunately for teachers/staff/students, and parents fails miserably! The unruly kids are then turned over to me, “because, supposedly, I’m the miracle worker!!! No! It’s because I understand the value of prep, planning, climate, and culture. I understand how to move from good to great! I understand that a highly structured classroom environment promotes strategic intensity, focus, and alignment which in turn, engages the majority of students and fosters ownership and accountability. I, understand the depth of VALUE in the “Truest Welcoming.”
Wanda, fellow “old school” teacher here. It is so difficult to be the “mean” teacher in comparison to all the others. I hate it. I want to have fun, too. However, I know that when I teach my students the classroom rules and refer to them repeatedly while reinforcing them the first few weeks of school, the students fall in line and know what to expect…and we get more done! I have lowered my expectations over the past 8 years at the school I moved to in 2014, and I am so unhappy. The kids run the school, everyone still thinks my expectations are unreasonable, and parents in the community listen to rumor rather than coming to talk with me or sit in class at my request so the know for themselves what I’m like. Trying to lower my expectations to meet the expectations of my coworkers is not working, so I’m hoping to find my confidence and re-implement my “old ways” when school starts in 3 weeks. Your comment here gives me comfort that I’m not the only one. I’ve been doing this for 32 years. You’d think I knew something by now. 😉
Dear Jeanne,
Every Saturday morning, I sit down with my coffee and this website. I learn so much from Michael, and all of you. I am an old school teacher, too. I have been teaching for 28 years. I love teaching. It is the most important work. It is getting harder every year. Like you, I feel that it is so important to keep expectations high. The students will rise to them. Most students in our building are ELs, which shifts my (our) teaching. What we can’t give up on is high expectations.
My struggle right now is students who are insatiable for attention. How do you deal with that? I would love your thoughts.
Beth Gibson
Just wondering if many of you have watched the 1988 movie about Jamie Escalante, a teacher in Sacramento, who pulled off working miracles with his difficult students. It’s very inspirational; I know it’s dramatized, but still, what a role model he was! It’s called “Stand and Deliver”.
Great post. I’ve bought several books. Every time I feel lost or unsure, your blog or books bring to solutions.
I can’t honor your work enough. You are absolutely correct; everything is here in the blog for free. This attests to your love for teaching.
Mahalo Brother.
We started school this week and I’m afraid that I failed one of my classes. I was prepared. I visualized. I practiced. But in a class of 18 students, I had 7 boys that continually fed off of one another. What do I do with 7 students, not just one or two?
Hi Michael,
I recently had a student (we’ll call him Billy) who was asking long-winded, silly questions during a grammar lesson (6th grade). The questions were crazy, hypothetical “what if” questions that got the whole class laughing. I gave him a warning by saying his questions were taking away from the learning of the class. Billy continued the following day.
Time-out came next, but I wanted to bring his behavior back to my Class Rules. I couldn’t find a connection. What rule did he break? (He always raised his hand, he kept feet/hands to himself, etc.) Was it that he wasn’t really “listening” ? (#1) Or that he was disrespectful to me/class? (#4)
Appreciate your feedback. Thanks.
It’s number 4, (obviously) duh.
My system for classroom management is to create the proper respect for myself. If my students need to use the bathroom, blow their nose with a Kleenex, or touch anything on my desk without my permission (my water bottle, hole puncher, pencil sharpener, etc.) they get a point (points are bad). They also get a point for raising their hand out of turn, etc. If at the end of every month, a student has received 1 point they will get minus 20 points on their next test. My students hate me through, and I do not understand. Please explain why.
My approach to classroom management involves establishing respect from my students. I deduct points for any unauthorized actions that they take, such as using the bathroom, touching any items on my desk without my permission, or taking a Kleenex to blow their nose. They also lose points for interrupting the class by raising their hand out of turn. At the end of each month, any student who has accumulated a single point will face a deduction of 20 points in their next test. Despite my efforts, my students still seem to dislike me, and I do not understand why. Can you please suggest ways to help them follow the class rules while keeping them happy?
Your students are not permitted to get a Kleenex to blow their nose without being penalized? This could be the reason.
I also think you need to keep the behavior points totally separate from the assessment points. That’s muddying the waters of daily learning behaviors and demonstrated skills on assessments. Have a distinct category in your grade book for each, and do not alter a test grade for a behavior.