Why Your Class Must Be Hard

smart classroom management: why your class must be hard

In 1907, explorer Ernest Shackleton posted an ad that read:

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.

He received 5000 applicants.

Although the veracity of the ad is debatable, there is no doubt that the lure of joining such an expedition was its specialness.

We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s a longing of human nature the best teachers, coaches, and business leaders use to motivate and inspire.

Here at SCM, we’ve long promoted the power of creating a classroom your students love being part of, which causes them to want to listen, learn, and behave.

It also provides meaning to your classroom management plan and the leverage you need to influence behavior and awaken intrinsic motivation. Some of the ways we do this include:

Being consistently pleasant.

Teaching compelling lessons.

Shifting responsibility.

Having a neat and efficiently run classroom.

Bringing a spirit of fun to each day.

Prioritizing independence.

Removing rewards.

Praising only what is worthy.

Following your classroom management plan as written.

Each of these—including the hows and whys—has been covered extensively here on the website as well as in our books and guides.

However, one area we talk about but have yet to link to this idea of specialness is having high standards. We know it’s crucial for academic success to continue to ask more and more of your students.

Every day, every lesson, we want to push the envelop on what they can do.

Accepting no excuses and believing students can do and be much more than they’re showing is how a small few teachers are able to progress their class two years ahead of their peers.

But there is another reason why this is important.

You see, so many classrooms and schools have lowered standards in an effort to get everyone “caught up,” especially in the shadow of the pandemic lockdowns. But doing so has an unintended but profoundly deleterious effect:

It makes school ordinary. And kids don’t like ordinary. None of us do. It inspires nothing. It makes even the idea of it exhausting. Unremarkable, mediocre, boring, easy, lazy, slow, soul crushing.

Is this what you want for your own life?

What I’m suggesting, and have discovered in my decades here at SCM and in the classroom, is that making each day difficult, a challenge, all by itself, is highly attractive. It’s what students really want.

The truth is, you should never lower standards, for any reason. You should never give unlimited time for assignments, dumb down your curriculum, or pass along students unearned.

Instead, you must make it harder.

Exclusivity through striving and pushing and expecting more, and never being satisfied, is not only key to their success and improvement, it’s highly appealing. It makes them love your class even more.

It provides meaning and self worth. It produces pride and confidence and discipline. It gives them something they’re unlikely getting anywhere else: The feeling of belonging to something remarkable and knowing that they have a higher purpose.

Your own ad might read:

Students wanted for great challenge. Hard work, deep focus, long hours of learning. Public recognition doubtful. Future rewards assured.

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25 thoughts on “Why Your Class Must Be Hard”

  1. This is so important. Everyone in the room is expected to work, accomplish, and win. In the past this has worked very well for me.

    Yesterday, I was in formed that a child that started the year as a 7th grader, who has not attended since before Christmas – was supposed to have been registered in another school in our district…but did not attend, will be joining my class as an 8th grader and will participate in the 8th grade graduations ceremonies…right along her peers who actually came and did the work.

    I am not even sure this is legal – but it is a directive from my boss.

    What message do you think that sends? EGADS

    Mrs K

    Reply
    • Hopefully it sends the message that as a child, sometimes our adults make terrible decisions, like not making us go to school. Since we have no control over our adults, we shouldn’t be held responsible when their terrible decisions directly affect us. Egads, indeed.

      Reply
  2. This. Right here. Is why I love SCM. It confirms my own experiences and beliefs in the power of human nature: Hard work, done well, feels good. What we think we want (more cake! no deadlines!) is not what we need (more vegetables! The ability to successfully progress in a timely manner!)

    Thank you Michael Linsin, for your regular and timely posts that remind me I am not crazy.

    Reply
  3. I love this. I have taught my students to embrace the concept of “Sisu”—which is a Finnish word meaning perseverance.

    They let me know when they have reached down deep to find their inner sisu and get the work done!

    Reply
  4. Love it and I agree! I would be interested in a future article on students with IEPs or 504s, and on students who are obviously low but do not have these legal accommodations. How do we make things hard but not exasperating?

    I teach to the gifted students, but is that too hard for a student reading in the 20th percentile?

    Reply
    • I am a teacher who struggled with ADD, Dyslexia (any text wiggling on the page); Schotopic Sensitivity (bright lights); and Comprehension. I know what it like to be where are toughest learners are, because I am one. While we cannot replace a part what is forever a part of a person’s make up, we can aid them in the skills to be their own best that they will become in time with the right tools. 1) I have learned that less text/ information at a time is preferable. 2) Phonix First works! So does patience, encouragement, and finding something of interest to the student to read, and reread. 3) Try printing your handouts on light colored paper in stead of white. This is less daunting, and softer on the eyes. Different colored paper work better for some learners. 4) Put a horizontal bookmark, with a strip of transparent gel over your page as a guide; 5) or fold a piece of construction papering in half, while folded cuts box with 1/2 the height of the letters, and all the width of no more than five words long.
      6) Ask often what is going on in the story; or What is the next step of the project? 7) And have them repeat it. 8) If it is key information that they need for all other things have the student repeat it each day in a montra, a song or with whole body movement.

      Reply
  5. Wonderful. The koday music program works that way.
    The band and string programs in Queensland certainly benefit from this.

    Reply
  6. Amen! So much truth in your article for students and teachers. One of the greatest compliments I’ve received from former students is that “your class prepared me.” Yes, prepared them for the work of learning, perseverance until the job is done, believing in oneself. It’s less common these days to be “that teacher,” but in the end I know it’s the right way to educate students. Hard work is valued and valuable. Thanks for sharing the real reason school matters!

    Reply
  7. I believe this concept, also extends to me as a teacher. When teaching gets really difficult, I tell myself , if it was easy it would be boring and pointless and would lead to no growth or meaning for myself. It makes me appreciate what I have and makes me even welcome the difficulty.

    Well said, Mike!

    Reply
  8. How do you remove rewards? Especially when all the other teachers are handing out candy? And my school is a PBiS school…

    Reply
  9. Thank you! Love this!!!

    It’s been crazy hard as a music teacher: no singing/no instruments… for at least 1 1/2 years. Grateful for supportive admin. Finally we will be back on instruments soon. Praying I can balance kindness with excitement/passion and encouragement in the last few months of this crazy year….

    Reply
  10. I’d also like to know how to remove rewards when you are teaching a PBIS school and kids are rewarded for EVERYTHING as part of the school culture.

    Reply
  11. I feel that you should always set limits for work to be completed. However it is standard to give points for on time completion, extra work points, and some points for standards not met with the time limit. To allow students to understand that it is very important to complete all assignments and that time is very important!

    Reply

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