A culture of leniency has infected our schools from top to bottom, and it’s hurting everyone in its wake.
Cheating and disrespect are rampant. Students repeatedly caught fighting are never expelled. Standards are so low it’s nearly impossible to fail.
There is virtually zero real accountability.
And the brunt of the pain is felt most acutely by us, the teachers, who have fewer and fewer options to correct it. Now more than ever you must be an expert at classroom management.
There is no other option. You must shore up your weaknesses and leverage the strategies that still work despite the permissiveness pushed from on high rotting education from the inside out.
One area through which almost every teacher can improve behavior is time-out. The keys to making it effective include:
Ensuring students know your rules backward and forward.
Explaining in detail the ‘why’ of time-out.
Modeling the words you will use to send students to time-out.
Modeling precisely how to go to time-out.
Modeling what is expected while in time-out.
Being 100% consistent with every student.
Refraining from lecturing, scolding, or otherwise adding to the consequence.
You must also live up to your end of the bargain. In other words, to ask for and receive good behavior from your students, you must make being in your classroom worth their while.
This has always been the case. You still and always must provide compelling instruction. You still must create a classroom your students enjoy being part of.
A few important elements of this include:
Being an expert in your content area(s).
Bringing energy and passion to your instruction.
Being a bold, confident leader who does what they say.
Using humor and having a spirit of fun.
Shifting more and more responsibility to your students.
Continuing to challenge, provide purpose, and raise the bar of excellence.
Refraining from rewarding students in exchange for good behavior.
Praising only new learning or true progress.
Leaning on well-taught and expertly performed routines.
Being consistently pleasant day in and day out.
Together, they amount to an environment students look forward to and feel pride in. This is what makes your consequences matter to students.
If time-out doesn’t feel any different than the experience of participating and learning in your classroom, then misbehavior will continue.
Which brings us to the length of time students should be sitting in time-out. You’ve likely been encouraged to keep it short. Perhaps you’ve even heard that time-out should be no longer in minutes than the student’s age, or even half their age.
But in a climate of little to no accountability your students need to feel time-out. Not as an extended punishment, but as a time to reflect on their mistake and how it affects others.
This requires all of the points above and longer time-outs.
12 to 15 minutes isn’t too long for for primary age students. Yes, even kindergartners. And 15 or 20 minutes or more for older students. Those who misbehave, presumably a second time if you’re using our SCM classroom management plan, must be given time to sit and stew for several reasons.
They need to calm down.
They need to be away from classmates they’ve disrupted.
They need to experience the feeling of missing out.
They need a strong message that their behavior wasn’t okay.
They need to begin feeling appreciative of being in your class.
They need to think about their specific misbehavior.
They need to be affirmed by being time-out that they alone broke a rule.
They need to feel the weight of accountability.
They need to feel contrition and remorse.
They need to resolve not to make the same mistake again.
As long as you follow the guidelines for making time-out most effective as mentioned earlier, all of this happens naturally. It’s what taking responsibility looks like.
Misbehaving students need time.
A few minutes won’t cut it. In fact, five minutes or so merely tells them that pushing a classmate or interrupting your lesson wasn’t a big deal.
There is a lot to this topic. If you have questions, please check out our books and guides to get a more complete picture and explanation of what exactly to do. In the meantime, know this:
Over the course of a school year, not only will longer time-outs result in better and more respectful behavior, but they’ll result in far less total time in time-out.
Your classroom is sacred. Every act of misbehavior must be viewed by you and by extension your class as absurd and completely out of place.
And wrong.
It must be viewed culturally as a big deal. In this way, and only in this way, will it help reverse the current landscape of anything-goes indulgence and misguided justice that is hurting the very children it purports to help.
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I am an avid Smart Classroom Management teacher, but very few strategies work with my middle school students this year. They now see removal from my classroom as something positive because they don’t want to work and focus. We have zero consequences or punishments from admin because they are afraid of push back from parents. My grade level team is pushed to the limit every day and our wells are dry. We do; however, remain consistent because it is important to follow through even when it doesn’t change behaviors. The students know there is no “end-game” for them. The current state of public education is breaking my heart.
So share your opinion!
I’m a high school art teacher and have been using SME for many years. I discovered you all while I was teaching middle school students. Right now, we live in a world where admin, school and government leaders, and anyone else making decisions for teachers, are catering to the 10%. Each school has 10% who are disruptive or simply do not want to be in school and are behavior problems. 10% are on the fence. 80% are showing up and excelling or doing well, doing what they need, and want to graduate. We are spending all of our resources on the 10% who shouldn’t be in the school setting. They are now pulling the other 10% over, and leaving the other 80% including the staff frustrated and exhausted. Instead of “saving” 90%, we’re barely saving 80%. I don’t know if this started with No Child Left Behind or not, but that was never truly a realistic goal. Look what’s happening around us. We have a duty to provide instruction and safety. We’re failing on that. On a side note, I’ve shared many articles with an assistant principal at our school who shares your views. She would love to incorporate more of this, but her hands are tied by our admin and district. Thank you so much for all of your sound advice and common sense suggestions.
It’s the same at my middle school. Students are big enough and strong enough that adults are being hurt, but there are not significant consequences for the students who are causing the injuries.
What do you think of missing recess?
Time out of recess?
I’d love you opinion on this.
Thank you!
In the short term, you may be punishing the next teacher. If you teach the student after recess, then it may be effective, but just keep that in mind as well.
Our classroom teachers have the students walk the perimeter of the playground during recess as a consequence. They are still getting the much needed fresh air, are still getting the much needed exercise their brains and bodies need, and they are watching their classmates play (which they are missing out on). Of course this means that the teacher must keep an eye on the students instead of using recess time as social time. When students think you are not watching, they will try to sneak into play that is happening close to them. When they see that you are watching them closely, they will comply.
Our Board of Education doesn’t allow children to walk the perimeter of the recess field because of one parent complaint that it was “not fair” for her child to miss recess and watch the other children play. I’ve been teaching children for almost thirty years and I honestly see more disrespect, bullying and physical harming of staff and students than ever before. One kinder yelled out “F$%K you” when I put him in time out for throwing a rock at a staff members face. It almost hit her in the eye. And don’t get me started on bus behaviors!
I just started a job as a virtual teacher in an inner city brick and mortar school. I was hired because of the teacher shortage. The teachers are hard working, wear many hats, exhausted…I don’t know how they do it! They are constantly having to combine classrooms or cover for other absent teachers.
The philosophy they use to deal with inner city students is called Restorative Practices. The kids have been through multiple traumas and RP is a kinder, gentler, method. As an educator with 25 years under my belt…I feel like I’m not making a dent in the classroom with these students and I want to figure out how to do a better job
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Thank you. I’m glad I could read this today. It came at the right time to help me as a substitute focus on what I’m doing on my perfect days and what I need to do to fix the horrid ones.
This is absolutely great! Thanks so much for such insightful and holistic article. I’m sharing with my colleagues right away!
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Although this semester teaching middle school students is better bc students respond to SCM, I would like to think my second semester teaching with SCM has become ingrained in me to be the cheerful referee that students respond to collectively and respectfully. Spring Break is coming to a close and on Monday I will review the purpose, rules or expectations, and consequences. Reminding students what it is to look like to listen, timeout procedures, and the why’s will start the week off on the right foot.
This idea that ALL students MUST be punished 100% OF THE TIME for what an adult has decided is ‘misbehavior’ (very often without the input or perspective of their students) is rife with ableism.
It leaves no room for an equitable approach to classroom behavioral expectations that considers the role that emotional regulation, sensory processing, and communication skills (which vary vastly amongst our student populations) play in individual behavior patterns. Nor does it allow for the effective Functional Behavior Analysis and, if needed, Behavior Intervention Plans that would allow teachers to understand the behaviors they are seeing in their classrooms and effectively provide their students with replacement behaviors as necessary.
Expecting ALL your students to behave the way you want them to simply because you want them to is not realistic and PUNISHING students for not adhering to behavioral expectations they may have significant barriers from reaching is punishing students for parts of themselves they have no control over (being disabled, traumatized, etc.)
Sarah, Your attitude is one of the reasons we have so many students misbehaving.
I am curious what the through line is that you see between approaching behavior as communication and increased occurrences of ‘misbehavior’.
I personally find it hard to imagine that ALL students (students with disabilities in particular ) can effectively change their behaviors without their teachers understanding the functions of their behaviors and working with them to find replacement behaviors that both student and teacher can agree serve the same function (often more effectively) in a way that is less disruptive to the learning environment.
I had a student who repeatedly used his diagnosed ADHD as an excuse for not being able to sit and do focused work. I told him I’d seen him focus on his phone, and to not use anything as an excuse for not living up to his potential. He overcame his disability, by not letting it define him. This is the hopeful message our students need to hear. They are not doomed by their disabilities and the traumas they have experienced.
Expecting disabled students to learn in the same ways that non-disabled students do is ableist. Believing that disabled students operating as disabled students are not ‘living up to their potential’ is ableist. Believing that disabilities should be ‘overcome’ is ableist. Believing that disabled people operating as disabled people are ‘doomed’ is ableist.
When you communicate these ideas to your disabled students, you are communicating to them that you believe that their disabilities make them lesser and that they will be required to mask their disabled selves in your classroom in order to be treated with the same level of respect as their non-disabled peers. Is that the kind of classroom environment you want to build?
As for your example, I honestly can’t understand why you would expect a student with a documented ADHD diagnosis to sit and do focused work for extended periods of time when they are actively communicating to you their disability inhibits their ability to do so. Why wouldn’t a student with ADHD be allowed accommodations like brain breaks when they are evidence-based best practice?
Punishment is not necessarily the same as consequences. Regardless of the “why” of their behavior, students need to understand there are consequences for CHOICES they make. Are you saying a child having had trauma, going into adolescence, who makes a choice of acting out violently has no control over that, and if people are hurt in the process it’s not their fault because of their trauma? Carry this over into society. There are laws for EVERYONE, and citizens are expected to obey those laws (well they used to be). There is another whole conversation about the judicial system and “punishment”, but the point here, is that if they have consequences early (of course not ignoring a child’s trauma and such) this will have an impact. I have seen years of FBA, and sad to say, I have only seen behaviors get worse.
I agree, there is an important distinction between punishment and consequences. A true consequence is a natural outcome of an action. A punishment is an imposed outcome that someone in power puts in place because they have decided that they do not approve of a certain action.
In your example above, a natural consequence of a violent action is that those who witnessed said action will likely feel less safe around the actor in the future if they feel they cannot rely on that individual to act safely. Removing a student from their learning environment for violent actions without directly tying that removal and their re-entry to that natural consequence would be to punish, rather than to enforce a consequence.
As for your question about whether students with trauma have ‘no control’ over their potentially violent actions – sometimes yes. A person who is dysregulated (regardless of the cause) is, by definition, in a state where they are not in control of their actions.
Sarah, this is probably not a good site for you.
This comment felt dismissive to me.
I feel that it is important, in general, to be aware of the perspectives of those who disagree with you and to be in conversation about those disagreements (when it is safe to do so) because that’s one way we learn from each other. My classroom team often disagrees about classroom management strategies, but we come to decisions by discussing our individual perspectives and discovering where they align so that we can establish classroom norms that all the adults in our classroom can feel comfortable upholding.
I feel it is especially important to do aware of and in conversation with those of differing perspectives when it comes to teaching because this a profession where we are constantly handing our students off to other teachers whose philosophies on teaching may or may not align with ours – it’s important to understand what kinds of environments our students may be going into so that we can best equip them for a variety of environments.
That being said, as a special educator who advocates for my students to have access to general education settings, it is upsetting to me when I see indications that my students may not receive proper accommodations, modifications, and respect in general education classes if their disabilities manifest in behaviors that other teachers interpret as ‘misbehavior’.
A major focus of mine as a special educator is teaching my students to advocate for their own access needs, but I also feel it is important to be in conversation with the adults who have control over potential barriers to that access because I want to work toward a future where my students won’t have to advocate for their access needs because all general education classes will be built to be accessible to all types of learners.
If you are of the belief that this aim means that this isn’t a good site for me, I would encourage you to reflect on what it would mean if you believed it is a good site for you.
Sarah, we have to teach. We are in the classroom because we were hired to provide instruction for a particular subject/grade level. We are not trained behavioral therapists or counselors or psychologists. When are we supposed to have time to “understand” and create behavior plans for each individual student? Why can’t we follow the SCM method in our classrooms, which promotes respect and a safe learning environment for all students? We can allow trained professionals to help students learn to self-regulate and work through/with their unique situations.
A simple and consistent management plan is good for ALL students. If a kid gets to the point where he/she cannot follow basic rules on a regular basis or becomes violent, then intervention is needed beyond what the teacher can give.
There is a reason why there are special education teachers, school psychologists, counselors, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, behavioral interventionists, and special education paraprofessionals on staff in public schools. General education teachers are not and should not be expected to do FBA or create/implement BIPs alone (most general education teacher do not have the proper training to do so if they wanted to). If your students have reoccurring behaviors you don’t feel like you understand, have you asked any of the staff members at your school that have further training and experience with FBA and BIPs? Maybe you should consider doing so.
When you say that you are hired to provide instruction, are you considering it equally important that all students (including those you may see as ‘misbehaving’) are accessing your instruction? One measurement used when deciding whether FBA and/or BIPs are an appropriate next step for a student is whether that students’ behavior(s) in class is negatively impacting their access to learning. If you feel like this is the case for any of your students, that would be a reason to reach out to the special education staff at your school.
While it is true that it is the job of trained special education staff to create and oversee the implementation of a student’s BIP, it is also true it is the job of all that student’s educators to participate in the implementation of that BIP with fidelity. General education teachers that believe it is not their job to teach students with behavioral support needs by implementing students’ BIPs create barriers to those students access to general education.
I am so shocked by the replies to your comments. What kind of society are we living in where educated people who are trained to teach children are unable to show any empathy for the disabilities and trauma some of their students are going through? Some of these kids are growing up with drug addicted parents, they’re abused, and molested…and the response to that is that’s not my problem I shouldn’t have to deal with the behaviors that’s caused? A child with ADHD cannot sit and focus for hours on end by definition of the disorder. I mean you have to be kidding me right now..if you want a job where you are required to use no critical thinking skills and can just show up do your job and leave then go work in a factory because these kids deserve better.
Time out has ceased to be effective. They want to put their heads down and be by themselves. My kids are going to bed at 3:00 a.m. and they are like teaching someone who is drunk. At best, timeout gets them out of my classroom so that I can teach the ones that might go on.
We have insane absenteeism, many kids have missed more than 40 days, and a lot of them more than 60. A small minority come most days.
We do use sister classrooms, but the same kids, day after day…pretty soon the sister classroom does not want them because they begin to get comfortable enough to raise hell there too.
Need another consequence – this one is old hat.
I’m a university teacher in Japan but always find food for thought in these posts.
I do have a question: What exactly is a “time out” and how is it done in your schools? Does the student go off to a corner of the classroom, another classroom, or the hallway? In the latter cases, is someone dedicated to watching over time out students, or are they left on their own? Thank you in advance.
Just throwing this out. What about parent accountability? When are parents going to be held accountable for their children’s behavior?
Your article is one with a subject of concern. It is my observation that some of the need for time out probably could be limited with calmer, chunks, because a large potion of behavior that requires time out is horse play games to help students stay awake in class. They buddy up and play around, are just getting focused on the lesson when the class is over if then. They should be required to stay calm at all times. I know this makes me sound as I don’t want to allow the children to be children. However, I have observed students are bullied into actions that are not their true character and when they stand up to rules and expected behaviors they are played as weak, stupid and not a part of the in crowd. They are hit by classmates, dared to do right and can not think for themselves. The ring leader of disturbances carries a lot of them to disorder.
Those who work and have a few minutes of down time before leaving for the next class appear more on task. When students never complete assignments during the class period they become list less. It really is hard to determine if extra time is required or redirection totally is the answer.
The rise of ‘disability and inclusivity’ promotion in Australian schools is under way and public schools are being forced to take kids that would otherwise be in special schools. Add to this the incredible rise of kids being diagnosed with ‘disabilities’ ODD, ADD, ADHD etc. and the sparks have been lit. Add to this the parents using them as battering rams to bully school teachers/principals for accommodation upon accommodation for their little angels. Then comes the explosion in paper work and plans to accommodate these kids when the biggest determiner seems not the disability (hate that word) but the weak parenting that attends them. I’m with the author. The consequence/punishments must be stronger and sting more. I’ve taught for 20 years. The new woke approach to education doesn’t work. Empower teachers or watch standards go down the toilet and the good kids leave for the private sector. Teachers endure far more than is acceptable in our jobs as is. I love teaching, but these mini terrorists are being super-charged by our permissive, soppy, woke culture and they are gaming the system. The worst part is they barely have to even try to make excuses for their behaviour when the Sarah’s out there will happily do it for them. I’ve sat in meetings and watched the adults defeat themselves while the kid watched on in pleasure. We will either see the rise of common sense and accountability or the further degradation of the integrity of education.
I am curious whether you feel equally skeptical of all accomodations that provide accessibility to disabled people – things like graduated curbs, access ramps, and elevators that provide physical access or Braille signage, closed captioning, and text-to-speech translation that provide language access come to mind as examples of accomodations with longer histories of social adoption – or if it is just the accommodations that provide access to people with less visible disabilities (like neurodiversities) that you view as unnecessary.
Yes, the planning and preparation needed to provide proper accommodations so that all students can have equitable access to learning takes a lot of work (and paperwork), but it results in more learning, and it is difficult for me to comprehend how a teacher – someone who has chosen to enter the profession of imparting learning – wouldn’t consider that worth the extra effort.
My mission is a calm learning environment for the majority of students who crave and deserve it.
I challenge myself to calmly, politely, and consistently provide consequences for those students whose various “disabilities” cause them to disrupt a calm learning environment.