Understanding time-out, its purpose and function, is key to its effectiveness.
Yet, as I visit classrooms, many teachers get it wrong. It’s not a dunce-cap punishment or place for students to feel shame, which only causes resentment and more misbehavior.
Rather, time-out must be a place of reflection and determination to do better.
To ensure this is the case, you must create a classroom your students enjoy being part of. This is essential. Because if your students don’t like you or sitting in your classroom, then time-out won’t work.
There is no leverage.
Your students must look forward to your class. They must appreciate it and desire to be a valued member of it. Done right, time-out is a revocation of this special privilege. It’s what prompts change on the inside.
When they look out at their classmates and say to themselves, “I want to be there with them, instead of here in time-out,” then you have a real tool that can transform behavior.
“I want to be there, not here.”
If the experience of being in time-out is no different (or even better) than the experience of sitting and learning as part of your class, then time-out means nothing. You may as well not even use it.
Everything we do here at SCM supports widening the gap in experience between being in time-out and not being in time-out. The idea is to expand this gap so far that even the most challenging students emphatically choose the latter.
Personally, I want to make my classroom so gratifying that they despise time-out.
The good news is that although it takes knowledge and commitment, making time-out something your students want no part of isn’t difficult. Any teacher can do it.
From being consistently pleasant to teaching compelling lessons to following through like a referee, every strategy we recommend at SCM is designed to provide meaning to your consequences. The more they matter to your students, the better they’ll behave.
Again, it’s not about punishment. It’s not about lecturing, scolding, bribing, or directly trying to convince students of anything.
It’s about using human nature and the natural inclination within every student to leverage them into deciding of their own accord to be well-behaved.
When it comes from them, when it’s their choice—that just so happens to be inspired by the classroom conditions you’ve created—then it sticks.
And you have your dream class.
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I agree with the idea of time-out as a reflection. I use a lot of turn and talk in my classroom. When students have “time-out” in my room (a desk that is off to the side of the group) they can’t turn and talk because they don’t have a buddy. Students who get sent to this desk almost always want to return to their seats before a turn and talk opportunity. They like having the opportunity to share their ideas and be heard.
I also like the inclusion of the dunce cap image at the beginning of this article because I feel like time out still has that stigma. When students are misbehaving, I don’t tell them to go to “timeout”. I just pick up their materials and move it to the extra desk without comment. They know that sitting there is a result of their actions and work to correct their behavior quickly to rejoin the group. Occasionally I get asked why they have to move, but they usually know what they’ve done and go without complaint or discussion. I know it sounds like I have a class of angels. Trust me, I don’t. But even with my 7-year-olds they can recognize what they’ve done wrong without explanation because they have a strong sense of rightness and they HATE being interrupted and disrespected.
Always interested in timeout articles. Thank you!
I call it the ‘practice’ desk, where they are practicing the behavior that they should have been doing in their seat.
I wholeheartedly agree that time out should be a reflection time on their behavior. Whatever behavior prompted the action, I alway tell the student to go have a seat, or a quiet corner somewhere, and think about what just happened. That, I’ll speak to them privately in a couple of minutes. Usually, in those couple of minutes, they figure it out.
This is Profound. Students. Teacher,
offering enrolling and connecting. Respect every student. Find ways to invite learning. Acknowledge the step by step success as children grow. Teachers aim to see students “jump in”.
What should you do if your students don’t enjoy your class because they are soured on school in general? For context, I teach High School, and I get a lot of kids that start disruptive and disengaged from day one. Sitting doing nothing is exactly what they prefer. I can pull some of them in within a week or two, but others will happily spend the entire year doing nothing and take a failing grade.
But timeout in class they are still just that in your room expected to listen and do seat work.
How about a child who sits and cries in time out and refuses to raise her hand to return? I teach small groups and have a child that comes by herself. When she doesn’t follow the rules, I move her to a table away from me, but she refuses to raise her hand to ask to come back. Instead, she cries, says I’m mean, and accomplishes little. I’ve had her in time out for most of two one-hour-long lessons in a row, and she hasn’t given in and raised her hand even though we’ve practiced on better days. I know that she enjoys when we work together when she is not in time out.
I’ve had this exact student. Crying and calling me mean was a staple. She would even move her desk away from others for weeks at a time. When her grandmother came in to parent-teacher conferences and saw her desk in the corner, I thought she would go to the school board and I’d lose my job!
Still, I didn’t force her to join, but always offered her the option to participate. She flat out refused for months, but came around near Thanksgiving. I finally got her involved once I learned her passion for kittens. I switched my “How are offspring like their parents?” lesson from an anchor text about eagles and eaglets to one about cats and kittens and she couldn’t be contained! After that connection, something clicked and she was involved.
It’s as Michael says, create an environment that is engaging and trust the process. Don’t take it personally. We are teachers, not miracle workers, but building relationships that are genuine can make a world of difference!
I really feel I’ve heard too many teachers say, “they know how to behave”. Yes, they do so what’s your point in saying it? You STILL have to teach what the expectations are. Students need to know YOU as a teacher know what the expectations are in order to set up a learning environment instead of a classroom jungle. They need to know which way they will have to flex, to make it through their day. Some of them live in a jungle type home environment, school is the only link to societal norms for a few :/.