Teachers ask me frequently if minor but annoying student behaviors are enforceable.
They give me examples and want my opinion.
This happens so often that I thought I would create a list of the most common that are indeed enforceable.
A quick note, however: Although SCM allows you to create the exact classroom you want, personally I would enforce a consequence in response to every behavior on the list.
The reason is because . . .
- They’re disruptive.
- They negatively affect learning.
- They lead to more misbehavior.
- They’re antithetical to a culture of excellence.
- They break at least one of the core four SCM rules.
With this in mind, what follows is a list of annoying student behaviors that are indeed enforceable.
- Humming or singing in class.
- Slamming books or making loud noises.
- Approaching you to tell on a classmate.
- Waving their hand at you to get your attention.
- Making noises while raising their hand.
- Giggling or whispering during silent work time.
- Lightly kicking the shoes of the person ahead in line.
- Leaning back in their chair.
- Taking the long way to the carpet.
- Banging on . . . anything.
- Making hand signals to a friend across the room.
- Muttering under their breath.
- Asking an off-topic question.
- Pantomiming a TicTok dance in time-out.
- Walking a foot or two out of line.
- Cutting in line.
- Sticking their tongue out at a classmate.
- Lightly making fun of a classmate.
- Cursing.
- Having their laptop open without permission.
- Being disrespectful when they don’t believe they are.
This isn’t an exhaustive list.
It’s simply the most common situations brought up by teachers when I give talks at schools or while doing personal coaching.
—Which underscores the importance of teaching, modeling, and practicing your classroom management plan in a highly detailed way. Your students must know what is and isn’t okay so well that all 21 are obvious.
Even if each one isn’t expressly stated.
For example, kicking a classmate in line isn’t something you have to define as against the rules. It clearly is. No explanation is needed. You see it and you enforce. End of story.
A bigger concern than whether students know what types and categories of behaviors are unacceptable is whether you do.
Because you can’t be consistent, nor can you create the polite and well-behaved class you want, unless you know without hesitation whether any given behavior breaks a classroom rule.
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I’m an elementary art teacher. I have 40 minutes with my students. I read your book, Classroom Management for Art, PE and Music, which has been extremely helpful, but this issue still raises questions for me. At my school, because of the way the schedule is set up, essential teachers have to transition the kids to each other (art goes to PE, for example). Lining up to transition and walking in line down the hall is where many of these behaviors arise. How can we enforce our rules and apply consequences when we are in the midst of getting them to line up and walk down the hall as we want them to? When we only have a few minutes left with them, there is very little time to enforce a consequence for these behaviors because the children know they are leaving our classes. Any suggestions appreciated. I get a lot out of reading your blog.
Hi Cristina,
I think the key is communication. Let their teacher know what happened and that the classroom consequence needs to be given. I am a classroom teacher and will use the word of Activity teachers as reason to enforce the rules of both their rooms and mine. Students know this right away and are not given grace when it comes to following expectations.
Believe me, teachers want you to follow our guidelines and rules to ensure the students are consistent in behavior and doing the right thing no matter where they are, just as much as you do!
I hope this helped.
I disagree. I only enforce consequences for infractions that occur on my watch. I encourage specials teachers to enforce their own. If it is not walking properly in the hallway sometimes I think it may be sufficient to require students to go back and perform the task correctly. If however they hurt someone in line a parent phone call may be in order, but the specials teacher can make it. This policy helps my students know that I’m fair and issue consequences for behaviors I personally witness.
I agree wholeheartedly Cristina. I teach K-5 art as well. Such a limited amount of time to enforce consequences with so many moving parts and variables, all while presenting content and providing an engaging art experience, organizing clean up and line up ( and with a continually changing group of students with which we have less time to understand and connect with than the home room teachers have). I think we have a chosen a particularly difficult profession in a lot of ways. It reminds me of the expectations school bus drivers have in our country: drive the bus safely while controlling behaviors of a bus load of multi age students.
Hi, Cristina, though I am retired now I was an elementary music teacher so I understand your perspective on this. I know first hand the frustration of only having a small amount of time with students and not being their homeroom teacher. But try to think of it this way: if you have to take a 40 minute classtime or a part of it to enforce consequences for behavior that you have given rules for and they have broken it is a worthwhile exchange in terms of doing the job of helping them to learn to be more successful in the future at school and life. In other words, a small amount of time invested now prevents large amounts of time in the future being wasted on large amounts of misbehavior. I understand that you are specifically asking about the transistion hall behavior as you are taking them to their next class. So could you set up an immediate consequence of “you must now leave the line and walk next to me”? Or tell the offending student that there will be a consequence in your next art class? Or perhaps if it is occurring over and over then it’s time to not have an art class but instead go back over your procedures, per Michael’s excellent advice and suggestions. I had to do that a few times over the years and that solved the problem. Nobody wanted to miss music class to practice rules and procedures! I agree with you that Michael’s book for Art, PE, and Music is extremely helpful. I wish you all the best – my art teacher became one of my best friends and together we managed to get through school as a great team.
This is so true. I agree with your suggestions. No teacher should be afraid to go over the rules several times, especially at the beginning of the year. It’s especially hard in our subject area because we only see the students once or twice a week.
I’m an elementary art teacher. I observed a 4th-grade teacher implementing the following strategy when moving children through the hallway. She assigned a line leader, and their only job was to lead the line. With the help of the teacher as a model, when the line leader observed misbehavior or heard noise, the entire line would stop. When the behavior corrected itself, the line would continue to move. This process worked great as it taught the expectation of how a class line moves through the building, silently, with bodies facing forward, and in a straight line. A few hiccups at the beginning of the school year ironed themselves out very quickly to the point that the kids could transition from specials to another location in the building without incident. They understood the expectation. In my building, classroom teachers bring and pick up all specials classes (art, music, gym, and technology). In your case, however, I would forewarn the next teacher that your group may be a few minutes late until these routines are in place. Go slow to go fast. Good luck!
Yes!!! Same!!! Transition and waiting time is where 90% of issues arise. I’m an (elementary) art teacher, too. At the end of class, it never fails… I’m busy/distracted dealing with a few students slow to finish the work or needs extra help. The crew who are done/in line are screwing around and basically unsupervised… and they know this and take advantage of it. They have completed my clean-up procedures and are just… bored?! They will lose minutes of recess which is a huge motivator… if the recess monitor follows through.
Hi Cristina!
I am also an art teacher with 40 minutes classes and same transition madness. 🙂 The only thing I can control is the time students are with me. If they are lining up outside my classroom because they are being dropped off by a teacher then I tell them what I am looking for and how it’s done. I make sure at the beginning of the year (and a couple times in the middle) that students know what lining up (before and after art), entering and exiting the classroom, etc. looks like. We practice it over and over till it’s beautiful perfection. Cause we have no control over what the other teachers do, ya know? All this I garnered from SCM. Total genius!
Helpful???
So I present them with these issues to let them know that whenever they behavior like that there will be consequences. Is behavior a part of their final assessment too? I usually take it into account eg. Minus points that might have impact on their final grade.
If you give a class grade and a conduct grade as well, you have to separate the two just as a teacher in other subjects. I understand if a student is not paying attention and can’t follow the directions properly for an activity because of this, it might affect a participation grade. However, this is where you should give a consequence and then allow the student to try the skill again to see what the problem really is.
I purchased the SCM Elementary Plan years ago. Is there a way I can download it again?
I have a new phone and laptop, and am unable to access it. Thank you so much!
Hello. I am a substitute teacher and I struggle with behaviors all day. Students seem to think it’s a free day. I am in different classes everyday. Do you have a resource that I may consult for corrective actions for students. Thank you
Approaching you to tell on a classmate…may I know how do you do to discourage this. I have students, mostly girls who always do this. Thank you!
It’s essential to teach students the difference between a tattle and a tell. I implemented a tattle system by purchasing a tattle box and printables from TPT. If it’s genuinely a tattle, the child can write down the tattle if they feel it’s important. During our art class, students may fill out the form during independent work time only, not during direct instruction or clean-up time, and they may not stay at the tattle station for more than a minute. I provide a sand timer for students to keep track. The tattling has dramatically reduced. A funny for you, my very first submission ever written was by a boy who was tattling on his tablemate for playing with a rock! Can’t make this stuff up!
We started school soo early this year that we’re sending out our first 3-wk progress report & we’re not even in Sept yet! As always, the beginning of the school year is crammed full of required trainings, mandatory meetings w/ acad. coaches, mentors/new teachers, and just as full is everyone’s email inbox.
But there’s one email that I always find time to read AND enjoy, and that’s SCM.
I’d like to say a HUGE Thank you for your outstanding articles. Short & sweet, yes, but highly relevant and extremely valuable (I especially enjoy your no-nonsense, non placading approach to discipline)!
Much love from south central Texas!
Michael,
What do you do when you have so many behaviors that you could have 5-6 kids in timeout at a time? We have 2-3 catalysts in 7th grade and many times they start acting out and before I can respond there is an eruption or wild fire. Help!!
Also, we seem to be having issues with students responding to male teachers more than females. How do can I change my approach to gain more respect? At times my class is like a wack-a-mole game!! It’s day four and I am emotionally drained already!
Can you give specific types of consequences for these behaviors? I need specifics. Kid hums during your directions, you correct it, he continues. What do you do? Do they go fill out a form every single time they do something? As a music teacher, I have 40 minutes which can get eaten alive by managing behavior. And what about all the kids doing the right thing? I feel frustrated for them too as they are held captive by the bad behavior of a couple kids day after day.