Note: This week’s YouTube video, The Secret to a Well-Behaved Class, is an important one that applies to all classrooms (K-12). It’s a must watch.
Now, on with today’s article:
We’re down to a week or so before holiday vacation, which means we’re nearing the perfect time to reverse a bad class.
- Disruptive
- Disrespectful
- Talkative
- Ill-behaved
- Excitable
- Chaotic
If this is your class, then the upcoming break is the best time to turn it around. It offers an opportunity to clear the boards and return in January with a new classroom management approach.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve struggled since the start of the school year or you’ve become inconsistent and things have spiraled over time.
A fresh start is what you need. What follows then are three things you must do to reverse course and save your school year.
1. Reteach your plan.
If you don’t have an effective plan to begin with, then get one now. In this day and age, reliance on a plan that works is essential. If you do have a plan, but have let it drift because of lack of follow through, then you must reteach it with new and bold commitment.
It must be taught in exhausting detail. This might include teacher modeling for younger grade levels and pinpoint explanation and in-place demonstration for older students.
The key is to fully attain your objective, which is that your students know exactly and precisely where your boundary lines are. Every rule must be clearly defined and fully understood.
You must do this immediately upon your students entering your classroom from the holiday break.
2. Reteach routines.
Routines are a reflection of the health of your classroom and therefore must be a high priority.
After all, they transfer to everything you do, good and bad, including behavior, politeness, work habits, and academics. Upon returning from break, ask for, and then teach—or reteach—what you want each routine to look like.
Be as precise as a watchmaker.
Accept nothing less than your ultimate vision for how you want your students to enter the classroom, for example, or turn in their work or open their laptops. Whatever your class does repeatedly should be a routine your students do independently upon your simple “Go” signal.
3. Follow through.
This is it. This is everything. Whatever you expect of your students, and expressly teach, you must require it. There can be no wavering, hesitation, fear, or laziness. Etched in stone. Locked in place.
Never, ever go back on your word.
You must find it within you to hold strong day after day, hour after hour. You’re an iron stake driven into the frozen ground. Dig deep if you must, but it’s the only way to have the class you really want.
In fact, it doesn’t matter how bad your students have gotten or how bad you’re convinced they are. Once they know that you’re a strong and fearless leader who protects their right to learn and enjoy school, the tide will turn.
It’s Not Really Them
The poorly behaved class you have now, so rude and inattentive? They will always be that way with every teacher or adult they encounter.
Politeness and respect doesn’t come standard anymore.
They will run roughshod over everyone. That is, until and unless they have a teacher willing to do the three things above.
You don’t have to be tall or pretty, young or old, grizzled veteran or first-year teacher. It doesn’t matter a whit.
Although the process of establishing effective classroom management is easier in the beginning of the school year, it works at any time of the school year.
The result, if you stick with it, is a class you won’t recognize. In fact, the stressful and out-of-control class you have now? That’s not who they really are or what they’re capable of becoming. Transformation is possible.
But only for those teachers willing to do what it takes.
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Thank you for giving me the confidence to ask more of the students, most of the time they will rise to the expectations set.
I am curious about why this level of detail was not needed previously. I feel like this shift has happened in the last 5-10 years. I used to teach preschool and I am now required to teach the same skills, with picture examples and painstaking detail to 3rd and 4th graders. I struggle with the idea that students who have been in school since kindergarten need a model of what it means to sit in their chair at the table. Please know, I am providing this detail examples, picture charts, etc., but in my mind I am thinking when my teacher told me to sit down and do my work, I just did it. Along with the other 30 students. And trauma and bad life situations have always existed, this is nothing new. So I am interested in thoughts on what has changed.
The difference is the way we bring children up has changed. Children used to go outside and play with other children with total freedom from adults. They burnt off excess energy. They learnt social skills. They worked out social etiquette around their peers. They were not watched and monitored by adults. They didn’t have digital devices to constantly entertain them so they knew how to entertain themselves when bored.
I agree totally with what is different and would also like to add the respect at home has changed also. We would never hit, spit at, yell at, or mouth off to my parents let alone any other adult. Expectations and allowances in all areas of our young learners lives has dropped to the detriment of schools and society as a whole.
I am interested too!
Mr Linsin,
I appreciate all you do
Thank you so much!
My pleasure, Kirk. Thanks.
This is a good reminder
Hello! I think what has changed is the lack of socialization from the pandemic. Little ones missed those socialization skills they learn when they are with others in person. They had to learn those soft skills on a computer. Alas, as teachers, we are playing catch-up . It is frustrating. Keep at it. Be firm and just be objective about it. Show old movies (90s) where kids are sitting in their seats. Best wishes to you, my educational sister!
Thank you for all you do! You are an inspiration and a lighthouse for teachers!
I totally agree: clear rules and consistent consequences are the key to reversing a bad classroom.
But what happens when you have students with certified ADHD?
Their disability often makes them incapable of adhering to the rules and with their behavior also involve other students. This renders the system of consequences ineffective and frustrating, as they receive punishment without behavioral change. I also feel constrained from implementing harsher consequences due to their certified status.
How do we maintain a consistent classroom management plan when a student’s certified disability makes them non-responsive to the standard consequence ladder? What is the practical next step for teachers facing this specific challenge?
Thanks for your advice!
I have used Michael’s plan effectively this year in a “self contained” seventh grade class of six children all with an official ADHD diagnosis. It has worked beautifully, as long as you provide the leverage of a classroom that is on their level of learning, and not beyond their reach.
Good luck!
My husband uses all your concepts as a sub teacher with great success.
This article is a timely and much-needed reminder that effective classroom management is neither mysterious nor dependent on personality, programs, or labels—it is built on clarity, consistency, and follow-through. The emphasis on reteaching expectations and routines after a break is especially powerful; the reset works because it restores certainty for students, which many classrooms are currently lacking.
What resonates most is the reminder that behavior improves when boundaries are known and protected. Students don’t need endless adjustments or excuses, they need adults who are willing to lead with confidence and consistency. While external factors have certainly changed over the years, this piece reinforces an important truth: strong classroom leadership remains the most reliable variable in student behavior.
Challenging, yes, but also empowering. This puts control back where it belongs: in the hands of the teacher.