Most teachers don’t keep their students in time-out long enough. Five to ten minutes seems to be the norm, but to be most effective, your students need to sit and reflect on their misbehavior for at least fifteen minutes. Another common mistake is deciding … Read more
When a student refuses to go to time-out, he (or she) often has a good reason. This doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible for making such a decision. He is—completely and fully. For it’s never okay to defy a teacher’s direction. But in his mind … Read more
We had a large email response to a recent article called, How To Talk To Difficult Students. Most readers emailed to express how much easier dealing with difficult students had become after putting the suggestions to use. But others wanted specifics. They wanted to … Read more
How you give a consequence matters. How you speak to your students, what you say to them, and how you react emotionally and with your body language after they break a classroom rule goes a long way toward curbing misbehavior. Whether you’re giving a … Read more
Your temperament has a strong impact on student behavior. If you have a tendency to become tense, stressed, or uptight around your students, then they’re far more likely to misbehave. Because a tightly wound teacher translates to a tension-filled classroom—the kind of tension visitors … Read more
It happens for no apparent reason. You send your students off to recess and a troop of Howler Monkeys returns. Or a visit to the library turns into an embarrassment of unruliness and misbehavior. It could be a direction you just gave your students … Read more
For classroom management-related instruction, the most effective teachers rely on modeling more than any other strategy. Because showing students what you expect is infinitely more powerful, more meaningful, and more memorable than voice instruction will ever be—by a long shot. Do it well and … Read more
It’s easy to get careless with classroom management during the last ten or fifteen minutes of the school day. This is why it’s so common to see misbehavior at dismissal—swinging backpacks, chasing, shouting, pushing, roughhousing…students wound up and tuned out, oblivious to your warnings … Read more