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
When students get bored their minds drift. And while some settle on daydreaming, tile-counting, and general inattentiveness, other students are drawn to more…ahem…destructive pursuits. For where there is boredom, there is misbehavior percolating just under the surface, ready to pounce. Although there is a … Read more
Most teachers talk to difficult students too much, because somewhere along the line they’ve gotten the idea that the more attention they give them, the better teacher they’ll be. So they pull them aside for pep-talks, reminders, and lectures. They warn. They scold. They … Read more