There is great freedom in consistency. Because when you follow your classroom management plan to a tee, you remove the guesswork. You eliminate the stress of lecturing, correcting, and trying to convince your students to behave. You wipe away the friction and resentment. The … Read more
Ask a hundred teachers if it’s important to be consistent with classroom management and every last one of them will tell you that it is. But knowing that it’s important is one thing. Actually being consistent is another. Most teachers only kinda-sorta follow their … Read more
In Malcom Gladwell’s 2003 book Blink, he describes how experts can know what they know but not know why they know it. They experience a flash of recognition or vision of truth—a blink moment—based on years of past experience and know it to be … Read more
Several years ago, a colleague confided in me that she was afraid to hold her students accountable because she was convinced that they would hate her for it. Some of her students were taller than her and looked like adults, which may have been … Read more
How you give a consequence matters. It’s not just do or not do. The way it’s performed goes a long way toward your students taking responsibility. It’s another of the small details that separate just getting by from exceptional classroom management. The latter requires … Read more
Last week, I wrote about how to fix time-out if it isn’t working. And I got some peculiar responses. “What if my students like time-out?” “What if they want to stay in time-out?” “What if they prefer the quiet of time-out?” “What if they’re … Read more
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 … Read more
I’m not an expert in autism. Nor do I have a degree or teaching credential in special education. I write only from the perspective of a classroom teacher. This article is a response to the many questions we’ve received here at SCM about autistic … Read more