June 20, 2023 • 22 mins
Classroom management and behavior issues can seem daunting (especially after this past school year), but fear not! In this episode, I share essential tips and strategies to help you master the art of classroom management. By following these tried-and-true methods, you'll be well-prepared to create a positive and engaging learning environment for your students.
Whether you're about to embark on your teaching journey or looking to enhance your classroom management skills, this episode is your go-to guide. With the right strategies and a passion for creating an engaging and supportive classroom, you'll be well-equipped to inspire and empower your students to thrive academically and personally. Let's create a classroom where learning flourishes and students flourish!
Still figuring out lesson planning? Grab my free Lesson Planning Guide here 👉🏼https://teachersneedteachers.com/lessonplan
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Got questions, feedback, or want to be on the show? You can email me at kim@teachersneedteachers.com
Connect with me
Whether you're about to embark on your teaching journey or looking to enhance your classroom management skills, this episode is your go-to guide. With the right strategies and a passion for creating an engaging and supportive classroom, you'll be well-equipped to inspire and empower your students to thrive academically and personally. Let's create a classroom where learning flourishes and students flourish!
Still figuring out lesson planning? Grab my free Lesson Planning Guide here 👉🏼https://teachersneedteachers.com/lessonplan
I have a new YouTube channel! Join me over there and subscribe!
Got questions, feedback, or want to be on the show? You can email me at kim@teachersneedteachers.com
Connect with me
- Subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, or Stitcher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years ofteaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host,him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
(00:27):
Teachers Podcast, the podcast for teacherswho don't want to just survive teaching,
but actually thrive. So I recentlyread a study that completely and irrationally triggered
me. In November of twenty twentyone, a study by the Rand Corporation
showed that only thirty six percent ofprinciples believed that the teachers in their school
were properly prepared by teacher preparation programsto handle misbehavior and discipline. In a
(00:52):
federal study done in November of twentytwenty two, three and five principles believe
that inadequate preparation teacher programs in termsof classroom management limits the efforts that the
teachers were doing to prevent misbehavior anddiscipline issues. So my first reaction as
a teacher was seriously, I thinkthat so many of us can agree that
(01:15):
principles and administrators are woefully unprepared todeal with the behavior problems at schools.
Many of us have experienced sending astudent to the principal's office for unacceptable behavior,
just objectively bad behavior, only tohave them come back a few minutes
later with nothing more than a paton the back, not even a slap
on the wrist. And worst ofall, the kids know this. So
(01:38):
after I calmed down a bit,I took a setback and realized this.
You know, a lot of usare unprepared for the current normal that is
really bad student behavior, and ofcourse it's made worse by the lack of
support by both parents and administrators.So here's a thing. If you're a
new teacher, especially, how canyou prepare for bad student behaviors? How
(02:01):
can you prepare for what you've seenon videos TikTok YouTube all over the place
in terms of student behaviors? Andalso what can you make up in terms
of what college didn't teach you.So in today's episode, I'm going to
give you ten practical ways that newteachers can better prepare for bad student behaviors,
(02:23):
Because rather than spending the summer orwhatever length of time worrying about what
awaits you at your first or nextteaching job, you can instead be proactive
and get ready and feel more confidenton that first day, week, or
even month of school. So withthese ten tips, I am going to
go in order of what I thinkare the most important. So the first
(02:44):
tip in terms of preparing for badstudent behaviors is reflecting on your teaching philosophy.
Now this one is important and youmight wonder what does this have to
do with classroom management and bad behaviors, But actually it has to do everything
in terms of how you're classroom isgoing to be run. I mean,
think about it. What kind ofan environment do you want to create?
(03:05):
Do you see yourself as being likethe more fun teacher where a lot of
kids can talk and it's just alittle bit more loose and creative. Do
you see yourself as being a morestructured teacher where students sit in rows and
where they just listen while you talkand they only answer when they raise their
hand or you call on them.What is your teaching philosophy or vision in
terms of how your classroom is run? How do you feel you were going
(03:28):
to handle any types of bad behaviorsin your classroom? Do you see yourself
as a three strikes and you're outtype of a teacher. Do you see
yourself as a let's just work withyou and give you multiple chances and maybe
we go outside and we talk aboutit type of a teacher. Do you
see yourself as a log it everysingle time and call the parent type of
teacher. I mean, this kindof stuff really matters because the more that
(03:51):
you plan ahead than the less reactiveyou're going to be. And really knowing
you're teaching philosophy is going to guideso many decisions that you make on a
day to day basis and also inyour planning. So really come to terms
with how you envision your classroom running, what makes you feel comfortable, And
I definitely wouldn't do anything that isoutside of your comfort zone right away.
(04:12):
I would definitely go with how youfeel you could do automatically on a day
to day basis. So if you'retrying to do something that's opposite your personality
right off the bat, it's goingto be very uncomfortable for you because that's
just not who you are. Andlater on, as you get more comfortable
with teaching, then you can startincorporating other ways of running your classroom that
you hadn't thought of before. Sothe next tip for preparing for bad student
(04:34):
behaviors is to reflect on your personalbeliefs and values. And again you might
be wondering, Kimp, what doesthis have to do with classroom management.
In previous videos, I've talked abouthow you're experienced with teaching and how you
cope with unwanted behaviors things like that. That plays a huge part in terms
of how you're going to react whenbad behaviors and other unwanted things show up
(04:57):
in your classroom. So one thingthat we want to do is check in
with our biases. So, whetheror not we are able to admit it,
we are all biased in some way. We have stereotypes about certain people,
whether or now you want to admitit. A lot of a stake
that we're really fair and that wesee a world as it is and that
this is how it is based onhow we observe it. But a lot
(05:18):
of times these biases and the stereotypesthat we place upon certain groups of people
do affect how we show up inour classroom, and it also affects our
classroom management strategy. Whether you wantto admit it, when you've decided that
a certain type of student or certaingroups of people behave a certain way.
If you think of that as abad thing, that's going to affect how
(05:40):
you react to it or what kindof policies you have. You might think
that you're being fair to everyone,but at the end of the day,
unless you're consciously trying to pull itback your biases or trying to be objective
and fair, you're going to reactin a way that maybe isn't actually fair
to everyone. So, for example, in a Facebook group, a teacher
had asked why is there so muchemphasis on cultural awareness? Why are we
(06:03):
emphasizing so much about cultural awareness andbehaviors and how to deal with those.
In her mind, she felt thatit was being used as an excuse for
allowing certain behaviors to happen. Andmaybe you think that too, Maybe you
think that too much of talking aboutrace or gender or anything like that is
just an excuse for allowing certain thingsto happen in your room. But here's
(06:25):
the thing. The fact that youthink that certain races or certain groups of
people are getting away with things reflectson whether or not you're going to be
biased towards them when they do certainthings in your classroom. So let's say
that you come from a small ruraltown like this person did, and you're
used to seeing certain types of peopleacting in a certain way, and maybe
(06:46):
you just kind of excused it becausethat's what you grew up with. But
then you go somewhere else, likethe inner city or a big city with
a lot of diversity, and yousee those students acting in that same way,
but you see it as different andfor some reason it's unexcusable. It's
not me calling anybody racist or anythinglike that. It's just that whether or
(07:08):
not we recognize it, sometimes ourbiases affect who we give more discipline to
or less discipline too, and howwe react to certain students acting in a
certain way. So we kind ofhave to check in with that and be
honest. And you guys, I'vementioned this in other videos before too.
I've had to do that. I'vehad to look at how I stereotype certain
(07:29):
groups of students and how I showedup for them, and it was really
hard to think that maybe I'm notas fair as I thought I was,
that I'm not as objective as Ithought I was, and that those students
maybe weren't getting the best education thatthey could because of the stereotypes that I
placed upon them, and so itwas only after taking a deep look inside
at the environment that I grew upin and how I'm projecting that on the
(07:51):
students around me that I was ableto finally undo that. So, after
you have checked in with your ownpersonal beliefs, then you were going to
also familiarize yourself with classroom management strategies. So I'm sure that when you were
going to school to become a teacherthat they did cover classroom management to some
extent and they did talk to youabout different classroom management strategies, but you
(08:13):
still need to go and explore differentones that are outside of the curriculum that
your school talk. So you cango to websites like Edutopia, which has
really great advice for a classroom management, especially for new teachers. You can
also go to Facebook groups and readit and find out what other people are
doing in terms of strategies for managingand I wouldn't say controlling, but managing
(08:35):
student behaviors and what their discipline policiesare and things like that. You just
want to make sure that you're comingin with all of the options that you
can pick one that you feel alignswith your personal beliefs and with your educational
philosophy. Similarly, another way toprepare for bad student behaviors is to develop
(08:56):
a classroom management plan. And againyou might have on this when you were
getting your teaching credential because they wantedyou to figure out what you're going to
do in terms of classroom management,and they may even had some suggestions on
what they think you should do.But now that you reflected on your teaching
philosophy, in your own personal beliefs, and also looked at different classroom management
(09:16):
strategies online, now it's time tocome up with your own plans. So
this includes your expectations, consequences,and also rewards for positive behavior, because
we don't want to just focus onnegative things that happen in our classroom,
because we know that positive attention alsoencourages students to behave better. So think
about how you will address both positiveand negative behaviors in your classroom objectively.
(09:41):
This also makes it so it doesn'tseem like you're playing favorites if you're only
saying nice things to the people thatalways behave and only saying negative things to
the students who tend to misbehave.You want to be able to acknowledge the
students that tend to misbehave when they'redoing something right, because that encourages them
to keep doing things. That arepart of this is also making a plan
in terms of how you're going tocommunicate these expectations and rules and policies with
(10:07):
them, when you're going to dothat, how they're going to practice it,
things like that. Now, togo along with that, the next
way to prepare for bad student behavioris to emphasize relationship building. Now,
I know you've heard this so much. Build relationships, Build relationships, a
relationship building, and I've heard somany frustrated teachers who insist that they're building
(10:28):
relationships with their students and it's notworking. Regardless of that, you still
need to make a plan for it, and you still need to be really
intentional about it, and a lotof times you have to actually build this
and bake this into your daily routinesand even into your curriculum and your lesson
planning, so that students know allthe time that you were there for them,
(10:48):
even when they mess up behaviorally orwith an assignment, or even if
they're veiling your class, they knowthat you're there for them no matter what.
So this includes getting to know yourstudents, taking a genuine interest in
their lives. I mean, youdon't have to be one of those students
that goes to all of their gamesand practices and things like that, which
is taking an interest in who theyare and who they want to become.
(11:11):
Really goes far in terms of relationshipbuilding. When students feel valued and respected
even when they mess up, becauseyou guys, you know they're going to
mess up a lot, especially thestudents who tend to misbehave. When they
feel like you still value them regardlessof that, they are more likely to
engage positively in the learning process.And this is also really important in terms
(11:31):
of your personal beliefs and your teachingphilosophy, because it's hard to really build
a relationship with someone when you havea certain opinion or stereotype about them.
So if they're a student who maybeis constantly in misbehaving or fidgeting and that's
something that bugs you and you're alwaysshowing that and projecting that energy on them
(11:52):
that you are annoyed with them orjust don't think favorably of them, they're
not really going to be motivated toact positively towards you. And I've also
heard teachers talk about something on theopposite side, or they don't like a
student who maybe seems a little toogoody goody or is always asking questions or
really wants to do really really welland suck up to the teacher and they
don't like that. Well, whenyou project something or that opinion onto them
(12:16):
and it seems like it's negative,and that student is also not going to
be as motivated to necessarily try tobehave positively in your class, that may
actually cause them to revert and actlike the other student service behaving because they
feel like they're not getting the positiveat tension that they want. So we
have to really weave these steps togetherin terms of relationship building and our philosophy
(12:39):
and personal beliefs in order to getstudents to be motivated to behave in the
way that we want. So thenext way that newer teachers can prepare for
bad student behaviors is to actually practiceclassroom management techniques. Now, this can
be hard, especially if it's summertimeor if you're not teaching yet and you're
waiting for your first job, butit's really important that you actually go through
(13:01):
the physical motions of practicing. Soyou want to find a way to role
play, and this could be withsome of your friends. And I know
it might seem silly and you mightfeel stupid in front of them, but
you actually have to practice saying thewords out of your mouth when you see
a certain behavior, because otherwise youmight stumble in the real deal case at
(13:22):
school, and then the students arenot going to take you seriously. I
mean, honestly, if you canhandle your friends being knuckleheads while you are
role playing with them, then forsure you're going to be able to keep
a straight face when you have studentsoutwardly laughing at you at school when you're
trying to discipline a student. Thisdoes happen to teachers, and so if
you want to keep your calm andcomposure with a bunch up twelve year olds
(13:43):
or sixteen year olds, then youprobably want to be able to practice and
do that consistently in front of yourfriends and family. Another way to practice
this is with difficult people. Sowhen you're around people who are being difficult,
maybe you're at the store and there'ssomeone who's like super belligerent, or
someone who's being unbearable around you.It could actually be a friend, or
a family member or an acquaintance.Ask yourself, if a student was behaving
(14:07):
this way, how would you dealwith them? Also, I would take
whatever negative feelings that you are havingat that moment, whether it's frustration or
anger, and try to modulate thoseand try to bring yourself down so that
you don't react, because that's reallywhat you have to do to be effective
in terms of classroom management. Inyour classroom, in the moment when you're
being triggered by your students, youneed to be able to keep control of
(14:31):
your classroom. If you have atendency to just blow up and yell at
the kids or snap at them,or use sarcasm or anything like that,
that's actually going to work against youin the long run. So if when
you're faced with difficult adults, youcan regulate your emotions, then you know
that you're on the way to beingmore effective in terms of classroom management in
school. Similarly to practicing classroom managementtechniques is also planning and practicing routems.
(15:00):
This is where you're going to practicetelling the kids if at your expectations,
modeling those expectations for them. Ifyou teach elementary and you need them to
line up a certain way, actuallypractice how you would tell them to line
up, what you would say ifsomeone is not actually in line, if
someone is turned around talking to theirneighbor. You want to practice the things
(15:20):
that you would say so that you'renot just kind of winging it or reacting.
But the one thing that we wantto try to avoid, especially with
behaviors that we don't like, isto just straight up react. Or let's
say that you have transitions between activities. How are you going to transition the
kids. Are you going to usea timer, are you going to count
down, or you're going to playa song. Actually practice turning on that
(15:41):
timer, Practice putting on that song, or the words you're going to say,
or counting down things like that,so that it's less new and more
familiar when you're in the real situation, When students are confident that you know
the routines and procedures and that you'renot winging it or that you're unshare,
when they feel confident that the teacherknows what they're doing, they're less likely
(16:03):
to engage in negative or off taskbehaviors because they feel like they're not going
to get away with it. Theyfeel like you're on it so much that
you're going to catch them. Andwhat we really want to promote in our
classrooms is just avoiding those negative behaviorsfrom happening at all. The next way
to prepare for bad student behaviors isto seek mentorship or guidance. So this
(16:23):
can be hard during the summer monthsor during breaks because maybe school isn't happening,
but you can still reach out topeople and ask them about what they
do in terms of classroom management orhow they would handle a certain situation.
So this could be just straight updming anyone that you follow on social media
or YouTube or watching videos, becausethere are a lot of teachers who talk
(16:47):
about their classroom management techniques for aparticular grade or subject level, and it
really does differ from different grades interms of classroom management, because the way
that you would talk to a secondgrade class is obviously different than how you
would talk to a tenth grade classin terms of bad behaviors. A lot
of teachers nowadays are posting on somethinglike TikTok or Instagram actual footage of them
(17:10):
teaching with transitions and things like that, so you can follow that and see
how they do that, and thenask them follow up questions or give them
some scenarios that maybe you've witnessed andask them how they would handle that.
Another thing that you can do isfind out if summer school is happening.
So if there is summer school,especially for the upper grades, you can
go and observe and see how thoseteachers are handling classroom management behaviors, and
(17:34):
then you can ask yourself, howwould you respond to that certain behavior,
Ask yourself how you felt when astudent acted that way, in what you
would do to regulate your emotions sothat you wouldn't be reactive. Now,
the next way to prepare for badstudent behaviors, especially if you do have
a job lined up for the followingschool year, is to familiarize yourself with
(17:56):
school policies. And actually you canalso do this if you don't have a
job lined up, and you canask a local school what their school policies.
Tell them that you're a new teacherand that you're just trying to prepare
yourself for classroom management and things likethat, and then find out if they
have a student handbook with the rulesand policies that you can study ahead of
time. Now, understanding the disciplineguidelines and the behavior expectations as well as
(18:22):
reporting protocols is really key in termsof getting support from administration or anyone up
the ladder. A lot of time, schools want you to do what they
call progressive discipline, where it startswith you in your classroom dealing with the
behavior. Maybe there's like multiple chancesfor the student to demonstrate better behavior,
and then they want you to reachout to the parent first before it escalates
(18:45):
to going to be administrator. Sometimesthe behavior so bad that you just have
to send them out right away.Maybe the student is being violent or throwing
things across the classroom and endangering thelives of other students, and so that's
when you would immediately send them tothe principle or something like that. But
it's good to know what the protocolsare in your school, depending on the
(19:06):
type of behavior, maybe even beforeit goes to the principle or you know,
you refer them to someone higher up, you have to give them a
detention or something like that. SoI would definitely find out what your school's
policy is so that you can makesure that you're following the steps, because
that will better ensure that you're beingbacked up if it does escalate to where
the parent wants to hold a meeting. And the final way to prepare for
(19:27):
bad student behavior is to just stayup to date in terms of professional development.
So what this means is for youto plan to have classroom management be
an ongoing thing that you work on. I don't know anyone who has perfect
classroom management at this point. Imean, my students behave really, really
well, but I still have issuesin my classroom that I could deal with
(19:48):
better at any given time. Soyou want to research the latest strategies and
studies that are out there so thatyou can see if these are going to
help you in your classroom. Whenthe studies came out about how the pandemic
caused students to behave badly after beingin quarantine all that time, that made
me reflect on my expectations in termsof how students are going to act in
(20:11):
my classroom. And that didn't meanthat I was allowing bad behaviors to happen.
All it did was inform me asto why they were acting that way,
and then I had to ask myselfhow I could mitigate those behaviors considering
the trauma that had happened to thestudents. So staying up to date in
terms of what's happening in schools andclassroom management strategies that other people are trying,
(20:33):
it's really going to help you longterm. When things start to get
really difficult you're not really sure whatto do. Just constantly trying to sharpen
that tool belt so that you canbe on top of things will really help
you in your classroom. Now,there are a lot of educators who say
that administration school districts they should payfor this professional development, and I really
do agree that, like real dealtraining should be paid for. But if
(20:57):
you do want to be proactive interms of making sure that your classroom runs
like a well oiled machine, it'sup to you to do what it takes
to reflect and grow so that youcan become a better teacher. So classroom
management is an ongoing process where yougrow and improve, and for the most
part, it gets easier. Now. I have heard of teachers that are
(21:18):
at their twenty to thirty year markand things are actually getting harder because of
how students are behaving in their classrooms. And part of me can't help,
but wonder if it's because after you'vebeen teaching for a certain amount of time,
you kind of have like a routinedown in terms of how your classroom
is going to run and how youexpect things to happen in your classroom.
But then sometimes our expectations don't alignwith the reality of the students that are
(21:42):
in front of us. And ifwe're inflexible and you don't adjust as students
come up through the grades and theychange, then of course we're going to
be frustrated by what's happening. SoI really think that constantly evaluating your classroom
management strategies and how you can improve, and evaluating how your students are and
(22:02):
how they're evolving and changing over timereally help you so that your classroom runs
a lot better and that you're lessfrustrated. Thanks for hanging out with me.
This speak you guys, and Iwill see you next time. Thanks
for listening to The Teachers Need Teacherspodcast. Love this episode, Head over
to Apple Podcast or Google Play tosubscribe, rate and leave a review.
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years ofteaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host,him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
(00:27):
Teachers Podcast, the podcast for teacherswho don't want to just survive teaching,
but actually thrive. So I recentlyread a study that completely and irrationally triggered
me. In November of twenty twentyone, a study by the Rand Corporation
showed that only thirty six percent ofprinciples believed that the teachers in their school
were properly prepared by teacher preparation programsto handle misbehavior and discipline. In a
(00:52):
federal study done in November of twentytwenty two, three and five principles believe
that inadequate preparation teacher programs in termsof classroom management limits the efforts that the
teachers were doing to prevent misbehavior anddiscipline issues. So my first reaction as
a teacher was seriously, I thinkthat so many of us can agree that
(01:15):
principles and administrators are woefully unprepared todeal with the behavior problems at schools.
Many of us have experienced sending astudent to the principal's office for unacceptable behavior,
just objectively bad behavior, only tohave them come back a few minutes
later with nothing more than a paton the back, not even a slap
on the wrist. And worst ofall, the kids know this. So
(01:38):
after I calmed down a bit,I took a setback and realized this.
You know, a lot of usare unprepared for the current normal that is
really bad student behavior, and ofcourse it's made worse by the lack of
support by both parents and administrators.So here's a thing. If you're a
new teacher, especially, how canyou prepare for bad student behaviors? How
(02:01):
can you prepare for what you've seenon videos TikTok YouTube all over the place
in terms of student behaviors? Andalso what can you make up in terms
of what college didn't teach you.So in today's episode, I'm going to
give you ten practical ways that newteachers can better prepare for bad student behaviors,
(02:23):
Because rather than spending the summer orwhatever length of time worrying about what
awaits you at your first or nextteaching job, you can instead be proactive
and get ready and feel more confidenton that first day, week, or
even month of school. So withthese ten tips, I am going to
go in order of what I thinkare the most important. So the first
(02:44):
tip in terms of preparing for badstudent behaviors is reflecting on your teaching philosophy.
Now this one is important and youmight wonder what does this have to
do with classroom management and bad behaviors, But actually it has to do everything
in terms of how you're classroom isgoing to be run. I mean,
think about it. What kind ofan environment do you want to create?
(03:05):
Do you see yourself as being likethe more fun teacher where a lot of
kids can talk and it's just alittle bit more loose and creative. Do
you see yourself as being a morestructured teacher where students sit in rows and
where they just listen while you talkand they only answer when they raise their
hand or you call on them.What is your teaching philosophy or vision in
terms of how your classroom is run? How do you feel you were going
(03:28):
to handle any types of bad behaviorsin your classroom? Do you see yourself
as a three strikes and you're outtype of a teacher. Do you see
yourself as a let's just work withyou and give you multiple chances and maybe
we go outside and we talk aboutit type of a teacher. Do you
see yourself as a log it everysingle time and call the parent type of
teacher. I mean, this kindof stuff really matters because the more that
(03:51):
you plan ahead than the less reactiveyou're going to be. And really knowing
you're teaching philosophy is going to guideso many decisions that you make on a
day to day basis and also inyour planning. So really come to terms
with how you envision your classroom running, what makes you feel comfortable, And
I definitely wouldn't do anything that isoutside of your comfort zone right away.
(04:12):
I would definitely go with how youfeel you could do automatically on a day
to day basis. So if you'retrying to do something that's opposite your personality
right off the bat, it's goingto be very uncomfortable for you because that's
just not who you are. Andlater on, as you get more comfortable
with teaching, then you can startincorporating other ways of running your classroom that
you hadn't thought of before. Sothe next tip for preparing for bad student
(04:34):
behaviors is to reflect on your personalbeliefs and values. And again you might
be wondering, Kimp, what doesthis have to do with classroom management.
In previous videos, I've talked abouthow you're experienced with teaching and how you
cope with unwanted behaviors things like that. That plays a huge part in terms
of how you're going to react whenbad behaviors and other unwanted things show up
(04:57):
in your classroom. So one thingthat we want to do is check in
with our biases. So, whetheror not we are able to admit it,
we are all biased in some way. We have stereotypes about certain people,
whether or now you want to admitit. A lot of a stake
that we're really fair and that wesee a world as it is and that
this is how it is based onhow we observe it. But a lot
(05:18):
of times these biases and the stereotypesthat we place upon certain groups of people
do affect how we show up inour classroom, and it also affects our
classroom management strategy. Whether you wantto admit it, when you've decided that
a certain type of student or certaingroups of people behave a certain way.
If you think of that as abad thing, that's going to affect how
(05:40):
you react to it or what kindof policies you have. You might think
that you're being fair to everyone,but at the end of the day,
unless you're consciously trying to pull itback your biases or trying to be objective
and fair, you're going to reactin a way that maybe isn't actually fair
to everyone. So, for example, in a Facebook group, a teacher
had asked why is there so muchemphasis on cultural awareness? Why are we
(06:03):
emphasizing so much about cultural awareness andbehaviors and how to deal with those.
In her mind, she felt thatit was being used as an excuse for
allowing certain behaviors to happen. Andmaybe you think that too, Maybe you
think that too much of talking aboutrace or gender or anything like that is
just an excuse for allowing certain thingsto happen in your room. But here's
(06:25):
the thing. The fact that youthink that certain races or certain groups of
people are getting away with things reflectson whether or not you're going to be
biased towards them when they do certainthings in your classroom. So let's say
that you come from a small ruraltown like this person did, and you're
used to seeing certain types of peopleacting in a certain way, and maybe
(06:46):
you just kind of excused it becausethat's what you grew up with. But
then you go somewhere else, likethe inner city or a big city with
a lot of diversity, and yousee those students acting in that same way,
but you see it as different andfor some reason it's unexcusable. It's
not me calling anybody racist or anythinglike that. It's just that whether or
(07:08):
not we recognize it, sometimes ourbiases affect who we give more discipline to
or less discipline too, and howwe react to certain students acting in a
certain way. So we kind ofhave to check in with that and be
honest. And you guys, I'vementioned this in other videos before too.
I've had to do that. I'vehad to look at how I stereotype certain
(07:29):
groups of students and how I showedup for them, and it was really
hard to think that maybe I'm notas fair as I thought I was,
that I'm not as objective as Ithought I was, and that those students
maybe weren't getting the best education thatthey could because of the stereotypes that I
placed upon them, and so itwas only after taking a deep look inside
at the environment that I grew upin and how I'm projecting that on the
(07:51):
students around me that I was ableto finally undo that. So, after
you have checked in with your ownpersonal beliefs, then you were going to
also familiarize yourself with classroom management strategies. So I'm sure that when you were
going to school to become a teacherthat they did cover classroom management to some
extent and they did talk to youabout different classroom management strategies, but you
(08:13):
still need to go and explore differentones that are outside of the curriculum that
your school talk. So you cango to websites like Edutopia, which has
really great advice for a classroom management, especially for new teachers. You can
also go to Facebook groups and readit and find out what other people are
doing in terms of strategies for managingand I wouldn't say controlling, but managing
(08:35):
student behaviors and what their discipline policiesare and things like that. You just
want to make sure that you're comingin with all of the options that you
can pick one that you feel alignswith your personal beliefs and with your educational
philosophy. Similarly, another way toprepare for bad student behaviors is to develop
(08:56):
a classroom management plan. And againyou might have on this when you were
getting your teaching credential because they wantedyou to figure out what you're going to
do in terms of classroom management,and they may even had some suggestions on
what they think you should do.But now that you reflected on your teaching
philosophy, in your own personal beliefs, and also looked at different classroom management
(09:16):
strategies online, now it's time tocome up with your own plans. So
this includes your expectations, consequences,and also rewards for positive behavior, because
we don't want to just focus onnegative things that happen in our classroom,
because we know that positive attention alsoencourages students to behave better. So think
about how you will address both positiveand negative behaviors in your classroom objectively.
(09:41):
This also makes it so it doesn'tseem like you're playing favorites if you're only
saying nice things to the people thatalways behave and only saying negative things to
the students who tend to misbehave.You want to be able to acknowledge the
students that tend to misbehave when they'redoing something right, because that encourages them
to keep doing things. That arepart of this is also making a plan
in terms of how you're going tocommunicate these expectations and rules and policies with
(10:07):
them, when you're going to dothat, how they're going to practice it,
things like that. Now, togo along with that, the next
way to prepare for bad student behavioris to emphasize relationship building. Now,
I know you've heard this so much. Build relationships, Build relationships, a
relationship building, and I've heard somany frustrated teachers who insist that they're building
(10:28):
relationships with their students and it's notworking. Regardless of that, you still
need to make a plan for it, and you still need to be really
intentional about it, and a lotof times you have to actually build this
and bake this into your daily routinesand even into your curriculum and your lesson
planning, so that students know allthe time that you were there for them,
(10:48):
even when they mess up behaviorally orwith an assignment, or even if
they're veiling your class, they knowthat you're there for them no matter what.
So this includes getting to know yourstudents, taking a genuine interest in
their lives. I mean, youdon't have to be one of those students
that goes to all of their gamesand practices and things like that, which
is taking an interest in who theyare and who they want to become.
(11:11):
Really goes far in terms of relationshipbuilding. When students feel valued and respected
even when they mess up, becauseyou guys, you know they're going to
mess up a lot, especially thestudents who tend to misbehave. When they
feel like you still value them regardlessof that, they are more likely to
engage positively in the learning process.And this is also really important in terms
(11:31):
of your personal beliefs and your teachingphilosophy, because it's hard to really build
a relationship with someone when you havea certain opinion or stereotype about them.
So if they're a student who maybeis constantly in misbehaving or fidgeting and that's
something that bugs you and you're alwaysshowing that and projecting that energy on them
(11:52):
that you are annoyed with them orjust don't think favorably of them, they're
not really going to be motivated toact positively towards you. And I've also
heard teachers talk about something on theopposite side, or they don't like a
student who maybe seems a little toogoody goody or is always asking questions or
really wants to do really really welland suck up to the teacher and they
don't like that. Well, whenyou project something or that opinion onto them
(12:16):
and it seems like it's negative,and that student is also not going to
be as motivated to necessarily try tobehave positively in your class, that may
actually cause them to revert and actlike the other student service behaving because they
feel like they're not getting the positiveat tension that they want. So we
have to really weave these steps togetherin terms of relationship building and our philosophy
(12:39):
and personal beliefs in order to getstudents to be motivated to behave in the
way that we want. So thenext way that newer teachers can prepare for
bad student behaviors is to actually practiceclassroom management techniques. Now, this can
be hard, especially if it's summertimeor if you're not teaching yet and you're
waiting for your first job, butit's really important that you actually go through
(13:01):
the physical motions of practicing. Soyou want to find a way to role
play, and this could be withsome of your friends. And I know
it might seem silly and you mightfeel stupid in front of them, but
you actually have to practice saying thewords out of your mouth when you see
a certain behavior, because otherwise youmight stumble in the real deal case at
(13:22):
school, and then the students arenot going to take you seriously. I
mean, honestly, if you canhandle your friends being knuckleheads while you are
role playing with them, then forsure you're going to be able to keep
a straight face when you have studentsoutwardly laughing at you at school when you're
trying to discipline a student. Thisdoes happen to teachers, and so if
you want to keep your calm andcomposure with a bunch up twelve year olds
(13:43):
or sixteen year olds, then youprobably want to be able to practice and
do that consistently in front of yourfriends and family. Another way to practice
this is with difficult people. Sowhen you're around people who are being difficult,
maybe you're at the store and there'ssomeone who's like super belligerent, or
someone who's being unbearable around you.It could actually be a friend, or
a family member or an acquaintance.Ask yourself, if a student was behaving
(14:07):
this way, how would you dealwith them? Also, I would take
whatever negative feelings that you are havingat that moment, whether it's frustration or
anger, and try to modulate thoseand try to bring yourself down so that
you don't react, because that's reallywhat you have to do to be effective
in terms of classroom management. Inyour classroom, in the moment when you're
being triggered by your students, youneed to be able to keep control of
(14:31):
your classroom. If you have atendency to just blow up and yell at
the kids or snap at them,or use sarcasm or anything like that,
that's actually going to work against youin the long run. So if when
you're faced with difficult adults, youcan regulate your emotions, then you know
that you're on the way to beingmore effective in terms of classroom management in
school. Similarly to practicing classroom managementtechniques is also planning and practicing routems.
(15:00):
This is where you're going to practicetelling the kids if at your expectations,
modeling those expectations for them. Ifyou teach elementary and you need them to
line up a certain way, actuallypractice how you would tell them to line
up, what you would say ifsomeone is not actually in line, if
someone is turned around talking to theirneighbor. You want to practice the things
(15:20):
that you would say so that you'renot just kind of winging it or reacting.
But the one thing that we wantto try to avoid, especially with
behaviors that we don't like, isto just straight up react. Or let's
say that you have transitions between activities. How are you going to transition the
kids. Are you going to usea timer, are you going to count
down, or you're going to playa song. Actually practice turning on that
(15:41):
timer, Practice putting on that song, or the words you're going to say,
or counting down things like that,so that it's less new and more
familiar when you're in the real situation, When students are confident that you know
the routines and procedures and that you'renot winging it or that you're unshare,
when they feel confident that the teacherknows what they're doing, they're less likely
(16:03):
to engage in negative or off taskbehaviors because they feel like they're not going
to get away with it. Theyfeel like you're on it so much that
you're going to catch them. Andwhat we really want to promote in our
classrooms is just avoiding those negative behaviorsfrom happening at all. The next way
to prepare for bad student behaviors isto seek mentorship or guidance. So this
(16:23):
can be hard during the summer monthsor during breaks because maybe school isn't happening,
but you can still reach out topeople and ask them about what they
do in terms of classroom management orhow they would handle a certain situation.
So this could be just straight updming anyone that you follow on social media
or YouTube or watching videos, becausethere are a lot of teachers who talk
(16:47):
about their classroom management techniques for aparticular grade or subject level, and it
really does differ from different grades interms of classroom management, because the way
that you would talk to a secondgrade class is obviously different than how you
would talk to a tenth grade classin terms of bad behaviors. A lot
of teachers nowadays are posting on somethinglike TikTok or Instagram actual footage of them
(17:10):
teaching with transitions and things like that, so you can follow that and see
how they do that, and thenask them follow up questions or give them
some scenarios that maybe you've witnessed andask them how they would handle that.
Another thing that you can do isfind out if summer school is happening.
So if there is summer school,especially for the upper grades, you can
go and observe and see how thoseteachers are handling classroom management behaviors, and
(17:34):
then you can ask yourself, howwould you respond to that certain behavior,
Ask yourself how you felt when astudent acted that way, in what you
would do to regulate your emotions sothat you wouldn't be reactive. Now,
the next way to prepare for badstudent behaviors, especially if you do have
a job lined up for the followingschool year, is to familiarize yourself with
(17:56):
school policies. And actually you canalso do this if you don't have a
job lined up, and you canask a local school what their school policies.
Tell them that you're a new teacherand that you're just trying to prepare
yourself for classroom management and things likethat, and then find out if they
have a student handbook with the rulesand policies that you can study ahead of
time. Now, understanding the disciplineguidelines and the behavior expectations as well as
(18:22):
reporting protocols is really key in termsof getting support from administration or anyone up
the ladder. A lot of time, schools want you to do what they
call progressive discipline, where it startswith you in your classroom dealing with the
behavior. Maybe there's like multiple chancesfor the student to demonstrate better behavior,
and then they want you to reachout to the parent first before it escalates
(18:45):
to going to be administrator. Sometimesthe behavior so bad that you just have
to send them out right away.Maybe the student is being violent or throwing
things across the classroom and endangering thelives of other students, and so that's
when you would immediately send them tothe principle or something like that. But
it's good to know what the protocolsare in your school, depending on the
(19:06):
type of behavior, maybe even beforeit goes to the principle or you know,
you refer them to someone higher up, you have to give them a
detention or something like that. SoI would definitely find out what your school's
policy is so that you can makesure that you're following the steps, because
that will better ensure that you're beingbacked up if it does escalate to where
the parent wants to hold a meeting. And the final way to prepare for
(19:27):
bad student behavior is to just stayup to date in terms of professional development.
So what this means is for youto plan to have classroom management be
an ongoing thing that you work on. I don't know anyone who has perfect
classroom management at this point. Imean, my students behave really, really
well, but I still have issuesin my classroom that I could deal with
(19:48):
better at any given time. Soyou want to research the latest strategies and
studies that are out there so thatyou can see if these are going to
help you in your classroom. Whenthe studies came out about how the pandemic
caused students to behave badly after beingin quarantine all that time, that made
me reflect on my expectations in termsof how students are going to act in
(20:11):
my classroom. And that didn't meanthat I was allowing bad behaviors to happen.
All it did was inform me asto why they were acting that way,
and then I had to ask myselfhow I could mitigate those behaviors considering
the trauma that had happened to thestudents. So staying up to date in
terms of what's happening in schools andclassroom management strategies that other people are trying,
(20:33):
it's really going to help you longterm. When things start to get
really difficult you're not really sure whatto do. Just constantly trying to sharpen
that tool belt so that you canbe on top of things will really help
you in your classroom. Now,there are a lot of educators who say
that administration school districts they should payfor this professional development, and I really
do agree that, like real dealtraining should be paid for. But if
(20:57):
you do want to be proactive interms of making sure that your classroom runs
like a well oiled machine, it'sup to you to do what it takes
to reflect and grow so that youcan become a better teacher. So classroom
management is an ongoing process where yougrow and improve, and for the most
part, it gets easier. Now. I have heard of teachers that are
(21:18):
at their twenty to thirty year markand things are actually getting harder because of
how students are behaving in their classrooms. And part of me can't help,
but wonder if it's because after you'vebeen teaching for a certain amount of time,
you kind of have like a routinedown in terms of how your classroom
is going to run and how youexpect things to happen in your classroom.
But then sometimes our expectations don't alignwith the reality of the students that are
(21:42):
in front of us. And ifwe're inflexible and you don't adjust as students
come up through the grades and theychange, then of course we're going to
be frustrated by what's happening. SoI really think that constantly evaluating your classroom
management strategies and how you can improve, and evaluating how your students are and
(22:02):
how they're evolving and changing over timereally help you so that your classroom runs
a lot better and that you're lessfrustrated. Thanks for hanging out with me.
This speak you guys, and Iwill see you next time. Thanks
for listening to The Teachers Need Teacherspodcast. Love this episode, Head over
to Apple Podcast or Google Play tosubscribe, rate and leave a review.
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