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Classroom Management Compilation

E-mails received from: Smart Classroom Management michael@smartclassroommanagement.com

12/5/2014

Assembled by: Shane Harvey

http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/about-smart-classroom-management/

Contents6 Things You Must Do On The First Day Of School...................................................................................................3

4 Easy Guidelines To Calling On Students While Eliminating Rudeness, Disruptions, And Calling Out.....................5

Why You Should Never Use Restrictive Methods With Difficult Students................................................................7

10 Simple Tweaks For Instant Behavior Improvement.............................................................................................9

How To Use Music To Make Routines More Fun And Effective..............................................................................11

3 Popular Strategies You Should Stop Using With Difficult Students......................................................................12

Why You Should Never Show Annoyance At Misbehavior.....................................................................................14

How To Get Your Students To Do Their Homework...............................................................................................15

Why You Need A Good Relationship With Difficult Students.................................................................................17

10 Reasons To Smile, Breathe Easy, And Not Let Stress Get The Best Of You........................................................19

How To Avoid Arguing With Students....................................................................................................................21

Why Trial And Error Is Bad For Difficult Students...................................................................................................23

Why You Should Avoid Sending Students To The Principal....................................................................................24

What Building Relationships With Students Really Means.....................................................................................26

Why Shifting More Responsibility To Your Students Can Change Everything.........................................................27

How To Have Effective Classroom Management....................................................................................................29

10 Summer Meditations For Next School Year.......................................................................................................30

How To Handle Students Who Will Ruin Your Day If You Hold Them Accountable................................................32

Why You Must Remind Students Of Their Purpose................................................................................................34

How A Simple Change In Thinking Can Improve Behavior......................................................................................35

Why You Should Let Poorly Followed Routines Pay Out........................................................................................37

The 4 Cornerstones Of Smart Classroom Management.........................................................................................39

Why You Shouldn't Let Your Students Decide The Class Rules...............................................................................41

How To Set The Tone On The First Day Of School..................................................................................................42

How To Teach Classroom Management On The First Day Of School......................................................................44

How To Get Parents On Your Side..........................................................................................................................46

How To Develop Good Listening The First Month Of School..................................................................................47

Why You Don't Have To Be Cool To Build Rapport.................................................................................................49

Why Most Difficult Students Just Need Good Classroom Management.................................................................51

Why Silent Modeling Is A Powerful Strategy..........................................................................................................52

Are You Making Your Most Difficult Students Worse?...........................................................................................54

How To Praise With Power.....................................................................................................................................551

When And Why You Should Leave Your Students Alone........................................................................................57

How To Handle Students Who Lie And Deny..........................................................................................................59

Are You Encouraging Your Students Too Much?....................................................................................................61

How To Handle Disrespectful Students Who Don't Know They're Being Disrespectful..........................................62

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6 Things You Must Do On The First Day Of SchoolPosted: 10 Aug 2013 08:54 AM PDT

You have one opportunity to start your school year on the right classroom management foot, one shot to propel your first day of school into the best learning experience your students have ever had.

You can’t afford to leave it to chance. You can’t afford to be unprepared, uninspired, or unfocused. You can’t afford to be anything other than on top of your game. For a lasting first impression will set the tone for the rest of the school year.

It will set the tone for behavior, work habits, respect, responsibility, camaraderie, and so much more. Thus, your first day of school should reflect your vision of a dream class. It should reflect who you are, what you expect, and what it means to be a member of your special classroom.

It should stir in your students the desire to become more or better or somehow different than when they walked through your door.

What follows are six things that, when infused with your passion and conviction, and sprinkled with a dose of your wonderful imperfection, will make your first day of school one your students won’t soon forget.

1. Make a connection.

Building rapport begins the moment your students lay eyes on you. Greet them with a smile and let them know in no uncertain terms that you’re glad they’re a member of your class and now part of a unique community.

Your initial friendliness and open, welcoming heart will put them at ease and spark an immediate desire to please you, follow your lead, and pay forward your kindness throughout the classroom.

2. Set a tone of excellence.

After just a few introductory remarks, send the message that you expect excellence in everything they do by showing your students how you expect them to enter the classroom in the morning. Make it highly detailed, demonstrating every precious step.

This first routine, when taught with depth and precision, and then practiced successfully, paves the way for all other routines to be learned quickly and thereafter performed with excellence.

3. Have some fun.

Whether it’s a getting to know you game, a rollicking story of your youth, or just your everyday humor, be sure your students see, and experience, that being in your classroom also means having fun.

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It’s key to not only their motivation and attentiveness and instilling a love for learning, but it also affords you the leverage and influential presence to ask for and expect hard work, respect, and kind behavior . . . and get exactly that from your students.

4. Make a promise.

By now your students will be buzzing with the understanding that yours is no ordinary classroom. The startling expectations, the joyful learning, and the quiet thrill in their heart is evidence enough that it’s going to be a remarkable year.

They are now primed to hear from you a most important promise, a promise that will largely determine your and their success. You’re going to promise them that you will protect their special community, that you will protect their right to learn and enjoy school.

5. Fulfill your promise.

When students understand its true purpose—that is, a safeguard against interruptions, disrespect, name-calling, etc.—your classroom management plan takes on a whole new meaning. Rather than being viewed as a negative, it will be seen for what it is: a means to preserve their love of school.

Teach your plan, not as a hard-edged disciplinarian, but as one who cares enough about their education to defend it to the hilt. Although you’ll spend parts of the rest of the week modeling and practicing your plan, a detailed overview on the first day is a must.

6. Dive headlong into academics.

Establish from the get-go that your classroom is in the business of learning by diving into a challenging academic lesson (or two or three) on the first day of school. Be sure, however, that it’s spot-on—high interest, participatory, leaving no doubt as to what you want your students to know and to do.

Their success understanding and then performing your first academic objective is crucial to their confidence going forward, setting the stage for limitless improvement.

Beautiful Imperfection

Although the six items above won’t be all you’ll do on the first day of school, they are the most important. It’s a mistake, though, to assume that because they’re important, you have to be perfect. You don’t—far from it.

Have your content, your objectives, and the overall tone of the day pictured clearly in your mind, but allow yourself room to mess up, to stumble over your words (or the trash bin you forgot was behind your desk), and to pause and consider what to say next.

In this way, your natural, influence-building charisma will shine through. So let go of any and all pressure to be perfect—self-imposed or otherwise. Let go of the what-ifs and the negative trains of thought. Let go of the performancism.

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Take a long, slow, deep breath and exhale it all out into the ether, saying goodbye forever.

Just be you.

Your students will love you for it.

4 Easy Guidelines To Calling On Students While Eliminating Rudeness, Disruptions, And Calling OutPosted: 01 Mar 2014 08:51 AM PST

The way you call on your students when they raise their hand can have a strong impact on learning and behavior.

But the truth is, many teachers get it wrong.

They call on students in whatever way feels natural and end up causing resentment and a nagging perception of unfairness. They discourage rather than encourage participation and frustrate both those who raise their hand properly and those who impatiently wriggle and writhe for attention.

They bring stress and tension to an area that can and should be a source of healthy and polite give-and-take interaction.

Although teaching students how to raise their hand is important, and should be included in the classroom management-related lessons you cover the first week of school, it is your behavior in response to hand-raising that most determines its effectiveness and ease of use.

What follows are four easy guidelines that will eliminate disruptive, call-on-me-first behavior while ensuring that every student feels safe, valued, and encouraged to participate.

1. Wait first.

Your first step upon noticing hands in the air is to wait. Pause and allow every student an opportunity to think through the current topic. Many students need a moment to formulate their responses or rehearse how best to pose their questions and ideas.

Waiting also lowers the stress in the room. It does away with the notion that your students must compete to be heard. They have the luxury of time to think before raising their hand, removing the need to jump in and blurt out whatever comes to mind.

Furthermore, it breaks the habit many students develop of asking a question or sharing an answer the moment you look in their direction. “But I did raise my hand!” Finally, it gives you time to choose the right students to participate given the situation, the context, and your goals for the lesson.

2. Make eye contact.5

Before deciding who to call on—which may or may not be a student with their hand up—take a moment to make the briefest eye contact with those who are raising their hand and volunteering to participate. If it’s the entire class, scanning will suffice.

They need to know that you see them and that you’re not making your decision based on who is closest, most aggressive, or within your immediate field of vision.

Even the youngest students readily accept not being selected first—or at all—as long as they know that you see them and know that they have an answer or response. A pleasant smile and a thank you of acknowledgement when needed also helps in this regard.

3. Select only those following the routine.

One of the keys to creating an environment where all students feel safe to participate is to only call on students who are demonstrating proper hand-raising etiquette. So unless they’re quiet and sitting down in their seats with their hand straight up in the air, you will not call upon them—ever, ever, ever.

Again, it’s important that they notice you looking at them and then turning to choose only those students who are following the hand-raising routine you modeled in the beginning of the school year.

By following this simple guideline you’ll do away with aggressive hand-waving, groaning, and straining behavior.

4. Enforce disruptions.

If a student rises up in their seat and waves their arms about, there is no reason to enforce a consequence. Following the steps above will eliminate such behavior. If, however, they call out or pound their hand on their desk to get your attention, then it becomes a rule-breakingdisruption.

It’s best, though, not to enforce a consequence right away. Call on someone else. Wait until you’re ready to move on with a new question or topic before leaning in and saying, “You have a warning because you broke rule number two.”

Waiting until the moment passes before enforcing a consequence protects the flow of discussion and enables you to handle the situation gracefully and without confrontation.

Calming, Settling, Freeing

If you’re a regular reader and subscriber of Smart Classroom Management then you know that effective classroom management is about action.

What you do is infinitely more important that what you say. If your students are blurting out answers and interrupting your class, if they’re lunging out of their seats to get noticed and crowding out quieter students, then instead of reminding, threatening, or testily asking them to stop, take a step back.

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Breathe. Follow the simple guidelines above.

It is the way you call on your students, after all, that is the key to encouraging polite participation. It is the key to grooving the habit of patient listening, well-thought-out responses and opinions, and a pleasant stream of dialogue between you and your students.

It is the key that draws all students into your ring of safety—calming, settling, activating the hum and thrum of engaged minds.

Freeing every student to bloom and discover their unique voice.

Why You Should Never Use Restrictive Methods With Difficult StudentsPosted: 08 Mar 2014 08:51 AM PST

The tendency is to corral difficult students, to limit what they can do, where they can go, and who they can be with.

You keep them close. You provide a staccato of reminders and direction, of do this and don’t do that. You keep them bubble-wrapped, tethered, and under your thumb, lest they completely blow it.

It’s exhausting and time-consuming. But sadly, it’s the most commonly practiced and recommended method for dealing with difficult students. The idea being that if you can keep them away from certain classmates and risky situations, you can avoid trouble.

The problem, however, is that it doesn’t work.

Sure, you may be able to hover and micromanage their lives enough to get through a week, maybe two. But avoidance isn’t a real strategy, and soon enough they’ll break free. They’ll rail and rebel against your straitjacketed restrictions.

Furthermore, an inhibitive approach labels students and makes them feel different and creepy and not good enough. It ingrains their tendency to misbehave ever deeper into their identity.

It whispers in their ear again and again that they are their misbehavior. It becomes as much a part of who they are as their hair color or shoe size. They wear it around their neck for the world to see like a bright woolen scarf.

“You’re not allowed to be in any group with Josh or Karla.”

“I want you next to me when we go to the library.”

“You must always sit closest to my desk.”

“You’re never again to go near the monkey bars at recess.”

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“You may not be in line next to Jason, Eric, or Joanna.”

Not to be confused with the effective use of consequences—which are predetermined, limited in duration, and universally applied to all students—the above statements are methods used by teachers to avoid misbehavior from recurring.

But this form of classroom management is tragic to your most challenging students. It’s dreary and dreadful and devoid of hope. It’s more about the teacher than it is about the student and what is best for them.

The truth is that difficult students need to feel like regular students before they can start behaving like regular students. Thus, they need the same parameters, the same classroom management plan, and the same freedom within boundaries afforded to every other student in your class.

For every day is a new day. Every moment is a fresh start. Every footstep is a chance to get it right, to put the past in the past.

Like all students, if they cross your boundary lines of behavior, you follow your classroom management plan. You hold them accountable using predetermined and previously taught consequences only.

You allow them to reflect on their mistakes, learn from their missteps, and give it another go with their dignity intact. And once they’ve fulfilled their responsibilities, they’re truly free.

They’re free to receive your forgiveness, your smiles, your kindness, and your unwavering belief in their capacity to grow and change and prove wrong those who have written them off. They’re free to choose to behave rather than have it foisted arbitrarily upon them.

And this makes all the difference.

It fills them with the first stirrings of genuine confidence. It awakens their self-worth. It produces a desire to experience more and more of the cool relief that belonging and acceptance rains down upon them.

Now, this strategy only works if you’re consistent. It only works if you nurture and protect the relationship between you. It only works in conjunction with your focused, not-miss-a-thing powers of observation—for with freedom must come verification.

It is this core Smart Classroom Management principle of freedom within boundaries for all that will finally get through to your most challenging students, penetrating and softening their heart in a way they’ll never see coming.

It is, in fact, the only surefire way to change behavior, to send them on their way after their time with you resurrected, transformed, and ready to take on the world.

10 Simple Tweaks For Instant Behavior ImprovementPosted: 15 Mar 2014 08:56 AM PDT

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If you’re a longtime reader of Smart Classroom Management, then you know that we hold true the belief that classroom management is knowledge based.

It’s something you can learn, apply, and see drastic, transformational improvement—no matter who you are or where you teach.

Students respond predictably to certain approaches, strategies, and teacher behaviors, and so when you do what works, you get happy results.

To prove this truth, we present to you ten simple tweaks you can begin using tomorrow that are guaranteed to improve behavior in your classroom right now.

1. Decide

Before your students arrive for the day, make a decision to keep a calm demeanor throughout.This simple technique will eliminate excitability, settle and focus your students, and frame you in the soft light of a leader they’ll respect and want to behave for.

2. Slow Down

Resolve to take your time, pause often, and never move on until you’re getting exactly what you want from your students. This strategy is essential to starting each day on the right classroom management foot and keeping it there until dismissal.

3. Talk Less

If you can cut the amount of talking you do by a third, you’ll notice a substantial difference in how well your students listen, attend, and follow your directions. The key is to be more specific, more direct, more mindful before speaking, and less repetitious.

4. Practice

As your first order of business, teach, model, and then practice precisely how you want your students to enter your classroom in the morning. A well-performed routine to start the day will help keep your class sharp, purpose-driven, and working efficiently to the end.

5. Review

Spend a couple of minutes reviewing your classroom management plan. There is no reason to reteach it or go into great depth. Just walk them through a quick review. This keeps its importance in the forefront, ensuring that it’s never forgotten or far from mind.

6. Promise

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Make a promise to your students that you will protect their right to learn and enjoy school by following your classroom management plan as it’s written. When viewed from this perspective—as a benefit to them—your plan takes on a whole new meaning, resulting in far less misbehavior.

7. Preview

Think of the most compelling topics and activities you plan to teach that day and sell them to your students. Give them something to look forward to and get excited about. Provide them with an irresistible motive to attend and behave and love being in your class.

8. Remind

Before jumping into your first lesson, remind your students that anyone who fails to follow classroom rules risks sitting in time-out and missing a chance to participate in one or more of the super-cool lessons you’ve just previewed for them.

9. Rest

You made a commitment to yourself to stay calm and a promise to your students to enforce your classroom management plan. Now rest in the freedom they offer. Rest in the knowledge that you don’t have to get stressed-out, raise your voice, or coerce your students into behaving. You just have to follow through.

10. Enjoy

Relying solely on your classroom management plan frees you to enjoy being a teacher. It frees you to let loose your unique gifts and personality. It frees you to lower your guard and step into a more influential relationship with your students, which gives you powerful leverage to influence their behavior.

The Class You Really Want

Although making these simple changes will result in immediate improvement, they’re not a fix-all. They merely scratch the surface of a wellspring of strategies proven to transform any group of students, no matter how unruly, disrespectful, or out of control, into the well-behaved class you really want.

I encourage you to not only get your feet wet, but to dive in and plumb the depths of what is possible. You can find over 250 articles in our archive as well as links along the sidebar to both books.

If you’re new to our website, I invite you to become a free subscriber and receive articles like this one in your email box every week. We’re committed to giving you the very best, most doable classroom management tips, strategies, and solutions you can find anywhere.

Finally, our new book, Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers, is set for release on May 1st. It provides a complete, stress-free approach to classroom management written specifically for specialist teachers and their unique challenges.

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How To Use Music To Make Routines More Fun And EffectivePosted: 22 Mar 2014 08:57 AM PDT

Routines are the lifeblood of a well-run classroom.

But it’s important they’re viewed in a positive light. Because if you cue the start of a routine and your students sigh and roll their eyes, or grudgingly go through the motions, then misbehavior will surely follow.

No, your students don’t have to love routines, but there should be an energy and bounce to their step. There should be a productive whirl of movement, of intent and purpose, of a job well done.

Much of this feeling comes from the way you teach routines. Highly detailed modeling, expressly defined steps, and consistent accountability go a long way toward making them brisk and efficient.

Your attitude, too, is important. A forceful or militaristic approach leads to boredom and dissatisfaction. The constant starting and stopping, the stern reminders, the hard stares and impatient body language . . . these teacher behaviors cause more problems than they solve.

In order to experience the wonderful benefits of routines—which include saving hours of learning time and making your teaching life easier and less stressful—there must be a spirit of cooperation and liveliness among your students.

Many years ago, my friend Rick Morris of New Management shared with me a simple way to cultivate this spirit through music. The way it works is that instead of providing a verbal signal to initiate a routine, you would simply turn on a piece of music.

You’d click a link in iTunes or aim your remote at a boom box, and like magic your students would launch into action, putting away their work and lining up for lunch, for example, exactly as they were taught.

But what’s so cool about this strategy is that the music both cues the start of the routine and sees to its conclusion. In other words, you choose the length of music to fit the particular routine. It acts as a timing device, moving students along as they hustle to complete their responsibilities before the song ends.

There is some planning involved in selecting the right music to match a routine, and you’ll want to practice with your class before putting it in play, but once they’ve got it, they’ve got it.

When using this strategy for the first time, it’s a good idea to start small. Choose a simple routine like lining up to leave the room and match it with a 60-second song.

Sound Project 2014 is a great resource. SP14 is a free bimonthly newsletter from Rick Morris whose purpose is to help teachers choose the best music for their classroom. Rick has teamed with freeplaymusic.com to offer hundreds of songs that are both free for educational purposes and perfect for the classroom.

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In his newsletter, Rick offers reviews, playlists, and categories based on how best to use each song. You can even take part by creating your own playlist to share with other teachers. Whether you’re looking for music to inspire creativity, increase focus and concentration, or cue more efficient routines, SP14 is the place to go.

Another great resource is Televisiontunes.com, where you can find thousands of free songs from every television show imaginable. They’re fun, students love and recognize them, and most have a length that pairs well with classroom routines.

The moment your students hear the first bars of Yu-Gi-Oh, Doctor Who, or the jazz tune with the cool thrum-beat you discovered through SP14, morale will lift, motivational engines will shift into gear . . .

And your routines will become less routine.

3 Popular Strategies You Should Stop Using With Difficult StudentsPosted: 29 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PDT

Much of your success with difficult students hinges on what you don’t do. But this is no easy task, because some of the most popular and commonly used strategies fall into this category.

When seemingly everyone around you, including your closest teacher chums, is relying on the same bundle of strategies—and complaining incessantly about how nothing is working—it can be a challenge to break from the pack.

It can be a challenge to go your own way, to refuse to follow the masses, to walk to the beat of a different drum. But if you do . . . ah, if you do . . . the sky will open and a scroll of remarkable secrets will descend to your feet.

For if you do nothing more than avoid the following three strategies, you’ll discover an amazing natural ability to connect with and influence your most difficult students, paving the way for genuine, transformational improvement.

1. Intimidation

Any strategy that seeks to frighten or bully students into behaving will backfire every time. Although yelling, threatening, and scolding can result in immediate improvement, their hurtful nature will ensure that it’s merely temporary.

Their use will cause students to dislike you intensely—though often privately—which will undermine your efforts to build influential relationships with them. Thus, they won’t trust you, listen to you, or even care about what you have to say.

They will, however, be driven to misbehave when you turn your back.

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2. Persuasion

Trying to convince students to behave entails telling them what they should think and how they should feel. It entails forcing an explanation of why they misbehaved and what they could have done better. It entails awkwardness and squirming discomfort.

Far from eliciting thoughtful reflection, pulling students aside interferes with the accountability process. It causes the building of heavily fortified walls, behind which they’ll either parrot what you want to hear, become argumentative and disrespectful, or clam up entirely.

For lasting improvement, your students need to be given the opportunity to ponder their misbehavior, take responsibility for it, and resolves to do better all on their own. Your job is to lead them there through consistent accountability and a leadership presence they trust, respect, and believe in.

3. Capitulation

Picking your battles, letting misbehavior go, caving in . . . capitulation amounts to giving up on difficult students. It communicates that you don’t care, that they’re beyond hope and not worth the trouble.

This is a devastating message that leads to more frequent and more severe misbehavior and an even deeper hole to climb out of.

Holding them to a standard of behavior they need for success in school is the most compassionate thing you can do for them. And when you offer open-armed, no-stings-attached grace and forgiveness on the other side, it has the power to soften the hardest of hearts.

Less Is More

All three of the above strategies deepen the alienation and differentness difficult students feel. They cause resentment, distrust, and a greater compulsion to misbehave. They cause the same old, same old. Another year and another red dot on their enrollment card.

What they need is not more attention, more spirit-breaking lectures, or more weak-kneed accountability. What they need is a teacher who inspires them to take a better path.

The good news is that becoming that teacher doesn’t take piling yet another thing on your plate. It doesn’t take getting stressed-out or fumbling for the perfect thing to say. It doesn’t take having to do anything that feels overbearing, dishonest, or manipulative.

No, the secret isn’t in what you have to do.

It’s in what you don’t have to do.

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Why You Should Never Show Annoyance At MisbehaviorPosted: 05 Apr 2014 08:48 AM PDT

If you’re struggling with classroom management, then chances are you become annoyed when your students misbehave.

Your blood pressure rises. Your eyes narrow and your lips tighten. Your displeasure can be seen and felt from every corner of your classroom.

But every time you react emotionally to misbehavior, you shift control over to your students. You step out of the driver’s seat and hand them the keys. You give up the upper hand in the relationship. All before saying a word.

Because when you let misbehavior get under your skin, you communicate to anyone remotely paying attention that your peace and contentment is dependent on how they behave. And once this is established, classroom management becomes a high-altitude climb.

It becomes a whiteout on Mount Everest.

Many, many teachers have become so accustomed to the sinking, powerless feeling of being at the mercy of their students that it corrupts their every action. It causes them to walk on eggshells, to avoid dealing with misbehavior, and to accept less than what they know is best for their students.

An outsider can see this void of leadership within seconds of entering the classroom—brazen student body language, disrespectful nonchalance, and disregard for the teacher and what they have to say.

The truth is, to have the well-behaved class you really want, you must maintain your deep care and concern for your students . . . while at the same time not give a whit if they misbehave.

You must have the attitude that although you don’t wish for them to misbehave, if they make that choice, then nothing on earth will stop you from letting accountability do its good work.

So instead of taking the stress, tension, and disappointment of misbehavior upon yourself, instead of internalizing it and enduring its slow burn, you will calmly and without a second thought fulfill your promise of following your classroom management plan.

Once you cross this hurdle from taking misbehavior personally to dispassionately allowing your classroom management plan to do its job, annoyance will no longer have a hold on you.

You’ll no longer feel the roil of tension and frustration rising up in your throat. You’ll no longer tiptoe around students or endure teaching through disruptions. You’ll no longer leave for the day wrung out and dreading tomorrow.

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Instead, you’ll be empowered to respond effectively to misbehavior. You’ll be empowered tocalmly approach any student who misbehaves and say, “You have a warning because you broke rule number one. If it happens again, you’ll go to time-out.”

In an instant, the hands of leverage will shift in your favor.

Because when your students know that their misbehavior, no matter how egregious, won’t affect you in the least, it will change everything. It will bring peace to your classroom and provide them a leader they can respect, admire, and want to behave for.

This is a profound and often-overlooked aspect of effective classroom management. But it only works if it’s real. It only works if you truly feel it. If you have to force yourself to keep calm, the internal strife will inevitably bubble to the surface.

The secret is to rely exclusively on your classroom management plan. Let it do its intended job. Let it alleviate any and all annoyance, frustration, anger, and stress. Let it bear 100% of the burden.

So you can respond to misbehavior without a care in the world.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

How To Get Your Students To Do Their Homeworkby Michael Linsin

Homework can be particularly frustrating because it takes place outside of your presence. Once you send your students off for the day, they're on their own—with only the faintest echo of your voice imploring them to get it done.

Furthermore, they may have soccer practice, music lessons, family responsibilities, and other obstacles standing between them and a time and place to concentrate.

They may have a chaotic home life, a barking dog next door, or their favorite video game blaring from the living room television. They may even be left to their own devices, with no suitable place to sit down or anyone to see to their basic needs.

Although the challenges can be daunting, with the right approach they can be overcome.

Here's how:

Homework must be practice only.

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To have the requisite motivation to get their homework done, your students need to know that they're capable of doing it. They need to have already proven to themselves during the school day that they can complete it on their own and without your input.

It isn't fair to them to struggle through work they don't fully comprehend. Even one time will sap their motivation for completing future assignments. Homework is about practice, success, and building confidence.

Repetition, after all, isn't a bad word. It's an essential part of learning. It deepens the grooves and frees them to think creatively and to make connections and associations. Although it's fine if parents want to be involved, it should never be a requirement.

Homework must be independent.

Many teachers complain that although they indeed cover the homework material thoroughly, they still have students reporting that they “didn't get it.” In almost every circumstance, this is due to a culture of dependence in the classroom.

It's due to the teacher doing too much for their students—buzzing around the room, hovering over shoulders, reteaching what was taught only minutes before. Daily independent practice is so, so important, yet many teachers disrupt this critical time with their overinvolvement.

As a result, their students become so accustomed to receiving immediate, extensive, and personal help that when it's time to truly do it on their own, which is usually at home, they're lost.

Homework must be nightly, not weekly.

The guidelines above are reason enough to forgo weekly packets in favor of nightly homework. Your students need to practice what they learned that day to further solidify learning and prepare them for more challenging material the next.

Furthermore, with weekly packets, the temptation to rush through the work, put it off until the last minute, or copy from a friend is too great.

Completing it each night, on the other hand, improves responsibility and academic discipline and makes homework less an event they have to steel themselves for, and more a harmonious exercise during which the material becomes second nature.

Homework must be checked first thing.

Accountability isn't just a predetermined consequence. It can also be a personal accounting to someone respected and looked up to. In this vein, it's important to check your students' homework in front of them and first thing in the morning.

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I recommend having your students set it out neatly on their desk as part of your morning routine. While they read independently or attend some other learning task, take five minutes or so to walk around the room and check each student's work personally.

This is a very powerful strategy, especially if you're following our principles and your leadership presence is growing by the day. In fact, done right, this strategy alone is your most important homework tool.

Respect & Influence

How your students feel about you is an important factor in getting homework returned. It's a reflection of your level of influence and their level of respect for you.

This underscores the importance of building rapport and mutual likability with your students, while at the same time faithfully doing exactly what you say you will. These two pillars of effective classroom management work together to create an almost sacred respect for you and your classroom.

They work together to produce a deep trust, so that when you tell them that homework is important, they believe it and are willing to go to great lengths not to disappoint you.

They work together to extend your influence beyond the four walls of your classroom, and into the homes and living rooms of your students.

To the very time and place they do their homework.

Why You Need A Good Relationship With Difficult StudentsBy Michael Linsin

Most teachers have a less-than positive relationship with difficult students—although it isn't always evident to those around them.

Indeed, the teacher may not yell, scold, or berate them in front of their classmates, but that doesn't mean there isn't resentment churning under the surface. It doesn't mean the teacher doesn't secretly hope they'd move out of the neighborhood.

Difficult students are accustomed to cold-war relationships with teachers. They're used to the quiet tension, the heavy sighs, and the obligatory smiles. They know when they're disliked or merely tolerated. The disconnect is palpable.

But to truly change their behavior, to eliminate disruptions, drama, and disrespect from your classroom, merely refraining from hurtful methods isn't enough. You must cultivate a harmonious relationship with them, one they'll come to appreciate and cherish.

Here's why:

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A good relationship provides leverage.

If you don't have a favorable relationship with difficult students, if they're unhappy with you and dislike being in your classroom, then your ways and means of accountability aren't going to mean much to them. They just won't care.

Time-out means nothing to a student who resents their teacher. It means nothing if there isn't a clear difference in experience between being a valued member of your classroom and being separated from it.

The leverage you need to compel them to behave comes from your likability and general pleasantness. When they like you and trust you, they'll want to please you. This is the only surefire way to influence their behavior.

A good relationship softens the heart.

Students don't listen to people they don't like. None of us do. If your words are to have any effect, if they're to matter and penetrate deep enough to make a difference, they must come from someone your students look up to.

Your steadfast refusal to let misbehavior get under your skin opens an initial line of communication. It frees the Gordian knot and makes building a good relationship possible. It makes them receptive to your humor and friendliness.

Difficult students expect you to glare at them. They expect sarcasm. They expect you to be like all the rest. They may even feel they deserve it. So when you roll into the picture offering kindness and forgiveness, it softens their heart and draws them like a magnet into your circle of influence.

A good relationship removes ugly labels.

Your willingness to joke, to say hello, to look at them and smile, to bond over your mutual interests, to choose to like them—with no strings attached—proves to difficult students that they're wanted and welcome and have all the privileges that come with being a member of your classroom.

This is a powerful message most difficult students have never received. It's a message that profoundly impacts how they view themselves and their world. You see, difficult students are weighed down by highly impressionable labels like behavior problem, goof-off, andtroublemaker.

They have an irresistible inclination to fulfill those labels, to become what is reinforced day after day. But when they're treated like everyone else, those ugly labels begin to slide off their shoulders. They lift and scatter like a dense fog reveals a sunny day.

And once difficult students begin to feel like everyone else, once their identity shifts from the margins of your classroom to Grade-A stamped and approved member, they begin behaving like everyone else.

It's Starts With You

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Having a good relationship with difficult students is a choice you make that is 100% in your power to control. But it must come from you first. It must be pure altruism, with zero expectation of receiving anything in return.

Which means that you may very well endure hurtful disrespect in the beginning. You may endure silliness, shunning rudeness, and even cruel behavior. You may have to swallow hard and remind yourself of your mission and why you really became a teacher.

You have to make a daily commitment that no matter how egregious the misbehavior, you will not take it personally. After all, it's coming from a hurt and confused child. It's coming from a boy or girl who desperately needs you to step forward, grab their hand, and lead them out of the mire.

But once you get through this stage, you'll have an opportunity few teachers have had before you. You'll have an opportunity to make a mark that will endure long after they leave your classroom.

You'll have an opportunity to climb through the rubble, walk unchallenged past their defenses, and speak in both word and example directly into their heart.

You'll have an opportunity to make a true connection.

And change their life.

10 Reasons To Smile, Breathe Easy, And Not Let Stress Get The Best Of YouBy Michael Linsin

Much of the stress teachers feel today comes from sources outside of the classroom.

New curriculum, policies, and programs, tweaks and changes to this and that, and the near-constant call for flexibility—all zooming at you at an alarming rate—can feel like an ever-present dark cloud hanging over your head.

Here at Smart Classroom Management we believe that the best approach to anything beyond your immediate control is laid-back acceptance. We believe in listening and learning without judgment and leaving school at school.

We believe in shaking your arms out, howling at the morning moon, and having a lot more fun with your class.

Here’s why:

1. Building rapport will become effortless.

Having a calm, confident demeanor comes naturally when you’re not feeling stressed. Humor and patience, too, come easy. And because students are drawn to such a leadership style, building rapport is something you don’t consciously have to work at.

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2. Excitability will plummet.

Excitability among students is a major cause of misbehavior, but not among teachers who carry themselves with an all-is-well vibe. Your calmness alone will engender confidence in you and cause your students to settle down and focus on learning.

3. Your students will be happier.

To the extent your students enjoy being in your classroom is largely determined by your personality and temperament. When you’re able to shrug off outside pressures to smile and revel in the moment with your students, they’ll respond in kind.

4. Behavior will improve.

When students walk into a classroom that makes sense to them—one with a peaceful aura and clear boundaries of behavior and protection—they can’t help but be affected. They can’t help but feel they’re right where they belong. They can’t help but be inspired to give the best of themselves.

5. Learning will increase.

Stress inhibits concentration, participation, and performance. A classroom free of tension, on the other hand, is the perfect incubator for learning—with students naturally becoming more creative, more focused, and more comfortable sharing with their classmates.

6. Your words will have power.

When you’re internally calm, it will show most notably in the way you communicate with your students. A soft, unhurried tone, with pauses and open, accessible facial expressions and body language, will make your words more interesting and persuasive to your students.

7. You’ll experience far less day-to-day stress.

An honest reassessment of what is truly worthy of your mental energy will remove much of your work-related stress. You’ll find that most news and gossip is just that, offering no real reason to get uptight or spend a single minute of your day worrying about it.

8. You’ll be happier.

The simple elimination of needless stress will completely upend your workaday outlook. It will lighten your step, slacken your shoulders, and paint the sky a watercolor blue. It will make you more effective, more charismatic, and a lot more fun to be around.

9. You’ll respond calmly to misbehavior.

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Free from the mental burden of what may or may not come to pass, you’ll find yourself with deeper reserves of composure and patience and an almost otherworldly ability to respond to misbehavior without anger or frustration.

10. You’ll be present for friends and family.

One of the consequences of stewing over anything you have little control over is that it will cause you to bring stress home with you. Focusing solely on your sphere of influence and responsibility (i.e. your classroom), on the other hand, will allow you to leave school at school.

Safeguarding Your Peace

Teacher stress seems to be getting worse every day, and it’s no wonder. Change keeps a-coming, faster and more furious than ever before.

But it doesn’t have to affect you emotionally; not without your permission anyway.

Being in the classroom is challenging enough without allowing events and decisions beyond your control to affect your peace and ability to manage and inspire your students. Let all the outside stuff inform you intellectually, but never emotionally.

Accept what you can’t change. Learn what you need to learn. And save your passion, your enthusiasm, and your energy for the classroom.

How To Avoid Arguing With StudentsBy Michael Linsin

It’s easy to get pulled into an argument.

Example:

You notice a student pushing a classmate during a transition. It’s a clear violation of your classroom management plan, so you move in and enforce a consequence. Upon hearing the news, however, the student’s eyes go wide, their jaw drops, and they begin to protest.

“No way! I didn’t touch him. He cut in front of me.”

As soon as you answer back, as soon as you respond and try to justify the consequence, you’re in a full-fledged argument. Just like that, you’re in deep and can’t get out until you convince them to accept the error of their ways.

In the meantime, you’ve brought tension into your classroom. You’ve interrupted learning. You’ve increased the chances that the student will dig in their heels, battle tooth and nail, and blame you for the consequence.

It’s a tangled, stress-filled mess.

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If, however, we rewind the tape to the moment you first informed the student of the consequence, you can avoid the argument altogether.

You see, the mistake the teacher in the above scenario made was waiting for a response. Many, if not most, teachers do this. They give a consequence and then await the reaction. It’s almost as if the they anticipate an argument. They steel themselves for it and even rehearse what to say next.

But what this does is invite students to do just that. Before you know it, every time you give a consequence, there is an argument. There is a complaint, a challenge, a tantrum, a protest, a roll of the eyes, or a display of disrespect.

The good news is that with a simple strategy you can eliminate such reactions entirely. The key is not giving them the chance.

When you give a consequence, approach the student and pause until they turn and face you. Let the moment, the truth of what just occurred, hang in the air a moment. Calmly, almost robotically, deliver your consequence and then immediately turn back to what you were doing before.

You know they broke a rule, so there is no reason for you to argue. They know they broke a rule, so there is no (honest) reason for them to argue. Thus, no other communication needs to be exchanged.

It’s important to note that how you give a consequence must be thoroughly taught and modeled as part of the series of classroom management-related lessons you’ll teach during the first few weeks of each school year.

If you establish it from the beginning, arguing won’t even occur to them.

Now, if in the rare case a student follows you and attempts to argue, it’s okay to repeat yourself one time. If the student continues, or has a tantrum and stomps off or refuses to go to time-out, then wait until they cool off before following up with a stronger consequence.

We receive a lot of emails from teachers wrung out from arguing and perplexed as to why their students so aggressively resist and fight back, seemingly over every consequence. But in most cases arguing is brought on by the teacher, not the student.

If you leave a void by waiting for a response, your students are going to fill it. One of our mottos here at SCM is that students respond predictably to certain teacher behaviors. In the case of arguing, this couldn’t be more true.

Arguing is a byproduct of your behavior. It’s encouraged through your desire to see the student’s reaction to the consequence, to look into their eyes for evidence that they’re taking responsibility.

But if you want to eliminate arguing, complaining, and the like from your classroom, you mustn’t wait for a reaction.

Instead, trust your classroom management plan and deliver your consequence with confidence.“You have a warning because you broke rule number three and didn’t keep your hands to yourself.”

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Then walk away.

Why Trial And Error Is Bad For Difficult StudentsBy Michael Linsin

Difficult students need your leadership. They need your consistency. They need your honesty, your forgiveness, and your unwavering belief in them.

They need your fixed boundaries, your steady, predictable presence, your faithful accountability, and your commitment to doing what is right by them and their future.

In other words, they need you.

What they often get, however, is something entirely different. What they often get is an endless succession of haphazard strategies.

Week after week they’re the subject of every “why don’t you try this” strategy under the sun. They’re the subject of trial and error, of experimentation, of offhand bits of advice thrown against the wall to see what sticks.

One week their every move is corrected. The next week they’re ignored. The week after that they’re excessively praised.

From behavior contracts to special privileges to a humiliating day in the principal’s office, over the course of a school year challenging students are propped up, cut down, and tossed about like a dinghy in a squall.

A promised Twizzler stick after a good day, a week’s worth of recess time-out, a smiley face sticker on a progress report . . . the long column of disjointed strategies merely deepens their feelings of differentness and pushes them further and further from success.

It’s confusing and destructive. It labels them in the eyes of their peers and plays with their emotions. It crushes their spirit. It convinces them that there is something wrong with them, that they’re not like other students, that they don’t measure up.

The fact is, difficult students will never truly improve as long as they’re treated like test subjects. For it isn’t trial and error that transforms behavior.

It’s you.

It’s your fair and consistent accountability. It’s your humor and rapport. It’s the smiles, the gentleness, the mutual likability, and the heartfelt connection between you. It’s the same, day-after-day influence of a teacher they look up to and a classroom that makes sense.

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But you have to put a stop to the harmful cycle of trial and error. You have to end the revolving door of strategies du jour, the pushing and pulling of emotions, the manipulation and rug-pulling, and the hurtful labels that threaten to drag them down for a lifetime.

You have to take a stand and say, “Enough is enough.” You have to create a stable environment they can count on—one you begin teaching, modeling, and implementing the first day of school.

You have to stay the course and let the joy and peace that comes with being a priceless member of your classroom grab hold.

Fill their heart.

And transform behavior.

Why You Should Avoid Sending Students To The PrincipalBy Michael Linsin

Contrary to what many believe, the role of principal doesn't include directly influencing behavior in your classroom. It shouldn't, anyway. Because the more personally involved your principal is, the harder it will be to manage your class.

It seems counterintuitive. It seems like the opposite would be the case. It seems like the best administrators would be those who encourage teachers to send unruly students to their office.

But the truth is, if you want exceptional classroom management, if you want to create a peaceful learning environment you look forward to coming to every day, it's best to handle misbehavior yourself.

It's best to avoid referring students altogether.

Here's why:

It weakens your influence.

When you refer a student to the principal you're communicating to that student—as well as to the rest of your class—that you're not the ultimate authority of your classroom. It sends the unmistakable message that you can't handle them on our own.

Thus, you become less relevant in your students' eyes. You carry less weight and influence. Your respect and leadership presence diminishes. Your words, reminders, and exhortations become as easy to dismiss as a wave of the hand.

It saps your confidence.

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Relying on your principal to step in and handle what is your responsibility can be devastating to your self-confidence. Dealing with challenging students is part of the job, and is something you'll do well to never hide from or pass along to someone else.

Sending a student up the ladder will surely cause you to doubt yourself and your ability. It will make you fearful to confront misbehavior and inconsistent in following through. For every time you successfully handled it on your own, on the other hand, you'll raise your skill level and bolster your confidence.

It emboldens misbehavior.

When a student arrives in the front office, for the most part a principal's hands are tied. Yes, they can lecture. They can question, scold, and threaten with further consequence. They can try to persuade or intimidate the student into behaving.

But these methods are no more effective than they are in the classroom—less so because the principal isn't there with your students every day. The worst of it is, in no time that same misbehaving student will be right back in your classroom.

The difference is that now they'll know you're unable to manage them by yourself—or at all for that matter. Rather than dissuading misbehavior, it emboldens it.

So When Should You Refer Students?

A good principal can have influence on behavior—tremendously so.

But it comes indirectly through their leadership, their organizational skills, their expectations of teachers, and their commitment to excellence. It comes via their emphasis on cleanliness, orderliness, and well-followed routines and procedures.

That isn't to say that you should never refer students to your principal. Any dangerous, harmful, or potentially suspendable behavior should be documented and brought to your principal's attention immediately.

But even still, it's important that you don't simply fill out a referral form and ship the student off for the boss to handle. No, you must take the lead. You must sit in the meeting. You must contact the parents. You must show the student that you're not pawning them off on someone else.

You must show them that you care enough, that they matter enough, for you to be there in the thick of it, right along with them.

If you embrace the challenge of being the ultimate authority of your classroom, if you take responsibility for your students and the behavior in your classroom, not only will you be empowered with stronger influence, greater respect, and deeper self-confidence . . .

But you’ll experience far less misbehavior.

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What Building Relationships With Students Really MeansBy Michael Linsin

It’s common for teachers to misunderstand the term “building relationships.”

They hear of the importance of creating connections with students—particularly difficult students—and assume it means they need to spend more time with them individually.

They assume it means they need to try and get to know them on a more personal level.

But for a real-world teacher, finding the time to build relationships in this manner is not only unrealistic, but it’s also ineffective. In fact, seeking out individual students in an attempt to earn their trust and rapport can do more harm than good.

You see, for most students, being cornered into a non-academic conversation with their teacher is uncomfortable—exceedingly so. It can make them feel clumsy and self-conscious and at a loss of anything to say.

Even the most socially confident students will feel unnerved and wary of your motives. And yet, there are teachers who day after day insist on pressing the issue.

They beckon students out of line, into hallways, and away from the social safety of fellow classmates. They barge into personal space. They query likes and dislikes and commonalities. They become forward and overbearing.

Although their heart is in the right place, what develops is a relationship of awkwardness and embarrassment. What develops is defensiveness and detachment. What develops builds walls instead of tearing them down.

But the goal of building relationships with students isn’t familiarity. It’s influence. And influence comes about not by one-on-one interactions, not by getting to know a student’s favorite ice cream or video game, and not by being hip to current pop-cultural trends.

No, influential relationships come about through your trust and likability.

If your students trust you because you always do what you say will, and they like you because you’re consistently pleasant, then powerful, behavior-influencing rapport will happen naturally and without you having to work at it.

Your students will seek you out and want to be around you and get to know you better. They’ll be drawn to you and pulled effortlessly into your circle of influence.

Your conversations and interactions then become open and easy. When you sit down to lunch with   groups   of students or meet them in their line before school, the give-and-take flows smoothly, organically. Nothing is forced. Nothing is inauthentic.

Even quiet and shy students—especially quiet and shy students—will come out of the woodwork to laugh and joke with you and exchange goofy smiles. This in turn gives you remarkable leverage to influence behavior, work habits, and enthusiasm for being part of your classroom.

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So stop buying into the notion that you have to build relationships one student at a time. Stop thinking that you have to add yet another time-consuming strategy to your overflowing plate. Stop spending more time with some students and not others.

The fact is, the most effective way to build relationships with students also happens to be the most effective approach to classroom management.

Be true to your word. Follow through with your classroom management plan. Refrain from any and all harmful, scolding, bribing, manipulative, or friction-creating methods of managing behavior.

Smile. Love your students. Bring humor and joy to your classroom. And you’ll never, ever have to try to build influential relationships.

They’ll just . . . happen.

Why Shifting More Responsibility To Your Students Can Change EverythingBy Michael Linsin

Teachers who struggle with classroom management tend to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.

They're burdened with the need to walk, talk, correct, cajole, and remind their students through every this and every that. 

They're saddled with having to remain on tense alert from morning bell to dismissal.

They've been conditioned to believe that their hovering presence and near-constant input is the only way to keep a lid on their classroom and their students even nominally on task. Every day is a grind. Stress and exhaustion are an ever-present reality.

The joy of teaching is a distant dream.

The students, on the other hand, go about their day without a care in the world beyond their own wants and needs. They flop along silly and unfettered. They swivel their heads with distraction. They side-talk and argue and slide deeper into their seats as if nothing is at stake.

To an observer, they do appear to need non-stop attention. They appear to need continual guidance and encouragement. They appear to need ten teachers, not one.

But it's all an illusion.

You see, the students in the above scenario behave the way they do because they receive too much attention. They're immature and impulsive and me-focused because they have too little responsibility of their own. They don't care because they don't have to care.

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Left bored and unchallenged and annoyed at their teacher's smothering, ever-present shadow, they predictably turn to, ahem, other pursuits.

The Shift

The most effective teachers turn this script on its head.

They focus their energy not on micromanaging students, but on good instruction. They focus on teaching and modeling highly detailed expectations. They focus on showing precisely, step-by-step, what they want their students to do.

Then they take their hands off the wheel.

They shift the responsibility for carrying out their expectations in toto to their students. They take a step back and allow their students to succeed (or fail) all on their own. They stand steady and observant with an attitude that says, “Now show me.”

They free their students to indulge the desire and satisfaction that resides inside each one of them to take on responsibility, to overcome challenges, and to rely triumphantly upon themselves. They leave a void that well-taught, well-prepared students will naturally and eagerly fill.

Their expectations are backed both by individual and group consequences, but never by micromanagement. Never by frequent reminders or warnings. Never by stepping in to offer help or guidance where none is needed.

The students, in turn, thrive in such an environment.

They crave challenge and responsibility, and they blossom as a result of having it heaped upon their shoulders. They turn from needy and unmotivated to responsible and fiercely independent. They walk and move and attend with purpose.

By focusing on providing world-class instruction—the very essence of what it means to be a teacher—and then allowing your students to do their job, you can completely change the character of your classroom.

You can experience teaching the way it ought to be—joyful, transformational, masterful.

The way you always wanted it.

How To Have Effective Classroom ManagementBy Michael Linsin

Teachers who struggle with classroom management tend to head into the start of every school year with a wait and see approach.

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Sure, they may have an idea of how they want to manage their classroom. They may have strategies they've leaned on in the past, lessons learned from the year before, and a renewed commitment to being more consistent.

But they trust their instincts above all. They trust their ability to change, adapt, and adjust. They trust that they'll be able to learn on the fly and jump nimbly through the minefields of another new group of students.

They trust that this time—somehow, someway—they'll cobble together the right mix of strategies, the right words to say, the right pieces to the puzzle.

And inevitably when things start going south, when they find themselves calling out over the din of their classroom, raising their voice, and arguing with their most challenging students, they'll seek advice from wherever they can get it.

They'll query colleagues and spouses. They'll pose chat-room questions. They'll plug their most pressing issues into their favorite search engine. They'll pick and choose, play their hunches, and then give it a go.

But effective classroom management isn't an experiment.

It isn't a jumbled, disparate, mix-up of strategies that have no business being in the same classroom together. It isn't a series of tweaks and adjustments based on gut feelings, best guesses, or divining sticks.

No, effective classroom management is deliberate and predictable—with success determined ahead of time. It's proactive, preplanned, and unified. It's knowing what to do and why you do it.

It's a personality, a presence, and a leadership style that provides behavior-changing leverage and influence. It's fair and low in stress. It calms, settles, and focuses. It breathes and inspires.

It calls for you to go into each new school year knowing how to create a classroom your students will love being part of, where work habits, politeness, and independence develop naturally, and where students are inspired to want to behave.

Beginning a new school year without a clear-cut vision and understanding of where you want to go and how you're going to get there is a precarious game of chance. It's classroom management based on hope and the luck of the draw.

It's accepting less than what is possible and less than what you're capable of.

It isn't uncommon for teachers to spend days, even weeks, preparing units of study, but give short shrift to the one thing that frees you to teach with passion and frees your students to learn without interruption, disruption, and drama.

As you head into the summer, we here at Smart Classroom Management encourage you to spend time perusing our archive and checking out our books. We encourage you to develop a solid base of understanding of what really works and why.

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The truth is, effective classroom management is simpler and more accessible than most teachers realize. Regardless of who you are or where you teach, you really can embark on the next new school year knowing exactly how to set up a peaceful, well-behaved classroom.

You really can know how best to respond to virtually any and every classroom management situation that arises. You really can take a new group of students with vastly different personalities and behavior tendencies and transform them into the class you've always wanted.

But it starts before the school year begins.

It starts now.

10 Summer Meditations For Next School YearBy Michael Linsin

One of the great things about teaching is that every year is a fresh start. Every year allows you to wipe the slate clean, reinvent yourself, and become a better, more effective teacher.

Summer provides an opportunity to push the reset button, to reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for the next.

It's the perfect time to ponder the changes and improvements you'd like to make and consider the kind of teacher you'd really like to be.

What follows are ten meditations that are sure to prepare you for the best year of teaching you've ever had. They provide a framework for exceptional classroom management from which inspired teaching and learning naturally flow.

1. Consistency

Consistency in your behavior, in your interactions with students, in your speaking and temperament, and in your follow-through is critical to creating a happy, well-behaved classroom. Your steady reliability is the foundation from which you build trust, rapport, likability, and so much more.

2. Routines

Every repeatable moment of the school day should be made into a routine your students can perform without your assistance. Knowing what to do and how to do it well fills them with a sense of purpose, allowing them to focus on learning and cutting way down on misbehavior.

3. Modeling

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Showing your students in a highly detailed way how you want them to enter the classroom, turn in work, raise their hand, and perform scores of other routines and learning tasks is the most efficient way to teach virtually anything you want your students to be able to do.

4. Temperament

Your temperament has a powerful effect on behavior, yet most teachers don't give it a second thought. Maintaining a calm, easygoing demeanor settles students, removes excitability, and gives you the effortless leadership presence your students will want to follow.

5. Speaking

Your voice is an indispensable tool for improving listening and attentiveness. Speaking in a softer tone, pausing often, and refraining from repeating yourself can infuse the words you use with greater meaning and impact. It can provide drama, anticipation, and edge-of-your-seat interest.

6. Personality

Although high-interest lessons are important, nothing is as effective in drawing students into learning as your personality. Simply remembering to smile and enjoy being in the company of your students will permeate your classroom with that secret ingredient so many teachers are missing.

7. Observation

Focusing on great instruction and then stepping back and allowing your students to prove their new knowledge---without your hovering, kneeling-down input---empowers them with fierce independence, improved attentiveness and concentration, and galloping strides in learning.

8. Humor

You don't have to be laugh-out-loud funny. You don't have to be a jokester or in any way undermine the seriousness of learning in your classroom. But being open to laughter and willing to bring regular doses of humor to your lessons is a shortcut to easy rapport and likability.

9. Pace

One of the maxims of Smart Classroom Management is to never move on until you're getting exactly what you want from your students. Do this from day one and you'll never, ever lose control of your classroom. Further, by November you'll be cruising, rolling along with brisk efficiency.

10. Breathing

Make a point of setting aside a moment of quiet before your students arrive each day. Take a few deep breaths and resolve to keep a calm composure no matter what happens. It's a simple little thing, but so, so powerful---making you more effective and far less susceptible to stress.

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What Really Works

The ten meditations listed above add up to a classroom your students will look forward to. They add up to behavior-changing influence, a peaceful but lively learning environment, and a teaching experience that is both fulfilling and impactful.

The best thing about them, though, is that they're easy. Anyone can make a commitment to these simple strategies and experience dramatic results.

Effective classroom management isn't about doing more. It isn't about talking more, moving faster, or trying harder. It isn't about adding another incentive system, coming up with stiffer or more creative consequences, or having interactive, color-coded this and that.

It's about relationships. It's about good instruction. It's about being real and clear and direct. It's about love and laughter. It's about inspiration and simple kindness.

It's about focusing on what really works.

And discarding the rest.

How To Handle Students Who Will Ruin Your Day If You Hold Them AccountableBy Michael Linsin

One of the keys to handling difficult students is to hold them accountable for every rule violation, from the first day of school onward.

Because if you don’t, you’ll be at their mercy.

You’ll have to appease them, lower your standards, and give in to their unspoken demands.

You’ll have to give up your leverage and authority and treat them differently than everyone else. You’ll have to look the other way and walk on eggshells around them.

The thought of sending them to time-out, then, will make you shiver—because the times you’ve tried, even gently, didn’t go well. They became angry and argumentative. They turned their back on you and caused a scene.

They made you pay for having the nerve to hold them accountable.

So now this one student, all of eight years old—or four or thirteen—has you over a barrel and the best you can hope for is to ignore them and cross your fingers that they don’t become too disruptive.

It’s an awful, demoralizing position to be in. You let things go in the beginning, and now you’ve lost all the power and leverage in the relationship.

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So what are you to do?

You know in your heart they need to be held accountable. You know they need some humble reflection time separated from the class. You know they need to learn the lesson that in this life they can’t do whatever they want without consequence.

But what if they refuse? What if they reject your time-out? What if they throw a tantrum, call you names, and ratchet up their misbehavior?

You hold them accountable anyway.

You take a deep breath and make the hard decision to do what’s best for them and your classroom and you follow your classroom management plan anyway. You approach the student calmly, deliver the news, and then walk away.

How they handle it isn’t your concern. If they argue, don’t respond. If they throw themselves on the floor, leave them be. If they yell and wail and try to sabotage your lesson, go right on teaching.

When you have a difficult student in your classroom who you’ve emboldened with your appeasement and inconsistency, and who now saunters around your classroom as if rules don’t apply, you must find the inner strength to say, “Enough is enough.”

But here’s the thing: If you refrain from taking their misbehavior personally, and therefore refrain from battling, arguing, or seeking your own form of revenge, then accountability will be set free to do its good work.

After the student calms down, however long it takes, let them sit another ten or fifteen minutes and then invite them to rejoin the class.

And when they break another rule? Do it again. Follow your plan. Their reaction may be as bad as the first time—perhaps worse—but before long, if you stick with it, it will get better. Slowly, tentatively, they’ll start believing that you’re the real deal.

They’ll start believing that you’re someone worth trusting and getting to know. Maybe even someone worth looking up to.

They’ll look you in the eye like no other adult before you. They’ll smile and say hello and be more pleasant and forgiving with their classmates. They’ll look different and walk different. They’ll be different.

You see, when you offer your students real-world truth and acceptance, when you stop tiptoeing around them and instead show your faith in them and who they can become by never letting misbehavior go . . .

It changes everything.

Note: This article was written in response to the many teachers who have contacted us regarding this topic. A far better solution, however, is to follow your classroom management plan from the very beginning.

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Why You Must Remind Students Of Their PurposeBy Michael Linsin

If not reminded, and reminded often, your students will naturally slip into believing that school is just something they’re supposed to do.

They never consider that school doesn’t need them, individually anyway, but that they need school.

So many students approach their education as if it were the other way around, as if their school is lucky they showed up on time.

This attitude can cause students to take their education for granted, to see it as a grind, as something they’re forced to do rather than what it is:

An opportunity of a lifetime.

Doing anything begrudgingly, anything with the specter of having to do it hanging over your head, can be a dangerous thing. Because it saps vital energy, creativity, and motivation. It makes students feel as if school is being done to them, rather than for them.

So they walk into your classroom like they’re heading for the salt mines—reluctant, sleepy-eyed, resigned to their fate.

When students lose track of its wonderful benefits, they begin seeing school as a negative, as something to endure, and if all possible, avoid.

So they goof off when they get a chance. They shutter their mind to learning. They attend to their daydreams, distractions, and the enticing call of misbehavior.

Your words, then, carry little significance, urgency, or interest to them. The colors of the classroom turn muted. They melt into their seats. The idea of personal responsibility is no more than a vague concept.

Worst of all, they develop a growing sense of entitlement.

Of course, if you’re a regular reader of this website, then you know that when students like you and trust you and enjoy being a member of your classroom, everything becomes easier—from motivation to listening to rapport-building to managing behavior.

But along with this powerful force is the importance of ensuring that your students never lose track of why they come to school.

It is the ‘why’ of school, after all, that cracks ajar the gates of learning. It is the ‘why’ that provides the initial spark of motivation that unlocks hearts and minds, giving you the opening you need to grab your students by the lapels and pull them in.

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It is the ‘why’ that enables students to feel the first ounce of responsibility   upon their shoulders. It is the ‘why’ that points out the truth to the expression,“If it is to be, it is up to me.” It is the ‘why’ that makes them realize that they need school.

So how do you do it? How do you get the message across?

You tell them.You tell them every day why they’re there, why what they’re doing is important, and why what you have to offer them is a most precious gift.

“Good morning room three! Welcome to another beautiful day of learning. It’s my job to give you the best education you can get anywhere, and I plan on doing just that today. But it’s your job to think, read, listen, participate, and give the very best of yourself and your proud family name, so you can take advantage of the many opportunities that good education provides . . .”

Coming from someone your students like and admire, and delivered with passion, this simple message—which will vary in depth depending on grade level—can be powerful and deeply impressionable.

It puts their day-to-day, to-and-from school existence into perspective, infusing it with purpose and direction and underscoring the worthiness of learning’s pursuit.

It causes students to see beyond their current place in the world, no matter how challenging or difficult, and into a high-def technicolor vision of their future.

It alters their view, wakes them of their unrealistic fantasies, and places upon their heart a true path to their hopes and aspirations.

It sets ablaze the desire to not just accept the gift of their education . . .

But to reach out and take it.

How A Simple Change In Thinking Can Improve BehaviorOne of the reasons difficult students misbehave is because their teacher expects that they will.

They assume they will.

Which causes the teacher to behave in such a way that antagonizes the student and reinforces their bad behavior.

To combat this phenomenon, you must do the opposite. You must assume henceforth that your most challenging students will, of their own accord, behave . . . perfectly.

You must let go of any and all negativity, animosity, and resentment due to their many transgressions, and choose instead to see them in the most favorable light.

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That isn’t to say that you’ll become lax in your supervision, ignore their misbehavior, or in any way become less consistent holding them accountable.

What it means is that you’re going to pretend—both within and without—that they are among your most well-behaved students. You’re going to act as if they’re as independent and worthy of your trust as the rest of your class.

You’re going to assume through your words, thoughts, and actions that they can and will follow your rules and procedures just like everyone else.

This simple change in thinking—in how you choose to see them—effectively removes an infinite number of verbal and non-verbal signals that reinforce their poor behavior.

It removes the nuances of speech patterns and body language that inadvertently communicate that you don’t care for them, you’re tired of them, and you resent them for disrupting your classroom.

It removes the high-wire tension created as a result of anticipating their next disruption or act of disrespect. It removes the negative prophecies and labels that have been ladled upon their shoulders by every well-intentioned teacher they’ve come in contact with.

It upends their attitude toward you, transforming them from someone who firmly believes that you’re out to get them . . . into your biggest fan. It eliminates moodiness and negativity and the desire to get under your skin.

It inspires them to want to behave.

They’ll see in your eyes a reflection of themselves they may not at first recognize, but who deep down they’ve always wanted to be.

Warming them to the core.

Setting ablaze the desire to fulfill the true and loving prophecy you’ve etched upon their heart.

The student you know they can be.

Why You Should Let Poorly Followed Routines Pay OutBy Michael Linsin

It’s an all too common compulsion among teachers.

Upon noticing a class routine going off the rails, they immediately jump in to try and correct it.

They remind. They warn. They attempt to squelch the problem before it gets out of hand.

It makes sense. It seems like the right thing to do.

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But it’s a mistake.

It’s far better to take a step back and let the routine play out. It’s better to remain calm, observe from a distance, and allow your students to go down in flames.

Here’s why:

It enables you to assess the problem.

The only way to fix a sloppy routine so that it doesn’t happen again is to know precisely what went wrong. It’s important to ascertain whether the problem is behavior-based or due to a misunderstanding of your expectations.

Therefore, when you first become aware a routine isn’t being performed as taught, your observational powers should kick into high gear, recording every misstep down to the smallest detail.

In this way, you have the information you need to hold your class accountable or reteach the routine.

It gives your students a chance to self-evaluate.

When students know they’re being watched intently, especially by a teacher who faithfully holds them accountable for previously learned expectations, they develop the ability to recognize and correct their own mistakes.

This is a powerful lesson that rarely requires you to do much of anything other than asking them to redo the routine. When they catch it themselves, you see, it deepens understanding and they’ll rarely make the same mistake again.

It causes your students to take responsibility.

When your students know you have them dead to rights, when they realize of their own accord that they performed the routine poorly—and they will if you let it play out under your observing eye—they’ll readily take responsibility for it.

They’ll be open and agreeable to what you have to say. When you jump in right away, on the other hand, they’re likely to become defensive, argumentative, and annoyed by your interruption.

It calms the excitability waters.

Any amount of stress you bring to your classroom will result in poorer behavior among your students. When you rush in to correct a shoddy routine, you add intensity and risk putting fuel to the fire.

Even if you do manage to get your class back on track, you’ve now ramped up the excitability quotient. You’ve created agitation, friction, and a you-against-them vibe that can quickly spiral into a bad day.

Handling misbehavior with patience and composure, on the other hand, will calm and settle your students and refocus them on the task at hand.

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The Art of Doing Nothing

Letting a poor routine play out doesn’t mean you’re going to allow your students to walk all the way to the lunchroom, for example, in a state of chaos.

It means that you’re going to give yourself time to observe and your students time to realize the error of their ways.

Only then will you stop them by way of asking for their attention. Here again, though, you’ll take your time with a lengthy pause before saying a word.

You want the reality of their mistake to sink in. You want them to know before you open your mouth where they went wrong and what they need to do to fix it. In this way, the only reteaching you’ll do is sending them back to do the routine again.

If, however, you notice from your observation that they’re unsure of your expectations, then it pays to reteach the routine in full.

When routines go wrong, when it appears your students have forgotten everything you’ve taught them about entering the classroom or putting away materials or circling into small groups, it’s best to take a step back.

And do . . . nothing.

Just observe.

Then, and only then, will your students begin looking inward at themselves and their responsibilities. Only then will control shift to you. Only then will the words you use have meaning and impact.

Only then will routines become routine.

The 4 Cornerstones Of Smart Classroom ManagementBy Michael Linsin

Every strategy we recommend here at Smart Classroom Management falls under the heading of one of four core principles.

These principles, or cornerstones, form the heart of what we believe to be the solution to the scores of behavior-related challenges facing teachers today.

From disrespect to inattentiveness, and everywhere in between, their consistent application has the power to transform any classroom—regardless of where you teach or who shows up on your roster.

We hear from teachers every day who put our simple approach into practice and experience rapid and dramatic improvement—and not just with behavior, but with learning, motivation, and attitude toward school.

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As we near the start of another new school year, I invite you to put the four cornerstones you find below to the test. I invite you to experience the power, the freedom, and the joy of exceptional classroom management.

Cornerstone #1: Avoid friction with students.

Any method or strategy that causes friction with students will always make classroom management more difficult. Yelling, scolding, lecturing, and the like may improve behavior in the moment—which is why it’s so common—but the cost is enormous.

It creates resentment and animosity. It causes students to secretly dislike you and misbehave behind your back. It pollutes your classroom with grumbling negativity and obliterates your ability to influence your students and their behavior choices.

Eliminating these hurtful methods from your teaching toolbox is the first step to creating the classroom you really want.

Cornerstone #2: Build rapport naturally.

Avoiding friction frees you to build rapport in a way that is both natural and extraordinarily effective. All students—difficult, shy, and confident alike—are drawn to teachers who exude a calm, friendly demeanor.

So much so that as long as you’re consistently pleasant, building influential relationships is something you’ll never have to work at. By virtue of cultivating an easygoing personality alone, they will develop organically and powerfully.

Your students will come to you and desire to get to know you better. They’ll listen to you and take your words to heart. They’ll want to please you and behave for you. Your interactions, then, become effortless, and your influence will grow stronger by the day.

Cornerstone #3: Create a classroom your students enjoy being part of.

Your success in eliminating misbehavior from your classroom hinges on whether your students look forward to your class. Because if they don’t, if boredom and dissatisfaction take hold, then everything you do to curb misbehavior will eventually fail.

It is the love of school that is the ultimate reward, the ultimate intrinsic motivator, and the ultimate antidote to unwanted behavior. It is the one reliable and highly predictable approach that is guaranteed to provide the leverage you need to create the classroom you desire.

Using our simple tweaks, strategies, and recommendations, it isn’t difficult to attain. Anyone, no matter where you live or how long you’ve been teaching, can create a learning experience students can’t wait to get to every day.

Cornerstone #4: Rely exclusively on your classroom management plan.

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Allowing your classroom management plan to be the lone source of accountability removes the need to rely on hurtful and less effective methods of managing behavior. It removes the stress of arguing, pleading, and battling with students. It liberates you from wasting time and taking misbehavior personally.

It safeguards your likability, protects your relationships, and makes a statement that all students are treated with equal fairness. Followed consistently, for every time a rule is broken, it proclaims that you can be trusted, that you won’t let them down, and that you’re a leader worth following.

A classroom management plan within the context of the other three cornerstones is remarkably effective because it’s woven with profound meaning. When it matters to students, you see, when they’d much rather participate as a valued member of your class than languish in time-out, it works the way it should.

No More Guesswork

With so much misinformation floating in the educational ether, classroom management has become much harder and more complex than it needs to be. Unless you have clear direction, it’s hard to know what you should and shouldn’t be doing.

At Smart Classroom Management we endeavor to remove the guesswork for you. We offer one unified approach, where every strategy works together harmoniously to craft the optimum teaching and learning environment.

We offer only what has been tried-and-true tested in real-world classrooms. We offer only what you can feel good about using and what is in the best interest of the students and families you’ve dedicated your career to.

The four cornerstones provide a solid base from which to build your vision of the perfect classroom. Week after week, we’ll provide the blocks and mortar.

You just have to set them into place.

Why You Shouldn't Let Your Students Decide The Class RulesBy Michael Linsin

Allowing students to come up with the class rules is a common strategy.

And at first glance, it appears to be a good one.

But dig deeper into the whys and hows of effective classroom management, and you’ll discover it to be a mistake.

The idea behind the strategy is to provide students with a sense of ownership by guiding them through the construction of class rules you already have in mind.

If you trust them with this important part of your classroom structure, the argument goes, they’ll be more likely to buy into your classroom management plan.

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They’ll be more likely to feel a sense of responsibility and less likely to dismiss, reject, or complain about rules they themselves came up with.

So what’s not to like?

Well, the problem with the strategy is that it can undermine your leadership presence. It can negatively affect how your students see you and your role as their teacher.

You see, if in any way you communicate that you’re in partnership with your students when determining the direction of your classroom, it will weaken your authority.

They’ll view you not as a confident leader who knows what is best for them and their education, but as an unsure cohort who makes suggestions they can either take or leave. This, in turn, can make enforcing your rules significantly more difficult.

It will increase the likelihood of arguments over what does and doesn’t constitute breaking them. It will cause a reluctance to go to time-out—or an outright refusal—rather than an acceptance of wrongdoing.

Your students will be less likely to take responsibility and more likely to sulk, complain, or blame you for holding them accountable.

The unintended message students receive by taking part in creating the very boundaries of your classroom is that everything is negotiable, which then opens the floodgates to debate on matters that should only be decided by you.

This view of teacher as partner tends to be especially problematic with difficult students, who are quick to fill any void you leave them. Unless you establish yourself as the clear leader from the get-go, they’ll spend the year trying to wrest control from you.

Having a teacher students trust to be at the helm from morning bell to dismissal has a calming effect on the tone and tenor of your classroom. It allows your students to relax, enjoy school, and concentrate on learning.

This isn’t to say that they should never be given the opportunity to make decisions. You can still encourage a sense of ownership by letting your students vote on matters unrelated to the course and direction of your classroom.

Do you want to play this math game or that one?

Do you want to give your presentations before or after lunch?

Do you want to do the lesson inside or outside on the grass?

There are dozens of opportunities to allow students to make decisions that don’t interfere with your role and position as their teacher.

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The truth is, you and your students have distinctly different responsibilities. Problems large and small arise when those responsibilities become confused or intertwined.

By presenting your rules as non-negotiable boundaries that you put into place for the express purpose of protecting their right to learn and enjoy school, you establish yourself as a compassionate leader who puts their interests first.

You establish yourself as a leader worth following.

How To Set The Tone On The First Day Of SchoolBy Michael Linsin

Of the many goals you have on the first day of school, none compares in importance to setting the proper tone for your students.

It is the initial impression of your classroom, after all, that establishes its culture.

It’s the feeling, the pace, the attitude, the mood, and the spirit of the experience that expresses who you are, what you value, and what it means to be a member of your classroom.

It’s the heady mixture of hope and possibility that fuels everything you do and say with greater significance.

Although your first-day lessons and activities play an integral part in setting the tone, it’s your style and demeanor that rule the day.

What follows isn’t so much what to do on the first day of school . . . it’s how to be.

Be Likable

The old maxim that you shouldn’t smile the first two months of the school year is terrible advice. In fact, you should lavish your smile upon your students. It means so much and communicates so many wonderful things. Yet, amid the busyness of the first day, it’s easy to forget.

It’s easy to get so caught up in your objectives that you forget the human connection. A genuine smile creates instant likability, builds effortless rapport, and activates the power of reciprocation.

Be Calm

Your calm demeanor alone, without having to say a word, has a powerful effect on students—much more than most teachers realize. It settles first-day jitters. It allays fears and uncertainties. It sweeps away misbehavior-causing excitability and allows your students to focus on you and your message.

It also helps establish the peaceful but focused learning environment you want by providing an example for your students to follow. Fill your classroom with positive, all-is-well vibrations, and they’ll respond in kind.

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Be Clear

When it comes to effective classroom management, clarity trumps all. Present every lesson, activity, and transition with utter simplicity. Pause often while speaking, make eye contact to assess understanding, and model explicitly through each moment of your instruction.

It’s critical in the beginning for your students to develop the habit of successfully listening and understanding everything you teach. In this way, as you move on to more complex, multi-step material, they’ll be right with you.

Be Confident

If you’re unsure about what to do next, if you hem and haw, repeat yourself, change your mind, think out loud, speak too much or too fast, or appear befuddled, you’ll lose your students. A compelling teacher perpetually provides value. They’re worth following and listening to.

To engender confidence and begin grooving the habit of keen attentiveness, you must make your words count. When giving instruction, tell your students only what they need to know. Be direct and concise. Speak with conviction and don’t waste their time. They’ll remember everything you say.

Be Fun

For many, many reasons—which we’ll cover in a future article—it’s important that your students leave for the day happy and excited about the upcoming school year. It’s important that they run home and excitedly tell their parents how much they like you and love being in your classroom.

Although playing a first-day, getting-to-know-you game is a great idea, it’s your personality that will resonate. It’s your openness to laughter, your generous spirit, and your love and enthusiasm for teaching that will shine the brightest and mean the most.

Paving The Way

The first day of school isn’t just about setting the tone for your students. It’s also about setting the tone for yourself. You’re laying the groundwork, developing the habits of exceptional teaching and classroom management.

The keys above not only position you for a successful first day, but for a successful year. They imbibe you with a demeanor and style that allow you to naturally build rapport, elicit fervent devotion, and cause your students to want to behave.

They make them receptive to your instruction and nodding along in agreement with your soaring expectations.

They pave the way for the best school experience your students have ever had.

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How To Teach Classroom Management On The First Day Of SchoolBy Michael Linsin

Although classroom management will make up only part of your first day of school, doing it right is essential.

Because it sets the boundaries within which inspired teaching can take place.

It establishes an impenetrable wall, safeguarding your students from distraction, interruption, bullying, disrespect, and the like.

To be most effective, you mustn’t ease your way into it. You mustn’t tiptoe your way around it or add it as an unpleasant aside.

No, you must set your feet, narrow your eyes, and teach classroom management in a way your students won’t soon forget.

Here’s how:

Make a commitment.

Before your students arrive, make an ironclad commitment to yourself to abide by the guidelines set forth in your classroom management plan. This will give your instruction a level of conviction your students need to see in order to trust you and buy into your plan.

Start early.

The earlier in the day you can begin your classroom management lesson the more it will communicate its importance. This doesn’t mean, however, that you must start immediately. Within the first hour is a good rule of thumb.

Make a promise, part 1.

To begin your lesson, make a promise to your students that you will uphold your classroom management plan every minute of every day, no exceptions. Go on record. Lay your reputation on the line. Express your commitment to them and to protecting their education.

Make a promise, part 2.

Now promise your students that you will always treat them with respect. Promise that you will never yell, scold, or humiliate them in any way. This public declaration will instantly put them in your corner, eager to support your plan.

Communicate its purpose.

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Many teachers present rules and consequences as if they were bad news. The truth, however, is the exact opposite. Your classroom management plan is the very thing that ensures your students’ freedom to learn and enjoy school without interference. It must be presented as such.

Teach with gusto.

If you don’t feel a surge of energy as you begin your lesson, then you’re not ready to teach classroom management. Managing behavior effectively means everything to your success. Thus, you must convey its sacred importance with passion.

Refer to a visual.

Your rules and consequences should be posted prominently, not hidden behind a door or banished to a far corner. Write them poster-size in your own script and place them high upon the front wall of your classroom.

Give an impassioned review.

To introduce your classroom management plan, provide an impassioned, full-picture review of your rules and consequences. Although you’ll do no modeling at this point, your words must be delivered with boldness, conviction, and zeal.

Show the progression.

Provide an example of a misbehaving student progressing from an initial warning to the return of a signed letter. In other words, let your students eyewitness exactly, and in a highly detailed way, what will happen if they break your class rules.

Model in their shoes.

The lesson is most effective if you pretend to be the misbehaving student. Sit at one of their desks and call out without raising your hand, side-talk with a classmate, or engage in any other common misbehavior. You can even have a student play the part of the teacher.

Leave no stone unturned.

The idea behind teaching classroom management so thoroughly right out of the gate is to remove any and all excuses for poor behavior before they gain a toehold and become part of the culture of your classroom.

Encourage questions.

When you finish your lesson be sure and give your students a chance to ask questions. No part of your plan should be secret. No part should be unclear, nuanced, or difficult to defend. Openness and transparency are strengths your students will respect and find comfort in.

Freedom

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Most students are used to a haphazard form of classroom management. They’re used to uncertainty and ambiguity. They’re used to inconsistency and shifting definitions of what is and isn’t acceptable behavior.

They’re used to teachers who say one thing and do another, and accountability based on moods, whims, and angry confrontations.

Your job on the first day of school is to set the record straight.

It’s to show your students precisely where your boundary lines are, what they look like, and what will happen if they cross them. No surprises. No misunderstandings. No broken promises.

Just comfort in knowing that they’re free to learn and love school.

How To Get Parents On Your SideBy Michael Linsin

If dissatisfied, parents can be a source of great stress.

They can question your methods.

They can challenge your decisions.

They can complain, make demands, and waste your precious time.

Which is why it’s critical that you get them on your side, critical that they like you and trust you and support your program.

There are many strategies you can use to encourage their loyalty—including having a fair and consistent approach to classroom management, a professional but friendly personal style, anda clear, non-judgmental way of communicating.

These are important, to be sure. But there is one thing you can do that will secure not only their support, but also their enthusiastic endorsement. It’s so powerful, in fact, that it outperforms all other strategies combined.

It’s fast. It’s simple. It’s reliable. Even among parents whose reputations . . . ahem . . . precede them.

It doesn’t entail any extra work. You don’t have to try to be someone you’re not or change one thing about your program. You don’t even need to have met any of your parents.

So what is this miracle strategy?

You make sure your students have a great first day—as well as first week and first month—of school. You make sure they rush home to share what an cool experience they’re having in your classroom and how stoked they are for the rest of the school year.

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In the end, this is what parents want. They want their child inspired. They want their child excited about school. They want their child encouraged and motivated and engaged in the most important activity of their young life.

Because they know that when their child is happy, they learn. They grow socially and academically. They take another step closer to independence.

Of course, in many, many classrooms this isn’t the case. Parents find themselves wringing their hands during the first days of a new school year. They pace and worry and brace for tears and disappointment and a gloomy report.

They prepare themselves to give a pep-talk, to put things into perspective, to guide, encourage and remind that it’s only for a year. They steel themselves for the unpleasant possibility that they’ll have to voice their concerns to the teacher, or even the principal.

So when their child leaps into their car smiling from ear to ear and offering a glowing review of their first day or first week, they exhale a summer’s worth of tension.

They’re relieved. They’re thrilled. They’re at peace. So much so that they’re quick to share their satisfaction with other parents. They’re quick to offer their compliments of you to your principal. They’re quick to sing your praises.

And your reputation spreads.

How To Develop Good Listening The First Month Of SchoolBy Michael Linsin

Listening is always a problem with a new group of students.

You can count on it.

Dwelling on it or complaining about it—as many teachers are wont to do—is a waste of time.

The effective teacher is only concerned with what they can control. They’re only concerned with the actions they must take to fix the problem.

They meet their students where they are, and then show them the way up.

When it comes to developing good listening, the key is to speak in a way that will cause your students to tune in naturally.

It’s to make the act of listening to you a habit.

Here’s how:

Stand in one place.

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Standing in one place encourages your students to focus on you. It settles restlessness. It calms excitability. It removes many of the distractions and obstacles that interfere with listening, so that your highlighted voice becomes the most prominent stimuli in the room.

Soften your voice.

Most teachers talk too loud, believing that it helps students pay attention. But the truth is, it does the opposite. It makes them passive and disinterested. It discourages them from looking in your direction and tuning you in.

Good listening is active. It requires students to lean in and follow your lips, facial expressions, and body language. It requires them to meet you halfway, to do their part, and to seek out meaning and understanding. The good news is that students do this intuitively when you soften your voice.

Stop repeating yourself.

Repeating yourself effectively removes any reason for your students to listen to you the first time. It grooves the habits of passivity and learned helplessness and weakens the power of your words.

When you say it once, on the other hand, and expect them to get it, you encourage active listening, engagement, and relevant, pointed questions.

Cut the fat.

The fewer words you use, the better your students will listen. This underscores the importance of staying focused and on topic, of providing only what your students need to be successful.

Keep your thoughts, fillers, and digressions to yourself. They only water down your message and lessen its impact.

Pause often.

Remembering to pause will give your students a moment to download the previous information. It also makes you more interesting. It infuses your words with depth, importance, authority, and when needed, drama.

Pausing also allows you to check for understanding. In time, you can become remarkably accurate assessing comprehension simply by pausing to take notice of their expressions.

Focus on doing.

When speaking to your students, as much as possible, focus on what you want them to do.This is inherently more interesting to students and immediately activates their visualization powers. They automatically see themselves in their mind’s eye doing what you ask.

Furthermore, successful classrooms are action-oriented. They’re productive and active and locked-in on completing their objectives. Even lining up to leave the classroom is an opportunity to do something well.

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It’s About You

Many teachers can be overheard lamenting the poor listening in their classroom, but their solution to the problem rarely has anything to do with them. In their mind, their students are the problem.

So they harp on the importance of good listening. They put their frustrations on display. They show a complete lack of faith in their students by incessantly moving about their room, increasing their volume, and repeating their words.

But good listening isn’t about the students. It’s about the teacher.

It’s about speaking in a way that leaves no one behind, that empowers students to tune in, that provides the conduit through which active, tenacious listening becomes a habit.

Why You Don't Have To Be Cool To Build RapportBy Michael Linsin

There is a common misconception that you must be “cool” in order to build rapport.

The idea being that unless you’re able to interact with students on their level, unless you can speak their pop/youth culture language and tap into their wider influences, your influence will be limited.

They’ll dismiss you and disregard what you say.

But it isn’t true.

Although building rapport is critically important for effective classroom management, any teacher behavior that unnaturally seeks to mirror age-group norms—through language, mannerisms, and attitudes—will backfire.

What can be confusing, though, and the reason so many teachers latch clumsily to this strategy, is that the problems it creates don’t develop right away.

In fact, you may feel as if you’re on the fast track to a deep and powerful relationship. Your students may indeed crowd around you after the first day of school. They may feel immediately at ease in your presence. They may be thrilled that someone so cool could actually be their teacher.

That is, until the bottom falls out and misbehavior skyrockets.

You see, while it’s true that students may initially be drawn to such a teacher, eventually—and often quickly—they'll lose respect.

So instead of looking up to you as a leader they admire, they’ll look over at you as a friend who disappoints them. They’ll react with shock and outrage if you dare hold them accountable. They’ll become silly and unruly and brazenly disrespectful.

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They’ll stop taking you seriously.

Influential rapport isn’t born of an ability to tap into your students’ generational mores. It doesn’t develop through your adept use of modern slang, knowledge of popular music, or comfort saying “Hashtag, remember to get your homework done.”

You don’t have to have a certain look, dress a certain way, or in any way change who you are.

Building trusting rapport is a byproduct of your consistent, day-after-day pleasantness and willingness to see the best in your students. It’s your God-given personality, your realness, your uniqueness, and your humor that will draw students irresistibly into your circle of influence.

It’s your leadership, your forthrightness, and your follow-through that will earn the respect of even the most jaded students. It’s the staggering combination of your gentle kindness and rock-solid adherence to clearly defined boundaries that offer the keys to the kingdom.

Young or experienced, new teacher or veteran, it matters not one bit. Anyone, anywhere, in any teaching situation can build the influential rapport needed to create the peaceful classroom they desire.

You can do this.

Just the way you are.

Why Most Difficult Students Just Need Good Classroom ManagementBy Michael Linsin

Teachers tend to be overly focused on their most difficult students.

They stress-out about them. They strategize over them. They spend more time dealing with them than the rest of their class put together.

They try this approach, then that one. They powwow again and again with colleagues and counselors, parents and psychologists.

They experiment with behavior contracts, incentive systems, and ever-stiffer consequences.

They often fail, however, to apply the one thing that difficult students need the most.

That is, just good, solid classroom management.

It’s common to fall into the trap of being so fixated on finding the right combination of individualized strategies that you give the rest of your class short shrift.

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You become sloppy and haphazard in addressing the relatively minor misbehaviors coming from the balance of your classroom.

In other words, because disruptions from the other students pale in comparison, you’re apt to look the other way or not even notice.

The problem with this tendency is that ignoring any misbehavior—no matter how innocuous—is lighter fluid for your most difficult students.

It encourages them, antagonizes them, and even labels them. They take a look around and see that they’re treated differently, and it reinforces the negative beliefs they have about themselves.

It tells them that they are indeed not like the others, that being a behavior problem is who they are and therefore expected. It’s a prophecy they’re quick to fulfill.

But one of the trade secrets to handling difficult students is to focus on managing all students.

You see, when you have a classroom management approach that results in exceptional behavior of the entire class, you effectively remove the fuel that ignites the bad behavior of your most challenging students.

You take away their oxygen. You empty the audience from the theater. You leave them alone on stage with no one to perform for.

They take a look around and see everyone else behaving, and no one amused by their antics, and they do the same. They become what is the culture of the classroom.

They experience the dignity of being treated like everyone else . . . and they start behaving like everyone else. Their sense of self-worth, too, changes.

They begin to see themselves not with an inflated idea of self—which is fragile, false, and ultimately harmful—but with one that jibes with the humble energy of a successful student.

Pride in being just another valued member of the class takes root. They listen. They join in. They engage. They bloom and grow.

So throw out the contracts, the bribes, and the temporary, manipulative strategies that do more harm than good. Draw your gaze away from this one particular student and widen your perspective to include your entire class.

Become an expert in classroom management principles and strategies that really work and that you can feel good about using.

And all will thrive.

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Why Silent Modeling Is A Powerful StrategyBy Michael Linsin

Done right, modeling has the power to teach your students virtually anything you want them to be able to do.

And in a way they won’t soon forget.

The problem, however, is that most teachers don’t model very well.

They gloss over details. They rush through important steps. They cut short what should be a thorough and engaging process.

They also tend to talk too much, adding information that only distract students from learning.

One sure way to avoid these mistakes, while at the same time ensuring excellent instruction, is to model in silence.

Here’s why:

It makes you more interesting.

When you take away your ability to talk, you naturally become more demonstrative and therefore more interesting to your students. Your body language, facial expressions, and movements—out of sheer necessity—become compelling and communicative, attracting every eye in the room.

It purifies your instruction.

When you model in silence, you’re assured of providing the purest form of instruction. You never have to worry that the wrong choice of words—or too many words—might taint, confuse, bore, or draw your students away from what you want them to learn.

It makes paying attention easy.

Although you still have to ask for attention before beginning any modeling exercise, once you have it, you’ll have far less trouble keeping it. By narrowing the senses your students need to one, following along and understanding what you expect becomes easy.

It triggers an unforgettable movie in their mind.

When you model in a silent but highly detailed way—as if you’re an actual student completing the precise steps you want them to take—they will see themselves in their mind’s eye successfully doing the same, which then sticks in their memory.

It allows direct access.

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When you model wordlessly, all students—including second language learners—have direct access to your best instruction. No one is left to fend for themselves, ask a neighbor, or guess what you expect from them. Its simplicity removes impediments to learning.

It improves performance.

The best feature of silent modeling is that it improves performance. As soon as you release your students to practice what they’ve learned, you’ll see the very moves, steps, and actions you demonstrated minutes before materialize right in front of you.

Better Teaching

Although silent modeling is good instruction, it’s not a strategy you’ll want to rely on every time you model. The truth is, including carefully chosen words and explanations can be additionally effective.

The good news is that silent modeling will make you better able to do this. It will train you to speak more precisely, thoughtfully, and powerfully. It will shine a light on the importance of being highly detailed, yet simple and on target.

It will keep you focused on delivering what your students need to know to be successful.

And nothing more.

Are You Making Your Most Difficult Students Worse?By Michael Linsin

Most teachers are hyperaware of their most difficult students—and well they should be.

It’s smart to know where they are and what they’re doing.

But this awareness can cause you to behave oddly around them.

It can cause you to glare and glower in their direction. It can cause you to hover near the edges of their personal space and tense up in their presence.

It can cause you to label them with your behavior.

Because when you act differently around difficult students than you do the rest of your class, you’re effectively telling them that they’re not like other students, that they’re incapable of being trusted and that you expect them to misbehave.

This is a powerful message you may not even be aware you’re sending. Your most challenging students, however, can see the smoke signals from a mile away.

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They know when they’re being surveilled, marked, and followed. They know when they’re disliked and resented—or merely tolerated. They know when you have negative thoughts about them and their future prospects.

And they’re quick to live up to their role as troublemaker, to become the very person you see in them.

Although you should always maintain awareness of all your students, if you were to make it a point to behave the same way around your most difficult students as you do everyone else, you would see marked improvement in their behavior.

This includes the same smiles, jokes, and stories. It includes the same nonchalant way you look in their direction or ask about their weekend. It includes the same belief in their ability to listen, learn, and follow rules.

For many teachers, though, this is far easier said than done.

It’s only natural to be cautious and distrustful around students who have repeatedly disrupted your classroom. It’s only natural to linger and eyeball and use proximity to try and stop their misbehavior before it starts.

The solution, however, is simple: From the very first moment of each school day onward, you’re going to pretend that your most difficult students are already well behaved.

You’re going to assume that they will, of their own accord, follow  your rules  and expectations just like everyone else. And by pretending, by shoving aside any and all negative thoughts you have about them and their previous misdeeds, they’ll respond in wonderful and miraculous ways.

That isn’t to say that they’ll never again misbehave, but they’ll no longer do it to spite you or get under your skin. They’ll no longer do it because they’re fulfilling a prophecy. They’ll no longer do it because it’s expected of them, because it has become part of their identity.

Although improvement can be immediate, in time, and as the rest of your class begins to take up your cue, those ugly labels and beliefs they have about themselves will gently slide off their shoulders.

Their burden will lift. They’ll look you in the eye, unashamed. And for the first time in their school career, they’ll relax into their skin.

They’ll become an integral part of the whole.

A key ingredient in the soufflé.

A certified, accepted, and valued member of your classroom.

How To Praise With PowerBy Michael Linsin

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A teacher walks wordlessly with one of her most challenging students.

They’re on the playground and it’s recess time.

Some distance away the rest of the class laughs and plays and loses themselves in games of tetherball and foursquare.

From a distance you might assume that the teacher has pulled the student aside to lecture him about his behavior, as so many of his previous teachers have done before.

But you’d be wrong.

This is a different sort of meeting. The teacher gestures and says a few words as the student looks up and nods his head. Then just like that, they part ways.

The teacher takes a bite of her mid-morning apple and scoots off the playground. The student turns and heads toward the tetherball courts. But clearly there is a change in him, something odd and wonderful that takes a moment to put your finger on.

His feet aren’t touching the ground.

As he glides across the playground, his insides churn with renewed determination to break a year-after-year cycle of bad reports and time-outs, of disappointments and broken promises.

His teacher’s words affected him deeply, in a way that will result in lasting change going forward.

Her words had power because she praised him in a way that mattered to him, in a way that sparked his intrinsic motivational engine. And this makes all the difference.

Here’s how she did it, and how you can do the same:

She told him the truth.

Any and all praise you offer your students must be based on truth. It must be in response to real accomplishment rather than a self-interested desire to placate, flatter, or manipulate the student into behaving.

In other words, the praise must be in direct response to achievement, excellence, or effort beyond what is commonly expected—which may include new learning or sustained improvement.

He relished her approval.

The teacher made it a habit to only recognize true accomplishment, which varies from student to student. She steadfastly refused to lower the bar of excellence in her classroom by engaging in false praise and “caught being good” manipulation.

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This caused her students to tenaciously seek her stamp of approval through their good work. They knew that when they received a commendation from her, it meant something. It was special and real, and it motivated them to the core.

She made her praise personal.

The teacher chose to wait until recess so she could make her praise personal. In the long run,a private moment has greater impact than praise given in front of the class—which appeals to a student’s external rather than internal motivation.

The more impressive the accomplishment, the more important it is to pull the student aside to offer your praise. It’s the difference in effect between a mindless “good job” to a memory your students will carry with them for years to come.

And contrary to the oft-repeated advice that praise must always be immediate, giving your students a moment or more to enjoy their successes before jumping in can be much more powerful.

Her praise came from the heart.

The teacher’s words were imbued with depth and meaning because she was genuinely touched by the student’s accomplishment. Her heartfelt praise came from within and solely through the witnessing of undeniable progress.

If the praise is worthy, your words will be impactful. There is no reason to go on and on, feign enthusiasm, or even wait for the student’s reaction. Simply express your selfless pride in their success, and then leave them be.

Make It Real

For every time you praise your students for what are common expectations—again, which vary depending on the student—you lessen the impact of praise based on true accomplishment.

You lower the bar. You weaken your influence. You dampen the motivation to pursue excellence. You place the mundane, the ordinary, and the expected on the same level of importance as transcendent breakthrough.

If a student performs a routine, direction, task, or procedure as taught, then a simple ‘thank you’ will do.

If, however, you witness performance that is truly noteworthy, then speak from the heart. Make your praise genuine. Make it honest and meaningful. Make it unadorned and direct and private.

And above all, make it real.

You won’t believe the difference.

When And Why You Should Leave Your Students AloneBy Michael Linsin

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The picture of an entire class lost in their work is the most beautiful sight in teaching.

Because it’s irrefutable proof that your lesson was effective, and that learning, deep and meaningful, is taking place.

Sadly, it’s a scene that rarely plays out.

Most teachers find themselves rushing from one student to the next, reteaching what was taught just minutes before. They find themselves calling out reminders and encouragements. They find themselves tamping down disruptions and redirecting off-task behavior.

For some this is done out of necessity. Their lessons and classroom management skills aren’t strong enough to support their students through more than a few minutes of truly independent work.

For others, it’s become an unfortunate habit. Somewhere along the line they’ve been led to believe that if they aren’t perpetually moving, talking, helping, and cajoling, then they’re not being a good teacher.

In either case, they’re doing a disservice to their students. They’re encouraging (learned) helplessness, shirking responsibility, and poor listening and attending skills. They’re teaching their students to throw in the towel at the slightest adversity.

Exceptional teachers, on the other hand, know that their effectiveness is tied to how well and how long their students are able to work without their direct input.

They know that when they recede into a corner of their classroom to observe, while their students are immersed in deep thought or animated conversation, then true and reliable growth is taking place.

Connections are made. New pathways are discovered. Grooves are deepened. Learning blossoms and flourishes. The students get so lost in the challenges placed before them that the teacher no longer exists.

You know you’re on the right track when no hands go up in the air, no one looks in your direction, and you have an intense desire to become invisible—for fear of disrupting the tender hum of production coursing throughout the room.

This is teaching.

Of course, you must present great lessons. You must have spot-on classroom management skills and a stage actor’s ability to model precisely what you want. You must wean your students off years of relying on teachers to do much of their work for them.

And you must bite your tongue—for many teachers can’t help themselves.

As soon as their students get down to work, they go into micromanagement mode. They interrupt and bellow suggestions, hints, and asides. They ramble and pace and crash unannounced through personal space.

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They disrupt learning.

In this day and age, far too much emphasis is placed on helping individual students and not nearly enough on empowering them to take ownership of their education. When we spoon-feed students we limit their chances for success.

We take the curiosity, the fascination, and the magic out of school. We encourage dependence and immaturity and discourage original thought and action. We throw a wet blanket over inspired learning, boring and supporting our students into submission.

To reverse this devastating trend, work on increasing the amount of time your students spend engaged, engrossed, and immersed in learning activities devoid of your hovering presence, even if in the beginning it’s only a few minutes a day

Teach cool, high-interest lessons and then hand the ball over to them. Give them back the joy of school, of discovery, of challenge. Let them feel the heady brew of responsibility and exploration.

Do your part, and do it well.

Then step aside and allow your students to do theirs.

How To Handle Students Who Lie And DenyBy Michael Linsin

While observing your class gather materials for a science experiment, you notice a student kicking the heels of the boy in front of them.

But because you’re in the good habit of letting misbehavior play out, you decide to watch a bit longer before jumping in.

You see the boy turn and ask the student to stop.

After a brief pause, however, the student resumes the practice. You mentally record every move, and as soon as they sit down, you approach.

The student sees you coming and before you can even get all the words out (“I saw you kicking Darren and—”), they begin aggressively denying.

“That’s not true! I didn’t do anything. Oh my gosh! I wasn’t kicking anyone.”

Your first inclination is to refute the student’s claims, to prove that you’re right and they’re wrong.

“Yes, you were. I saw you with my own eyes from across the room. Now stop lying and take responsibility for your actions.”

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But doing so would draw you into an argument. It would put you on equal footing with the student. It would turn into a your-word-against-theirs battle royal.

This is a common situation, one so many teachers find themselves stuck in every day. It’s frustrating. It’s stressful. It puts you at odds with your students and turns you into the ogre you never wanted to be.

The good news is that it’s entirely avoidable. All of it—the lying, the denying, the arguing, and the stress—it’s all avoidable using the following three steps:

1. Know the truth.

You should only approach a student to give a consequence when you know the truth. This underscores the importance of letting misbehavior play out, of eliminating any plausible deniability, of leaving no doubt who is responsible and what rule was broken.

If you’re unsure, then get to the bottom of it first before confronting the student. This step alone will save you a mountain of headaches. Still, like the teacher above, it isn’t always enough to avoid a confrontation. The next two steps are crucial.

2. Enforce.

With the truth on your side, there is no reason for debate. There is no reason to ask why. There is no reason to allow the student lie to you or deny their involvement. Simply approach and say, “You have a warning (or time-out) because you broke rule number three.”

Most often, that’s all you need to say. However, if you’re uncertain they know what misbehavior you’re referring to, then you can add, “You were kicking Darren while getting science materials.”

3. Move on.

After delivering your consequence, turn on your heel and walk away. Nothing else needs to be said, and waiting for a response is an invitation to argue. Because you’ve taught, modeled, and practiced your classroom management plan thoroughly, the student knows exactly what this means.

They know you have them dead to rights. They know that in your classroom, rules that protect learning and enjoyment are sacred and nonnegotiable. They know that arguing, denying, or complaining is fruitless.

The only thing left for them to do is take responsibility.

Avoidance Is The Key

Many teachers contact us wanting to know how to respond when students lie, yell, throw tantrums, refuse to go to time-out, or engage in other aggressively willful behaviors, and we gladly cover these topics.

But the trick is to avoid them from happening to begin with. The three-step strategy above is a perfect example.

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By calmly—even matter-of-factly—delivering your consequences with truth on your side, and then walking away, you avoid the behaviors students have used since time immemorial to sidestep accountability.

You avoid the arguments and protestations. You avoid the deceptions and shocked faces. You avoid the manipulations that have worked with so many other adults in their life, including teachers.

And here’s the thing:

When you do what you say you will, when you handle accountability fairly and consistently, when you show your students how much you care by safeguarding their right to learn and enjoy school without interference, chaos, or drama . . .

They’ll love and respect of you because of it.

Are You Encouraging Your Students Too Much?By Michael Linsin

Encouraging students is in our DNA.

It's part and parcel to our educational culture. It's what we do. We teach a lesson and then we encourage.

“You can do it.”

“Just keep working and you'll get it.”

“I believe in you.”

And in the right moments, with just the right touch, encouragement can indeed be effective.

It can provide a lifeline when the seas get rough. It can deliver a jolt to waning energy. It can allay fear and remove doubt.

The problem, however, is that it's given far too much.

You see, when students become accustomed to hearing continual encouragement, for everything from turning on their laptop to lining up for lunch, it dilutes the message. It loses its effect. It becomes the same muffled soundtrack to every school day.

This is why it can seem as if your students need their own personal cheerleading squad just to get their name on their paper. They've become immune, jaded, and tuned out. Your words become no more noticeable than the soft whirl of the overhead fan.

To break through, you have to crank up the volume. You have to pour it on thick. You have to give more and more just to be heard.

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But the solution isn't more. It's less.

By being judicious with your encouragement, by picking your spots and selectively choosing the right moments, your words will have greater impact. They'll cut through the white noise of familiarity. They'll be a balm for itchy ears. They'll be meaningful to your students.

A good rule of thumb is to never encourage students for something they've already proven they can do successfully—like a common routine, for example. A walk to the library should be accompanied with neither encouragement nor praise. Just the footfalls of your feet.

Upon completion, a simple “Thank you” will do. In other words, make sure the task, activity, or assignment offers some challenge—which may vary from student to student. Make sure it's something new or different or more complex than they're used to.

Make sure you see signs of struggle or uncertainty before chiming in. And even then, there are times your students will get much more out of working through a tough problem or academic crisis without a single word from you.

To accomplish something difficult of their own accord, after all, is rocket fuel for their intrinsic motivational engine. And if you're not careful, your words can siphon the supply. Like effective praise, encouragement takes a thoughtful approach.

Save it for when they really need it, and it will have the desired effect.

For example, the next time you send your students off for independent work, whether individually or in groups, resolve to hold back any encouragement for the first five minutes. Allow them to exercise their self-starter muscles. Allow them to think, to overcome, to learn.

Allow them the satisfaction of relying on themselves. Often, to not encourage is the greatest encouragement. It strengthens, matures, and fills with enduring confidence.

Throttle back on using your words and voice to motivate your students and instead shift your focus to a more powerful lever. For it's your personality, your humor, and your cool lessons that provide the strongest motivation.

It's the experience of being in a classroom they look forward to and love being a part of that provides the surest and swiftest kick in the pants.

Your students are moved by truth and beauty and meaning and relationships—like we all are. And your encouraging words, emphatically spoken, deftly touched, and economically used, can be, in the right moments . . .

Just the boost they need.

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How To Handle Disrespectful Students Who Don't Know They're Being DisrespectfulBy Michael Linsin

A student points their finger inches from your face and teasingly says, “I’m mad at you. That homework last night was hard!”

Or . . .

A student raises their hand and commands you to “Tell John to stop bothering me.”

In either case you’re uncomfortable with the way you’ve been addressed. It’s given you pause, and you’re unsure how to respond.

On one hand, neither student appears to have any malicious intent.

From their tone of voice and body language, it’s clear they don’t realize they’re being disrespectful.

On the other hand, they are being disrespectful, no doubt about it.

So how should you proceed?

Should you follow  your classroom management plan   as it’s written and risk causing confusion and resentment? Or should you ignore their disrespect on the grounds that they don’t know any better and risk more of the same behavior?

What follows are seven steps that will allow you to handle this surprisingly common situation with grace and sensitivity, while all but removing the chances of it happening again.

1. Move on.

The first step is to quickly move on from the incident while neither endorsing nor condemning their behavior. The key here is to keep your cool, avoiding any outward expression of anger or disappointment.

A thin smile and a nod of the head will usually suffice. However, if applicable, you may have to calmly tell the student that you’ll speak to them about it later.

2. Pull aside.

After the incident is forgotten (30 minutes is a good rule of thumb), pull the student aside for a quick word. Here at SCM we typically don’t recommend private meetings or powwows with students regarding their behavior. In this case, however, it’s warranted.

3. Avoid confrontation.

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There is no reason to question the student or force assurances from them. Your sole purpose is to educate. You see, when you tell students “this is the way it is,” they readily accept it. It’s when you browbeat them into telling you what you want to hear that they become defensive and argumentative.

4. Recount and inform.

Recount the exact actions and words the student used that triggered your instinct that their behavior was disrespectful. Then simply inform them that it crossed the line, that it isn’t okay to speak to a teacher the way they might a friend or sibling.

5. Model the alternative.

The next step is to illustrate how they should have addressed you. Model it for them so they know exactly what you mean. No matter how irritated their behavior made you feel, be sure and maintain a helpful demeanor. It’s key to ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.

6. Pause.

A short pause will give the student a chance to speak if they wish. You’ll often get an apology. If you don’t, however, or if the student clams up, that’s okay. It’s not important that they admit their mistake. Your meeting isn’t a form of accountability, and it shouldn’t be construed as such.

7. Make a promise.

Finish your conversation with a promise that if it happens again, you’ll enforce a consequence. By patiently setting the record straight, the student will walk away from your two-minute meeting with a greater appreciation of you and a fuller, more meaningful understanding of respect.

Defining Disrespect

Disrespect appears to be on the rise—particularly among younger students. It’s important, however, to determine if the disrespect is intentional or a misunderstanding of the definition.

Sadly, as surprising as it may seem, due to poor home and neighborhood influences many students just don’t know any better. And enforcing consequences for behavior your students don’t understand to be wrong will jeopardize your relationship with them.

It will cause friction, distrust, and resentment and increase rather than decrease the chances of it happening again.

The good news is that body language and tone of voice will always tell you whether to enforce a consequence immediately or pull the student aside for a brief lesson.

This underscores the importance of teaching this particular topic thoroughly in the beginning of the school year.

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If you model the most likely scenarios—like those above, for example—and define for your students precisely where the line is, then instances of disrespect, intentional or not, will be few and far between.

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