(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of the year. You can see the entire list of them here)
geralt / Pixabay
What teacher among us has not at some time experienced very challenging classroom management issues with certain students?
Though I feel I’m an excellent teacher in most areas, including classroom management, I still experience these kinds of challenges.
I have found, though, one strategy that almost always improves the situation – sometimes just in the short term, though often for the long term.
It’s actually a strategy with two-steps.
First, I need to find ten or minutes to talk with the student one-on-one. Most of the time, that means doing a “walk-and-talk.” Usually, that means arranging with the student’s teacher for me take them out for walking conversation during my prep period.
The second step is how I begin the conversation itself. It’s never about the immediate classroom behavior situation. I recognize that the behavior is just a symptom of a greater issue, so I try to get at that issue.
For a student who refuses to read in class, I say, “We’ll talk about not reading in class later. I want to talk about the truly important issue – you’re a super smart person and you tell me you want to go to college. Help me understand what is difficult for you about reading so we can develop ideas how I can support you so you can get into college. Your not realizing your potential would really be depriving the world of a gift.”
For a student who is not doing work in class, I might say, “We can talk about our classwork a little later. The much more important issue is I know you want to go to college, and I see your grades have dropped a lot in all your classes this year. I’d like to know what’s going and how I can support you.”
In other words, a student may be expecting me to harangue him about his behavior. Instead, I begin by downplaying that, and focus on their assets and how we can work together to amplify them.
Near the end of our conversation, almost as an after-thought, we’ll talk about the specific classroom issues, how they make me feel, and how we can work that out, which we almost always do.
When I first consider how to deal with these kinds of problems, my first impulse is always lash out. But I’ve learned from experience that very little positive resolution generally comes from that kind of strategy.
Leading with “big” has a … bigger pay-off.
I’m adding this post to Best Posts On Classroom Management.
(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of the year. You can see the entire list of them here) What teacher among us has not at some time experienced very challenging classroom management issues with certain students? Though I feel I’m an excellent teacher in most areas, including classroom management, I a look back Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
