Classroom Management Tips Only Work for Behaviors That Can Be Handled in the Classroom
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the critical distinction between behaviors teachers can manage in the classroom and behaviors that require administrative or outside intervention.
Key Takeaways
- Not all behavior is a classroom management issue - Violence, threats, and serious disruptions require admin intervention, not teacher tips
- Teachers need admin backup for serious incidents - Expecting teachers to 'manage' assault or destruction is unreasonable and unsafe
- Know the line - Clear protocols for which behaviors stay in the classroom and which go to the office protect both teachers and students
Transcript
What's your best classroom management tip?
Leave a comment and let me know and let me know what you think about my sharing classroom management tips here in these videos.
I have mixed feelings because I have a feeling that any tips that get shared could be misused, could be used to try to kind of trick teachers into handling things in the classroom that should not be handled in the classroom.
So there are two kinds of behaviors that can occur in the classroom.
Those that can be handled in the classroom and those that really need to be handled outside of the classroom, in the office by an administrator or someone in a similar role who can handle things while class is going on without the student who was having the problem.
And if I could pinpoint one major issue with school discipline right now, it would be that students are not getting consequences, students are getting sent right back to class.
It's all symptoms of this same phenomenon where the support is not there.
The support that needs to be there for classroom teachers to be successful with their classroom management is not there, and teachers are being asked to handle things that are really not handleable in the classroom.
They need to be handled outside of the classroom.
So having said that, within the classroom, there's a lot we can do to get better results from our instruction, to get better behavior out of students.
There are best practices and worst practices, and I would love to know what some of your favorite classroom management tips are.
One of my most important sources as a new teacher and that I've continued to refer to throughout my career is Harry Wong's first days of school and the idea of teaching routines and procedures.
Nothing is more powerful.
Nothing does more heavy lifting in your classroom than routines and procedures.
And the heavy lifting comes in two forms, right?
It clarifies for students what the expectations are.
So they know what to do.
You don't have to fight them every day.
You don't have to tell them every day.
And secondly, you don't have to think about them every day.
It's just one more thing that is not weighing on you, not distracting you, not pulling you in a thousand different directions.
So if I could speak highly of one particular classroom management strategy, it would be to teach routines and procedures.
And anytime you're having a problem with something in your classroom not going the way you want, routines and procedures are probably the kind of tier one.
They're kind of the foundation of getting things the way that you want so that if there are exceptions, most of the kids know what to do, right?
If a couple of kids are struggling with something, almost everybody else knows what to do and can be on track, and then it's easier to handle issues.
None of that is to say that you should have to handle office managed issues, you know, things that really need to be handled in the office like serious disruption or violence.
You know, that stuff just has to go to the office.
It has to stay there.
It has to not come right back to the classroom, as I said in my video earlier today.
If you have other classroom management tips, I would love to hear them.
And if you want classroom management tips for a particular issue, a particular grade level or subject, let me know and either I or maybe somebody else in the comments can help you out.