Enforcing Classroom Discipline

You have the rules in place, your lessons are well organized and then the unthinkable happens…one of your students acts out in class. She ignores your direction to get materials ready for the class and tries to engage the others around her in a conversation. The other students are hesitant, watching you—they want to know how you will handle their classmate’s behavior.

What are your choices?

If you ignore her, she is going to get ‘louder’ and others may join her. There will be a shift in who controls the class. Are you ready for that? Some teachers chose to do so. A few students regularly acted out during my schooldays and the teacher continued to teach—for the front benchers. The rest of us struggled to hear the teacher with all that disruption. Those kids were labeled as ‘difficult’ and nothing was ever done—to identify the cause or manage the behavior. I hope someone (teacher or not) reached out to them to redirect their lives.

If you decide to handle the behavior, how do you go about it? Do you have a plan in mind or do you send the student straight to the principal’s office? When do you involve the parents? Or do you not inform them? Do you follow a sequence of steps?

First, don’t take it personally. It is possible the student doesn’t like you. Even then, don’t let the student know you know that.

Remind the student about what is acceptable behavior at that point in class. “Please open your book to page 33. We are going to discuss the events leading to World War II.” Yes, do use the word ‘please.’ It tells the student that you are in control of the situation and you are still going to be respectful. Most students will get back on task—especially when the teacher has not reacted to their challenge.

There will always be that student who wants to take it further. What then? Find out if there is a valid reason (from the student’s point of view) for that particular behavior. “Why don’t you get your book out now and you can come and talk to me about your problem at the end of the period.” If the student is in a stressful situation, that reassurance will help redirect her back to task. Your lesson can continue for the benefit of all the students and you can help her at the appropriate time (end of the period).

There is no valid reason and the student refuses to cooperate. Now remind the student that her actions have consequences. “If you don’t take your book out you won’t know what we are talking about. If you don’t participate in the lesson you will have to …” Keep the consequence relevant and manageable. Once you state the consequence, you must carry it out.

If the disruptive behavior persists, carry out the consequence. Let the parents know. Keep parents in the loop and work with them to handle the problems. Does this mean you send a letter to them asking them to meet with you for every small problem? No, but they should be aware of their child’s behavior, especially when there seems to be a chain of incidents. Remember, behavioral issues in the classroom should be dealt with in the classroom. If you ask parents to give consequences for infractions in the classroom, the student will not respond to you.

Some behaviors obviously do not follow this rule of wait and see. Hitting, cheating, stealing, bullying, etc need parental involvement right from the beginning. Both parents and teachers must send a clear message that these behaviors are unacceptable under any conditions.

Some parents give children mixed messages about this. They say, “My child has to know how to handle bullies or kids who are violent. I tell him/her to hit back.” Not on school grounds, definitely not on my watch!” is my answer. I will address this in a different post but on the same note,
teachers, you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever lay your hand on a child to reinforce the rules. Hitting a child is an absolute NO under any circumstance!

I know someone or the other will say how they were caned by their teacher and turned out ok..but is is for the rest of us to say whether you turned out ok or not!

Ms. S