Skip to main content

Never Let Them See You Sweat!

You may not remember those commercials from the 80s.  Some of you are probably not old enough to remember them.  So as a refresher, here is one of them.


The same ideas apply in the classroom.  When it comes to classroom management, the longer you keep your cool the better.  Just like a great white shark is able smell blood in water from three miles away, students can sense when a teacher has lost control or doesn't care.

So how do you keep this from occurring?


  1. Be prepared.  This doesn't just mean writing down lesson plans and making copies.  It also doesn't mean get out the script for the lesson and have it handy.  You do want to have your materials ready ahead of time, not the morning of the lesson.  What if something happens and you are unable to get everything ready that morning?  You are running late, the copier breaks down, etc.  Another aspect of being prepared involves planning for your transitions.  Know how you are going to move from one activity to another.  Know what call backs you plan to use throughout the day.  How are you going to have students respond to questions throughout the day or class.  
  2. Respond appropriately.  When a student does something to upset you, yelling and throwing a fit does you no good and actually empowers the student to do it again.  Often times the best way to redirect is by calmly responding in a way that shows respect for the students yet still demonstrates that you are in control of the classroom.  You might get angry, but you don't need to take it out on the students.  Don't "climb the ladder" with a student.  There is no need escalate a situation beyond what is necessary.  Going back and forth in a tug of war with a student never works out well for you.  Teachers often forget they are the adult and will respond like a child would.  
  3. Leave the sarcasm at home.  No matter what age the student is, sarcasm is never an appropriate response.  It is not funny and it will not score you points with the other students in the class.   It demeans the child. If anything, it demonstrates for the other students that it is acceptable to put down and bully others.  
  4. Love your job.  Even if you are having a bad day, or don't like situations at work, always display a love for your job to the students.  Most teachers say they got into teaching because they want to make a difference in the lives of kids.  Do your daily actions show that?  They should, if they don't please rethink why you get in the car and go to work each day.  If you don't want to go to work each day, the students know and they will respond appropriately.  
These are just a few ideas to help you become a more effective teacher.  There are many more that could be added to the list, but this is a start.  Feel free to leave a comment and add to the list.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

4 Tools for Creating Instruction Video

Many educators are plunging into creating digital resources as part of their districts plan to continue instruction while school facilities are closed for the remainder of the school year.  If you have not explored this before now, there are several options available to you in a variety of prices and skillset. The tools we suggest will be free or inexpensive and only focus on creating videos that you can share with students later.  There are options for live video conferencing and some of these tools are designed for that, but we are only focusing on video recording.  This type of learning model would best be classified as asynchronous because you are allowing students to work at different times.  This may be the best option since some of your students may have siblings and limited use of technology at their house. Before we get started, please check with your district to see if there are any restrictions on which tools you may use.  There is a possibility that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beginning again

I have been silent on my blog for a while.  Partly because I have started a "new" challenge that took some time to settle into.   I have been an educator for over 20 years.   I have been a classroom teacher, building administrator & district administrator.   Our family recently felt called to a new location which gave me the opportunity to work for an education non-profit for a year. Then the call back to the field came.  I couldn't resist.  Those of you that are called into education know that the calling never really leaves you.  I knew I needed to be back in a position that allowed me to have a more direct impact on students.  I loved the work I was doing, but I was in a position that didn't give me any interaction with students and I needed to get back to that on some level.  If you haven't been in that position, it is hard to put into words exactly what this calling means.   Granted I was still able to influe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Do you need a Philosophy of Education?

When we first start out in education we often think that we know what we're doing. We think that we don't need any help and that everything that we need to know we learned in our education classes. It only takes about three days into the job to realize that our college education did not fully prepare us for every single student that we're going to face. It didn't truly prepare us for how we really should deliver a lesson when we have students on five different levels along with multiple types of disruptions. It didn't prepare us to handle all the routines, all the the daily tasks, all the decisions that we have to make.  This isn't intended to disparage any university program, but just an acknowledgement that there is now way for them to fully prepare you for every student and situation you will face.  Experience is the only true way to learn how to handle all of these different types of situations.  So how do we make up for that information gap? That is a chall...
1 comment
Read more