Classroom management can be one of the more difficult aspects of teaching, especially for a new teacher. These five myths make it even more difficult for teachers to stay encouraged and on top of inappropriate behaviors throughout the year.
Preventative Classroom Management Will Make All Students Obey
While prevention is the best classroom management strategy, it will not cause all students to obey. New teachers in particular need to be aware of the fact that they will have disruptive, disobedient and out of control students. While prevention is essential to a solid classroom management strategy, knowing precisely what to do when a student acts up is vital as well.
To effectively use preventative Classroom Management, new teachers must have a carefully crafted management plan in place so that students understand what is expected of them all day long. While freedom and choice of behavior is helpful in building respect in the classroom, students need to be told what they can and cannot do as well.
Ignoring Student Misbehavior Will Make it Go Away
While many teachers and administrative staff will counsel new teachers to ignore inappropriate behavior to some degree in order for it to go away, this is not a fail-safe strategy. In fact, more times than not it may actually fail altogether. Some students know how to push all the right buttons to annoy a teacher. When ignored, they will continue to misbehave when they know the teacher is still being annoyed by their behavior. Teachers need to decide on a discipline plan that will help them to control these student behaviors.
A student who is misbehaving simply to get attention can learn through a teacher ignoring the behavior, that it does not work. In this situation alone will ignoring behavior be helpful in eliminating misbehavior. In this situation, the misbehavior will get worse prior to improving.
Students Will Obey the Class Rules if They Understand Their Importance
Many teachers will attempt to explain the rationale behind a rule when the student is breaking it. Students who have chosen to break a rule or be otherwise disruptive often do not care that they are being childish and no amount of convincing will get them to understand why following the rule was important in the first place.
Teachers need to reinforce rule following with consistent consequences. Explaining the importance of a rule is as useless as asking why a student broke a rule. It does not matter why a student broke the rule and the student does not care how important the rule is. The bottom line is a consequence is a must.
I have to Understand What Happened Before I Can Impose a Punishment
When two students begin fighting, asking them what is going on will not likely provide much useful information for a teacher. In fact it does not matter what happened to start the argument or what the argument is about. Unless it is obvious that one child was victimized by the other, both children can easily be disciplined for fighting. Teaching students to allow the teacher to be the mediator will help prevent future fights.
Mediating between student disagreements is not simply taking care of and settling every argument. Teachers should teach students how to work out problems without fighting about the problem. Impose consequences for fighting and teach strategies for avoiding a fight.
Within a Few Days, Students Will Follow Rules with Good Classroom Management Plan in Place
While a solid classroom management plan, consistently implemented, will help manage student behavior both quickly and for the entire year, it does not guarantee that students will obey within a few days and never act up again. In fact, even the best teachers with the most well behaved class will have repeat rule breakers and have to follow through with their discipline plan again and again.
It is important for new teachers to have a thought through classroom management plan that they can consistently implement each day. The key to a good classroom management plan is that it is simple to implement and easy to remain consistent.
Teachers, find out more about classroom management strategies that can make the year go smoothly. Read about 1-2-3 Magic, a simple classroom management strategy that many teachers have found to be very successful in their classrooms.
Related Information:
Understanding the Four Teaching Styles - Find out what kind of teacher you are and how that impacts your classroom management.
10 Things to Remember for the First Day of School - Be ready for the first student to walk into the classroom with these simple tips.
Student Behavior Plans - Create an individual behavior plan for students who continually misbehave in the classroom.
Jennifer Wagaman - Jennifer is a mother of 2 and has both public, private and administrative experience in the education field.
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