In this video we are going to talk about 6 mistakes that teachers make when it comes to Managing Classroom Behavior and how you can respond differently with children who are misbehaving in your classroom. 

 

Before we get into it I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by the Behavior Management Blueprint. This is my FREE e-book on the five key essentials of classroom management and it also comes with a free mini video course as well. You can download that by clicking the link at the end of the blog.

 

Prefer to watch the video, Click here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqdsUrsUDRw

 

Behavior management is a skill that you have to learn, you have to practice. Like with any skill, sometimes you can develop or you can practice poor habits and not even realize that they are having a negative impact on your performance. So what I want to do is highlight 6 common mistakes that I see when I am working with teachers in the area of behavior management. What are some of the things that you can do differently to change the tone and the response of the students you teach? First let’s take a look at the 6 common mistakes teachers might make.

 

1.Only Responding to Surface Level behaviour

So the first one is this, only responding to surface level behavior. What I mean by that is surface level behavior is the behaviour that you see all the time. It might be talking, it might be calling out or back chatting. That is surface level behavior. But, as I have said many times before, if you delve into this in any detail, you will know that all behavior is a communication tool. Behavior is designed to get attention or to solicit help or some other kind of outcome from another person. So if we only ever focus on surface level behavior which is the behaviour that we see, we do not ever deal with the motivations or the functions underpinning that behaviour. 

 

It is really important that we take the time as teachers to inquire about the motivations behind the behavior because if we are only dealing with what we see, we may miss the things that are unseen. There may be problems at home, their behaviour may be a cry for help, they might be experiencing anxieties or learning difficulties, so we need to take the time to delve beneath the surface behaviour and see if there are any additional challenges or blockages that may be contributing to the behavior. When we just address surface level behavior, what we will find is, if the problem still continues under the surface, we are going to continue seeing worse and escalating surface behavior.

 

2. Assuming that behavior is malicious

The second thing is this, assuming that all misbehavior is malicious and not driven by a lack of academic understanding. Sometimes we can view behavior as something else, for example, we can assume that maybe they are trying to avoid work, because they are calling out, disrupting class members and we can perceive that as a lack of desire to work. However, very often, distracting behaviors can be tied to a lack of academic understanding. Students will either act the clown, or they will disengage from their work primarily because the stress of trying to engage in the academic work is causing them anxiety or causing them distress and so misbehaving is a way of alleviating that stress. It also deflects from the potential perception that they are dumb or that they do not understand. Many class clowns are like this.

 

If you have got somebody that clowns around, many times they are actually trying to deflect from the underlying thing that they are having trouble with.  Maybe its the workload or maybe they do not understand it. Therefore, take the time to check in with your students when they’re acting up and just ask them if they understand the lesson or assignment and ask them if they need help. If somebody is misbehaving in a disruptive way, I’ll usually lead with the question, “Are you okay? Is there something that you need help with?” rather than leading with a critical response to the behavior itself. So that is the second thing, do not assume that it’s not academic and make sure you inquire about their ability to do the work and check if they need some additional support.

 

3. Confronting every tiny thing

The third mistake that is often made by teachers is, confronting every tiny little misbehaviour. I am a strict teacher. I run a pretty tight ship when I am in the classroom and most kids will tell you that, but you have got to be able to discern when to let things slide or when to ignore things. You have to decide whether it is worth confronting in the moment. You may find that there are some behaviors that are not worth confronting for the sake of a bigger outcome, for example, if you tell a student to put their bag on the port rack and then sit down in their seat, they may sit in their seat but keep their bag with them. So you have got to decide what is more important, is it more important to keep them in the seat or more important to get full compliance out of them and send them back to the port rack?

 

Well, what you may find is them keeping the bag could be a couple of different things, they might be nervous about leaving their property unattended because they are scared of it being stolen, or they are protective of their personal property. Some kids can be like that. They might be setting you up to continue their disruptions so they keep their bag because they know that you will send them back to the port rack, which is an invitation for them to continue disrupting and continue being off task. So you need to decide what’s more important, getting them in their seat and getting them to work, or ensuring 100% compliance. I think you could figure out which one is the more important one. So do not jump on everything. Learn how to pick what is important and what you can ignore till the next time.

 

4. Displaying conduct publicly

Number four is this, displaying conduct publicly. If you have a habit of recording a kids’ misconduct on the board or maybe telling them off in front of the class or making them an example, this can be really detrimental to them and the atmosphere in the classroom. Generally speaking, recording misbehaviour on the board does not correct behavior at all. Kids who are made an example of do not suddenly have this epiphany that they need to stop misbehaving. It usually causes shame and embarrassment.

 

Very often it will result in a repercussion, whereby they will misbehave even more, or they will feel the need to save face by disrespecting you or engaging in some kind of antisocial behavior. So do not look for ways to publicly shame or publicly display their misbehaviors. Instead,  look for ways to privately address misbehaviours. Do it one-on-one as much as you can and you will find that you get much better responses out of your students.

 

5.  Demanding compliance without building relationships

Number five, demanding compliance without building relationships. I see this as a problem with many older teachers. If you have grown up in an era where you were taught to respect your teacher, regardless of whether they were a nice teacher or not, or maybe you have taught for a long time and you have this very firm belief that children should respect their elders. Well, there is nothing wrong with that belief, but one of the things we need to recognize is that this is not the world we live in anymore. Many children are not taught to respect their elders or teachers regardless of how they feel about them.

 

Very often we have to earn their trust and we have to earn the respect of the children that we teach so if you are just walking into a room, demanding compliance or respect, what you will usually find with kids nowadays is that they will arch up and rebel against that authoritarian style of teaching. You need to do the work to build relationships. You need to put in the effort to show them that you can be trusted, that you respect them and that you believe in them. Then you will find their compliance will generally follow because you are trying to build a genuine relationship, instead of demanding compliance through threatening or shaming the students. So make sure you put in the work to build a relationship with them.

 

6. Check your Biases

The last thing is this, check your biases. You will find that you are unconsciously biased against certain students. Maybe this is based on their behavior, their ethnic background or the way that they present themselves. There are a lot of things that we naturally, as human beings, have unconscious biases about. We need to be honest enough to own that and honest enough to self-reflect and say, “Do I treat this student differently to the way that I treat other students in my class ?” Perhaps they have a reputation in the school for certain misbehaviors, perhaps you have had a negative encounter with this student in the past.  Then you will bring that negative experience into your relationship with that student.

 

So you have got to always self-reflect and ask yourself the question, “Did I handle that well? Was I acting out of an unwarranted bias towards that student? Really be honest as a teacher and check yourself. Check your own attitude and check your own motives if you want to get the best out of your students, because we all have biases from time to time. We do not like it when others are biased towards us so we should not subject our students to our biased responses to them.

 

So these are the 6 common mistakes that I notice teachers making and some of the ways that you can respond differently. 

 

To recap, rather than responding to surface level behavior, make sure you dig beneath the surface and find out what else is going on. Secondly, do not just assume that they understand the work or that their misbehaviour is not related to academics. Any disruptive behaviors related to a lack of understanding in the work signals that the student needs help and support. Thirdly, confronting every little misdemeanor, is unhelpful.  You have got to learn how to recognise when to let things slide, when to focus on them and when to address them. Number four is displaying misconduct publicly or addressing misconduct in a way that makes an example of students. We have got to avoid shaming situations. Number five is demanding compliance without building relationships. Ccompliance will always follow relationships. The last one is checking your bias, being honest in your own reflection of the way that you interact with each student and checking yourself. If you are treating a student with any kind of hidden or unconscious bias in the way that you manage their behavior, then change.

 

I hope that was really helpful. If you want to learn more tips like this do not forget to check out our online course called “Behavior Management Essentials” the link is in the description below. It is four hours of content, a deep dive into behaviour management, taken from our live workshops. If you have enjoyed this then share it with somebody that you think would benefit and I will see you next time.

 

If you would like to learn more about managing classroom behaviour effectively, why not check out our FREE video course Behaviour Management Blueprint. See below for details. 

https://calmerclassrooms.today/blueprint/

​Essential Strategies for Effective Behaviour Management