There’s no one way to correctly manage a classroom because different styles work for different teachers and groups of students. If you’re a new teacher wanting to get off on the right foot or an experienced teacher wanting to improve your classroom management skills, here are some simple ways you can keep your classroom under control from the first day of school to the last.
Believe in your students.
If you show your students that you care about them, their happiness, and their education, they will be less likely to misbehave from the get-go. Explain the class rules to your students and let them know you have high expectations for them. Students don’t want to disappoint a teacher they know cares about them, so they’ll do their best to live up to your standards.
Choose rules wisely.
Having 50 class rules instead of five won’t make your students any more well-behaved. Actually, setting too many rules can have the opposite effect on your students and cause them to rebel. Instead, decide on a few solid rules and stick to those. Rules are great when it comes to communicating your expectations, but don’t expect them to do all the work for you.
Don’t have public confrontations.
If a student is acting up, resist the urge to confront him right away, because things could escalate if you get into an argument in front of the student’s peers. Not to mention, the student could get embarrassed and start to act out. A much better approach is to bring the student into the hallway and resolve the situation in private.
Manage your reactions.
You can’t always control everything that is going on your classroom, but you can control the way you react to it. Even if a student is being disrespectful, all of the other students are going to pay a lot more attention to how you handle the situation. If you handle it in a calm, collected manner, they will have a lot more respect for you.
Be consistent.
It’s important to set rules and expectations on the first day of class, but it’s even more important to keep up with them as the school year goes on. For example, if students notice that you aren’t very consistent with discipline, they may take advantage of that and break rules because they know you won’t do anything about it.
Don’t take anything personally.
When students lash out at you or disrespect you, they rarely do it because they have something against you. There’s commonly some other kind of issue in their lives that is causing them stress, so before you get angry or upset, you may want to take a closer look into their personal lives. Ask them how they’re doing & what their home life is like to understand what they’re going through and how you can help them.
Create a class identity.
From day one, you need to instill a sense of group identity in your students so they’ll feel like they’re part of a team. Especially during the first few days of school, praise the class as a whole with statements like, “Everyone has been meeting my expectations on homework, so great job!” They’ll feel a sense of pride in the class and won’t want to mess up their class’s reputation as a whole.
