Here's what works for me:
Since I teach teenagers, I keep respect at the center of everything I do. They want to be respected, and they are at the age where they view respect as a two-way street. As teachers I think most of us expect respect, but in the minds of our students, we have to earn their respect. We are the adults, it is our job to model respect for our students by giving them respect first.
I lead by example. I demonstrate good manners. I don't bark out orders or commands. I make everything a request. "Please put away your phone." "Take off your hood please." I ask politely with a smile. When students don't follow my requests they look like jerks because they are school rules and I am asking them nicely. Oftentimes their friends will encourage them to follow my request. When students don't follow the request, I ask again and remind them that right now I am asking nicely, if I have to say it again I won't be as nice. This is usually where the students sigh and comply.
I explain things to my students. Teachers have to make countless decisions. Sometimes we get push back about our decisions from our students. If students ask why something is a certain way, I explain it to my students as best as I can. I think this discourse is completely worth it, and I trust my students enough to share it with them. Usually when I explain my thinking students understand. Sometimes students come up with alternate solutions. I love it when they do that. I take their viewpoints into consideration, and use their ideas when I can.
When students are difficult, I take the time to try to win them over. Last year I was unsuccessful. The year before I was successful. It won't always work. I try to be extra pleasant to students are unpleasant to me, but this can be exhausting so it may not happen every day. My rationale is that you cannot teach a student that you do not like. So when I have these difficult students I will go out of my way to find something about them that I like, and I hold on to that thought when I interact with the student.
Here's what doesn't work for me:
Has anyone ever advised you to not smile until Christmas? If smiling comes naturally to you, it's not easy to not smile for an extended period of time like that. The idea of this advice is that you don't want your students to think that you are nice and try to get away with anything and everything. The thing is, I am nice. I smile at my students all the time. I tried so hard to follow this advice my first year of teaching, and to be strict for no reason. Guess what happened. My students saw right through it because I was being inauthentic. I had to be myself. I smile at my students. They try to get away with things, but you know what? I don't let them. I am firm with them when I need to be. Usually because I am so nice most of the time, students understand when they cross a line because I'm not smiling anymore. My emotions are all over my face whether I want them to be or not. There's no point in trying to hide it.
Something new I am trying:
I am a member of the 40 Hour Teacher Work Club. We were given the advice to plan out our procedures before school began, and I did just that. We were given a list of procedures to plan for. I picked out the procedures that are relevant to me and my students, and I planned out how they work in the classroom, how to teach them, and when to teach them. Many procedures were ones that I had in place previously, but never committed to paper. Some procedures are new. I'm excited to have this list to refer to at the beginning of the school year because I always feel like I forget to warn students about certain procedures before we need them.
Parent contact:
Parent contact is hard for me. I rely heavily on email because I am rarely alone in my classroom to make phone calls. I collect parents' email addresses at the beginning of the year. I email all parents about up-coming assessments along with a brief update about what we're doing in class and any other important information. Parents love these emails. I end each email with an invitation to the parents to email me if they have questions or concerns. I like to build this good rapport with parents.
I rarely contact parents about student misbehavior. Most student misbehavior that I encounter can be handled in the classroom. The worst thing my students do most of the time is talk at the wrong time. (I hope I'm not jinxing myself for this year. *Knock on wood) My typical discipline hierarchy is as follows: first a warning, second a small consequence (taking phone for the period, moving seat, etc), third a referral with phone call home. I think I've only made it to the third step once in five years. Typically, when I call parents about student misbehavior it's because the student's behavior has been repeated for a few days and the consequences in the classroom have not deterred it.
I cannot wait to read other #SundayFunday posts about how other math teachers approach classroom management.
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