Emily
Hey there, thanks for joining us today. In today's episode, we're discussing how to plan ahead for the management problems that will arise in your classroom and sharing a teacher approved tip for giving a consequence quietly.
Heidi
We start our episodes with a morning message just like we used to do at morning meeting in our classrooms. This week's morning message is use predictive text to finish the sentence. My principal just walked in and... Emily what's your sentence?
Emily
Mine was my principal just walked in and asked me to come back to the house to help her get ready to move. No, that's a hard No. How about yours?
Heidi
Well, mine is my principal just walked in and asked if we were still on the phone. And I thought well, that tracks but then a lot of people had that same one. So principals everywhere must know that teachers like to be on their phones.
Emily
Yeah. We have some funny responses from our community. Michelle said, my principal just walked in and said that she was going to be there at five. So I told her I would be there at six. Diane said my principal just walked in and she asked me to go back to work tomorrow. And I said no.
Heidi
I feel that on a Monday.
Emily
Kim said my principal just walked in and asked me to come over to help her with the bathroom. So I told her to go ahead because I didn't know what to do. Deborah said my principal just walked in and asked for my phone. Oh. Donna said my principal just walked in and said that she was going home. Lucky.
Emily
Lori said my principal just walked in and asked for my password. And she told me that she had to use it.
Heidi
I think that's a scam Laurie. No, don't do it. don't give her your password.
Emily
Emily said my principal just walked in and asked if we were still going on vacation this week. Yes. Stacy said my principal just walked in and I told her to go back to the office. Kate said my principal just walked in and said she doesn't want me to be there. So she told me to go ahead and go home.
Heidi
I don't think my feelings would be hurt.
Emily
These predictive texts are killing me. Casey said my principal just walked in and said she would call you in about a minute. Oh, what did you do? And Sasha said my principal just walked in and asked if we could have a drink?
Heidi
Well not at school.
Emily
We'd love to have you join the conversation over in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.
Heidi
Well, hello, there you are joining us today right in the middle of our three part series on classroom management.
Emily
But don't worry, you can still listen to today's episode, just make sure to go back and listen to episode one of the series when you're done.
Heidi
As teachers our goal is to create an ideal classroom.
Emily
Or as ideal as possible in the real world. Let's be realistic.
Heidi
But we're always trying.
Emily
To us an ideal classroom is one that bolsters the social, emotional, behavioral and academic development of all the students so not much child's play.
Heidi
And that's why classroom management is so important. Effective classroom management is how we create a classroom that nurtures well rounded development.
Emily
A lot of teachers think they have a management plan, when what they really have is a consequences plan. If your class is struggling with unwelcome behaviors, it might be because your management plan leaves you stuck doling out consequences instead of managing behavior.
Heidi
We think of positive classroom management as having three pillars. The first pillar is prevent management problems.
Emily
So our previous episode was all about ways to prevent problems from occurring in the first place, which is our favorite way to manage behavior is just prevent those problems from the beginning. If the problems don't happen, you don't have the hassle of managing them. So make sure you go back to Episode 101 for 10 ways to prevent problems in your classroom.
Heidi
Our second pillar of classroom management is to plan for management problems. And our third pillar is predict management problems. No matter how good we are at preventing the problems, some are still going to crop up. So it's important to have a solid plan for how to handle them.
Emily
In today's episode, we're talking about your plan for dealing with those management problems. And next week we'll share our best tips for predicting the times when your regular management plan isn't going to be strong enough to handle the problems that will arise.
Heidi
And you definitely don't want to miss that, especially as you're heading into the craziness of the holiday season. Yep. So make sure you're subscribed to this podcast, so you don't miss any of our holiday management tips and tricks.
Emily
But that's next week. Today, we're all about planning for how to manage the daily hiccups that happen when we work with children.
Heidi
And the first step in that plan is remembering that we are working with children. They are still figuring out how to be human. And it's our job to support that figuring out. So the basis of any positive effective classroom management plan is believing that there are no bad kids. All kids are good kids. But some of them just need a little extra support, or a lot extra support.
Emily
I'm not gonna lie, there have been a couple of kids in my time that have tested me in my very core. Still not entirely convinced that their purpose on this planet wasn't to push every one of my buttons every day.
Heidi
And that does raise the point that what we're talking about today is general classroom management. If you think of the RTI pyramid of instruction that I'm sure we've all seen at a faculty meeting, we have the base of the pyramid where all students are getting quality classroom instruction.
Heidi
Then we have the middle tier of kids who need some extra support in order to progress. This would include interventions like small group instruction, or reteaching groups. And then you've got that top tier of the pyramid. That's for the very small group of students who need significant support in order to progress. And we can actually see a similar pyramid when it comes to classroom behavior.
Emily
Yeah, so 80 to 90% of your students, your general classroom rules and consequences will be enough for them. But every class has got a few special little souls, some of those kids need a little extra support, and some need specialized intensive support.
Heidi
And fortunately, the number of kids in that top group seems to be growing. And at the same time, schools seem to be offering fewer and fewer resources for helping teachers deal with those severe problems.
Emily
We are sensitive that this is the reality a lot of teachers are struggling with right now. And if that's you, please know we see you and we're cheering you on.
Heidi
However, for this episode, we are focusing on the base of that pyramid, the management plan that supports most of your students. The tips we're sharing today won't solve all of your behavior problems. But if they manage 80 to 90% of them, you will have more time and energy to address those more severe issues.
Emily
So what is included in the base of our management pyramid? First, we have all of the things we talked about in last week's episode that prevent problems. We effectively manage the classroom space, we lay out clear procedures and hold kids accountable for meeting our expectations. We use teaching techniques that keep kids engaged in lessons.
Heidi
Once we've done what we can to prevent problems, we need a productive way for dealing with the problems that still occur. If we rely on a system that requires us to catch and punish every misbehavior, all we're doing is wearing ourselves out. Relying on punishment isn't teaching students how to be better.
Emily
Nope, it's just teaching them not to get caught. That doesn't reduce the number of behaviors we have to deal with. It just makes the kids sneakier at misbehaving. Little rascals.
Heidi
A better alternative is a management system that teaches self control. If kids have self control, they are choosing to follow directions, rather than relying on us to coerce them into following directions that cuts down on misbehaving. But it also frees us from wasting time and energy on punishments.
Emily
And how do we teach self control? First, we teach strategies that empower students to make good choices. And second, we teach accountability.
Heidi
So let's talk about how you can teach strategies that empower students to make good choices. When you clearly teach your procedures and routines, you're teaching students how to make good choices, explaining and practicing the steps of each routine teaches students exactly what's expected of them.
Emily
If you want some support and clearly teaching your procedures, make sure to check out our procedures and routines resources that use our tell try tally talk method, and it walks you through each step of the process.
Heidi
Another way to teach strategies is to teach students how to recess.
Emily
Is that is that like can what students their only job is recess?
Heidi
They would like that if that were their only job, but obviously kids know how to play. But as you know, five minutes on the playground will show you they don't always know how to play at recess.
Emily
Or make good choices at recess.
Heidi
Disagreements over rules erupt into physical fights. Kids are climbing on top of the monkey bars no matter how many times you tell him to get down, basketballs are being thrown like dodgeballs. Some kids are bored and causing problems. Some kids are lonely, and they're counting the minutes until recess is over. All kids need strategies for how to behave at recess.
Emily
One of our favorite tips is to teach specific recess games. So kids have more options of what to do during recess. And we talk all about that in episode 92 if you want to go check that out.
Heidi
We also want to teach the skills needed to function in the classroom, how to work in a group, how to listen, how to disagree politely, how to include someone who is left out. You need a dedicated time for teaching positive behavior skills.
Emily
The second part of our system of self control is to teach accountability. This is where rules and consequences come into play.
Heidi
Rules allow us to create a classroom where everyone thrives. And effective classroom rules are more than just a list of do's and don'ts. Rules are guiding principles that remind students how they should be. If we want students to follow the rules, one of the most important things we can do is involve students in creating our class expectations.
Emily
If you've used Guided Discovery to introduce your classroom tools, you know how powerful it is to involve students in generating the standards they're expected to follow. Leading a discussion about how your class is going to use scissors or glue means students have a clear understanding of what's okay and what's not okay, and it helps them be more mindful and willing to comply.
Heidi
If you are not yet familiar with Guided Discovery, go back to episodes 21 and 75, where we walk you through all of the reasons that we love Guided Discovery, and how to use it with your own students.
Emily
Another way to empower students is to involve them in generating your class rules. Responsive Classroom has a great system for this, if you have the first six weeks of school book, they walk you through the process. But if you don't have the book, they have a blog post with helpful information. And we'll link to that in the show notes.
Heidi
I love the Responsive Classroom method. Emily and I both used it every year, so on the third day of school, we would start talking about our hopes and goals for the year with the kids. We spent a couple of days on that and then I would pull the kids in for a discussion.
Heidi
We looked at our list of goals, and we talked about what we needed to do to make sure that we could reach those goals. I loved having such a positive way to start the discussion about rules, it helps set the standard that I'm not waiting to catch them being bad. Instead, the message was that we all have a responsibility to follow the rules, so that everyone is protected.
Emily
And you can do this at any point in the year. If you feel like you want to reframe your students attitudes about rules, you can do this now. You can do it in November or February or May.
Heidi
And even if you have school wide rules that you're expected to implement, you can still make this activity work for you. Maybe instead of making rules tell your students that you're making class agreements, or norms or standards or a code of conduct. You could even call it your class constitution.
Heidi
This process of coming together and agreeing to certain behaviors is so powerful, it's definitely worth adapting to make it fit your needs.
Emily
And it's so good for building your classroom community too. Rules are always more effective if students understand the reason behind them, and the behaviors that go with them. And when students help create them, they're even more willing to follow them.
Heidi
As part of our rules discussion at the beginning of the school year, I made sure we talked about what it looked like and sounded like if we were following that rule. But that really has to be an ongoing conversation.
Heidi
All year long we want to reference our rules. Maybe before heading into the lunchroom, you remind students of the rule to be kind, and then you ask them to tell you what they'll do at lunch that day to be kind.
Emily
It's also helpful to have a set time to discuss class problems, and have students suggest solutions. Maybe at morning meeting, you can point out that there was a lot of roughhousing at recess yesterday, you can ask students to suggest ways they can keep each other safe, then they're the ones responsible for the solution instead of making it something only the teacher can solve.
Heidi
These clear and consistent conversations about rules become even more important when a rule is broken. Having a positive framework around rules helps kids see accountability as a way to fix a problem and not a punishment for messing up.
Emily
We want kids to understand that mistakes are a welcome part of the learning process even when we're learning how to behave. Kids forget or slip up or feel the need to test the boundaries. So when rules are broken, our management plan needs to rely on accountability, not shame.
Heidi
Logical consequences are a way to turn a misstep into an opportunity for growth. Instead of punishing kids for breaking rule, we help them fix the problem they caused.
Emily
It might sound like consequences, quote unquote, is just another term for punishment. But the two responses are very different. Punishment uses external controls like fear or shame to ensure compliance, logical consequences help children regain self control and learn how to reflect and improve.
Heidi
So growing up our elementary school had the management system of writing your name on the board, and then you'd have to add a checkmark for each additional offense. Over the years, I might have had to add a checkmark for you know, scribbling on my desk or not coming in when the recess bell rang or calling my teacher Mrs. poopoo head all real examples from my sketchy past that earned checkmarks.
Emily
She was a problem child guys.
Heidi
I said Mrs. poopoo head under my breath, as you heard me anyway. And it's she's like, What did you call me? And then I just said it louder. So you earned that I did. But those checkmarks weren't related to the harm I cause. So they weren't really solving the problem.
Emily
Nope, I definitely usually got my check marks for talking.
Heidi
Can't understand that at all.
Emily
On the other hand, logical consequences are always related to the specific behavior and there are three main types. The first one is you break it, you fix it. This is used when something is broken or a mess is made.
Emily
Maybe Zara accidentally crashed into Miguel in the lunchroom, now his tray is on the floor. Even if the harm is unintentional, the consequence is taking responsibility for fixing the problem. Maybe the teacher could coach Zara to check if Miguel was okay, and then help clean up this build tray and get Miguel a new one.
Heidi
You break it you fix it would have been a good consequence for my scribbling on the desk. But it can also apply to hurt feelings. In this case, it's important to talk to the child who was harmed away from the other child to learn what they need in order to restore the relationship.
Heidi
Maybe they need an apology or promise not to do it again. In severe cases, maybe the hurt runs so deep, that the child who was harmed will never feel safe around the other child again, the hard lesson about consequences is sometimes we can't take back what we did.
Emily
The loss of a privilege is another logical consequence. This comes into play when students forget or defy a rule.
Heidi
So if your students are leaving the class library a sloppy mess every day, maybe the consequence is losing the privilege of choosing their own books for a few days.
Emily
Or if students can't play a math game without getting out of control. A logical consequence would be having to put away the game and do independent worksheets instead.
Heidi
The loss of the privilege needs to be tied to the expectations that aren't being met. So when I didn't come back to class when the recess bell rang, a logical consequence would be missing the next recess, or maybe only being allowed to play on the blacktop near the door, so I couldn't ignore the bell next time.
Heidi
Losing the privilege of sitting next to my friends at lunch would be a punishment, not a consequence, because my problem had to do with recess and not lunch.
Emily
The key to making the loss of a privilege and effective consequence is making sure that you reteach your expectations before reinstating the privilege. Before letting you have free rein at recess, your teacher could have reminded you what to do when you hear the bell. This makes sure there's no misunderstanding about the expected behavior.
Heidi
If you have a student who's being disruptive, maybe they've called their teacher an unfortunate name, they might need a little break or a timeout and this is the third type of logical consequence.
Emily
This one gives students a chance to calm down and regain some self control. Everyone needs these sometimes. Some teachers have designated spaces in their classroom for students to take a little break, and then they can rejoin the group when they're ready.
Heidi
Unfortunately, sometimes behaviors escalate to the point of needing outside support. But with the foundation of a strong management system in place, you can prevent most problems from becoming that severe.
Emily
A positive classroom management system includes plans for preventing behavior problems, planning for the problems that will still crop up and predicting where problems will arise in the future.
Heidi
When you're making a plan for how to address the problems that still crop up, make sure you are dedicating regular time to teaching strategies that empower students to make good choices.
Emily
And make sure you have a plan for clear, easy to implement consequences. Logical consequences like you break it, you fix it losing a privilege or taking a break, teach students how to act responsibly in or out of the classroom.
Heidi
We'd love to hear how you handle rules and consequences in your classroom. Come join the conversation in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.
Emily
Now let's talk about this week's teacher approved tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip is create a signal to help students know they need to take a little break from the group. Tell us more about this. Heidi.
Heidi
This is a very handy consequence to have ready. Often kids are disruptive at the most inconvenient times, which is just makes it even more annoying. You're in the middle of a lesson and one little darling won't stop pestering his neighbor, what do you do?
Heidi
You don't want to single that kid out or make them feel ashamed. And it's not really practical to shut everything down, get all the other kids busy on something and then deal with that problem on the side. You need something that you can rely on in a tough moment and that's when a signal comes in handy.
Heidi
I taught my students that if they were being disruptive, I would catch their eye and I would hold up my index finger. That was their warning. If they couldn't get it under control after that, I made eye contact again, held up two fingers and then I pointed to where they needed to move to, to have a little break.
Heidi
And I love the idea of having a dedicated timeout space. But my classroom was basically just a box, I didn't have any room for that. So instead, I just had my students move away from the group. So if we were at the rug, they move back to their desk. If we were at the desk, they moved to the small group table. I just needed them in a place where their disruptions were minimized.
Emily
And what did you do with that didn't solve the problem?
Heidi
In that case, I made eye contact again, I'm still carrying on teaching doing what I'm doing with the rest of the kids, but I'm looking them in the eye. And I hold up three fingers and point to the door. They were supposed to go stand outside the door until I could come chat with them about what needed to change.
Heidi
Usually, they realized the severity of that and they could join the group after that. But sometimes they would have to go work in another room. And occasionally they would have to go work in the office.
Emily
It's important to teach and practice this just like any other procedure so students know exactly what to do when it happens.
Heidi
And plus practicing it like any other procedure does take some of the sting out of it. If students are embarrassed that can escalate their bad behavior. So we want this to feel as low key normal everyday as possible. We're not mad, we're not flustered, we're just helping a student get control and a difficult moment.
Heidi
To wrap up the show we're sharing what we're giving extra credit to this week. Emily what are you giving extra credit to?
Emily
I'm giving extra cred to the Carbon Clean Pete's eyeglass lens cleaner. All three of my kids wear glasses, and I grabbed this tool to help us keep their lenses clean. It's almost like a little mini set of tongs, I don't know how else to describe it. And they have carbon microfiber pads on the ends. So you can clean both sides of the glasses at once.
Emily
And I liked that when you put the tool back in its case, it cleans off the pads. There's like something inside like a little I don't know if it's a little piece of carbon or what the pads rub off on. But it cleans off the pads for the next use. It's honestly hard to describe what I'm talking about the picture makes more sense. But I'm really impressed with this tool. I keep it handy so that I can clean everyone's glasses at bedtime when we're reading together.
Heidi
Well, that's good to know. Because I was just cleaning my glasses on my shirt this morning thinking I've got to be better way to do this.
Emily
What are you giving credit to?
Heidi
I'm giving extra credit to the new holiday music playlist on Spotify. That's what the playlist is called new holiday music. And I love Christmas music, maybe to an unhealthy level. And I want to know all of the new releases each year.
Heidi
So this playlist updates with all of the new singles that come out each week, around October November. And a lot of times there's good music on there like One Republic has a new single for Christmas. That is very fun. I love One Republic, but there's more some head scratches or like who is this for?
Heidi
I was kind of thinking that maybe Cher's new Christmas album was going to be maybe the low point this year. Sorry, Cher. But then Andrea Bocelli, you know, that beautiful Italian voice rolled in singing Felice Navidad with The Simpsons.
Heidi
What is happening here, your characters have little like funny, quirky asides. And you're like, I don't I don't know what reality is anymore. So my head spinning a little bit over that one. But the new holiday music playlist is where you can find it all the good and the bad. And maybe we just skip over that. Or maybe it's your favorite and I just hurt your feelings. I'm sorry. I will make it up to you later.
Heidi
That's it for today's episode. Make a plan for dealing with your behavior management problems. And don't forget our teacher approved tip to create a signal to let kids know they need a timeout.