1. Difficulty with academics.
Students will often act up if they are struggling academically. Whether the student is truly behind the rest of the class or simply feeling stressed by the work load, the result is often disruptive to the teacher and class.
Solution: provide more one-on-one time with this student or provide additional help through peer tutors, partner lessons, additional examples, etc.

2. I’m Bored!!
Many students who are ahead of the pack are bored and will act up. This can often be confused with students who are struggling because bored students will often refuse to do their work or act up while doing their work. 

Solution: provide students with a packet of challenge work that they can do if they complete their work early – make it fun work, not busy work, and allow students to choose activities that inspire them.

3. I am not loved

Students who live in situations where they are unloved or not attended to will often act up because they have learned that acting out provides attention. How sad is it that students will act up for attention? When negative attention is an improvement, we know that this is just a student who needs to be loved. 

Solution: Don’t give up on this student! Love him or her! Find ways to make each individual student feel like he or she is the most important student to you. Make this your goal.

4. I don’t understand the expectations ???

While it should not be common, unfortunately many times the reason students act out is because the expectations (rules/consequences/rewards) are not clear. Stating them, writing them down and correcting students for acting out is not enough to provide clear expectations. 

Solution: Spent time throughout the ENTIRE school year modeling proper behavior and having students practice proper behavior solely for the purpose of learning proper behavior.

Need more ideas? Check out Common Behavior Problems and Solutions for specific ideas.

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I may be out of line here, but in my opinion, it’s time to break free from the expectations that a class will be the same as they were last year, or that they are “all tough” in a certain grade. In fact, students live up to expectations and if you expect them to be bad, they will. If they perceive the expectation, they will fulfill it as well, even if you don’t actually expect it. (this means you’re likely suffering from last year’s teacher’s bad management habits)

So you have the worst class, so the entire grade is a nightmare, ok. Now we move on. If it is 5th grade, you can likely have this conversation with them to elicit change. Otherwise it’s time for a radical shift in your own thoughts/attitudes and methodologies. 

Troubled students may still act out, but it’s time to give them all the opportunity to reign in their behavior – start by spending time each day modeling proper behavior and having students model proper behavior. Review or change classroom expectations and set in place strict consequences for misbehavior and rewards for proper behavior.

Above all, you need to respect your students. If you don’t respect them, how can you expect them to show you any respect?

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When you introduce your classroom expectations to your students, ensure that they understand CLEARLY what is expected and then allow no excuses. If you require students to keep their hands to themselves, do not tolerate hitting even if it was an “accident” or if “he started it!”.

If you start the school year by providing room for excuses, students will continue to push that line all year, just to see how far you’ll bend before you break.

Some veteran teachers claim that you shouldn’t smile before Christmas. The point here isn’t that you shouldn’t physically smile before Christmas, but that you should start as you intend to go on, not allowing excuses if you would like students to simply follow the rules without providing excuses.

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A popular management idea that many teachers use is to hang a pocket chart in the classroom with a card for each student. There should ideally be two or three cards for each student – enough to have a green, yellow and red side. Each morning the students should all start on green – it’s a new day for everyone!

During the day, when a student misbehaves or does not follow classroom expectations, the teacher can “turn a card” and display the yellow, or warning card. If the student does not get the hint and continues to misbehave, the teacher can then turn the card again, displaying the red card, resulting in a consequence. This consequence can be calling the parents, sending a note home, or other predetermined idea.

It would be a good idea to allow students the chance to “redeem” themselves too and return to green. Otherwise a student who quickly moves to yellow or red early in the day has no motivation to finish the day on a positive note.

Have you enjoyed receiving an idea a week this month? I hope that some of you were able to glean some new idea to try in your classrooms! To keep the ideas coming, send in your favorite ideas you’ve tried, even if it didn’t work out well for you, it may just work for someone else! Send in Your Ideas

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Check out this unique method:

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There are three things I like about his new class rules:

1. They are short and succinct. It is so easy to get caught up in making your rules positive that you might lose sight of a child’s attention span. Remain in your seat at all times is cumbersome for young children to read and extraneous for older children. Short and sweet: “stay seated” works much better.
2. They are open to some interpretation. While this may seem counterproductive to some, having rules or “expectations” that are open to some interpretation can not only help students obey, but teach them about how to act in the real world as well. Be Polite can mean a variety of things on any given day –raise your hand instead of interrupting, scooting in your chair to prevent another child from tripping, helping a child pick up books or saying please and thank you.
3. There is a rule to encourage creativity. Teachers fail if students pass tests but do not enjoy learning because once the tests are finished, so is learning. The ultimate job of a teacher, despite what the government would have us believe, is to create life-long learners through making learning fun. Creativity needs be in every classroom. Having this as a rule or expectation can help encourage children to problem-solve, work out squabbles, figure out a new way to learn something or find a way to entertain themselves quietly while the teacher helps another child.

As school is getting ready to start, take a gander at your class rules. Are they too wordy? Do you teach life skills through the class rules? Are you encouraging children to love learning?

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Lets take a look at each of these four aspects of Gordon’s model:

Become Equal with Your Students

The idea here is that a good leader will not dictate to his followers but come from another angle that creates mutual respect. Teachers are to engage in active listening where they repeat back to the student what the student said, in the teachers own words, to indicate that he understood.

The benefit of this concept is that in an adult situation, leaders who do not dictate get a better response from followers. The issue is that students are not yet adults. In fact, research shows that the decision making part of their brain is not fully matured for quite some time, making it vital for the teacher to set boundaries and limitations on the students.

Throw Out Class Rules

The actual concept here is that students will together come up with what Gordon calls “agreements” in place of teacher dictated “rules”. They are to be hung where all students can see them.

This is not dissimilar to hundreds of teachers who have their students come up with the class rules at the beginning of the school year, with the exception of the name. The benefit of calling the rules “agreements” is that this might make children who are driven to push the rules, to instead, follow them. The problem with this is that in the end, agreements are nothing more than class rules.

Teach Problem Solving Skills

There is a process to solving a problem:

1. Identify the problem
2. Identify several solutions to the problem
3. Choose a solution mutually agreeable to all involved
4. Implement solution
5. Determine the solution’s success

I see no problems with this at all. In fact, I think more parents and teachers should use this problem solving strategy in their classrooms and homes. Children need to learn how to solve problems.

Use I-Messages

An I-message is one that explains how one person’s behavior affected you and made you feel. For example, “when you do that, it makes me feel this way”. This is the method that teachers are to handle discipline issues in the classroom.

The only benefit, if it is a benefit, that I can find with this is that it does not confront students head-on. It does help to identify ones feelings, but in the end, many students couldn’t care less how their teacher felt about their behavior. This aspect of Gordon’s model of classroom management has the potential to make a lot of teachers very permissive.

Find out more about the Thomas Gordon Model of Classroom Management:

Using the Thomas Gordon Classroom Management Method

The Gordon Model

Thomas Gordon (this is another critique)

Gordon Training International (the official website)

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How many Rules do you Have?

• Be sure to have at least three rules
• Class rules should be kept to five at the very most
• Combine rules to reduce the number and clarify more specifically to have more rules.

Positive Language for Class Rules

• Do the students know what to do after reading a rule?
• Each rule should state what students need to do rather than what they need to avoid doing.
• Reword rules as necessary

Class Rule Clarity

• Be sure there is no question as to what students are to do after reading the rules
• Analyze each rule – can it be stated more clearly?
• Can any rules have additional details added in order to ensure proper student behavior?

Teach and Reinforce Class Rules

• Did you teach students what each rule meant?
• Can students explain to a visitor what the class rules are?
• If faced with a hypothetical situation, could students explain which rule applies and why?
• Did you practice each procedure including lining up, preparing for lunch and recess and cleaning up at the end of the day?

It is never too late to go back and add or correct the classroom rules. In fact, starting fresh in the middle of the school year may make all the difference in the world and turn your problem class into a success story!

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