3 Critical Mistakes made by 99% of Teachers!

Too much emphasis on punitive measures

The first of these mistakes, that most teachers make, is that they base their classroom management strategy around the idea that you can control the students by using force. Using force to control students never works in the longterm. If you enter the classroom believing that you are really going to force the students to behave, and do exactly what you want them to do, when you want them to do it by using threats of sanctions or something similar, you're in for a very tough or, at least, very exhausting time. It just doesn't work in the long term. The pupils see this from all their other teachers and they simply become immune to it’s effect. And yet, I see so many people go into each and every lesson waving a big stick hoping in vain that this will be as effective as an electric cattle prod, when in reality, it’s about as useful as a piece of spaghetti leftover from last night’s dinner!

Within minutes of the students entering the room, you will hear many teachers threatening to take away the child’s lunchtime, breaktime or detain them after school. They continue to do it day after day, lesson after lesson, hoping to get a different result, and with the same pupils. Not only is this approach unsustainable, but it’s also exhausting. I've done it before. Every single lesson is a battle; you're constantly having to bark at the students like some demented hound!

That puts a lot of pressure on you because you’ve got to follow through with what you’ve said. When you set these punishments, you will often be the one that is responsible for administering the sanction. This then takes time away from you, that you’d otherwise be using for preparation, chatting to other staff, etc, etc. So not only are you inanely setting these ineffective punishments, you're also punishing yourself since you end up using your own free time making sure they do what they’re they're supposed to.

  And that's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, the students don't turn up to the detention, or some other sanction you have set, and then you've got to chase the students to do what you want them to do. When it comes to this point, the battle has been lost.

 Controlling students by placing too much importance on the overt use of force will only ever be effective when you're there, actually physically in the room, watching them all the time. Should you turn your back on them for a short while or step outside the room to deal with another situation, chaos or some version of chaos, will rein. I exaggerate only slightly, but I'm sure you understand the gist of what I’m talking about.

Teachers that control their classes by force, also experience great problems when they're feeling a bit below par. We all have those days when for some reason or other, we’re just not up to our best, and when this happens the students can behave like a pack of wolves encircling wounded prey. Relying primarily on punishments alone clearly doesn’t work since we all know that there are a significant number of students who collect detentions, etc….like they’re going out of fashion. Basically though, in these times of change, we can no longer use force to frighten, or even effectively deter, pupils into compliance – rightly so. We need to develop preventative measures that use constructive influence rather than firefighting in vain with impotent sanctions. Punitive measures do a have a place in your classroom management strategy, but to place it at the core is a mistake so many people make. You can always spot the teachers who adopt this approach – they’re forever spending their own free time filling out forms and going through time consuming procedures chasing miscreant pupils. You don’t have to do that. What you have available to you is a whole kaleidoscopic array of techniques and tips that can really bring sustainable control to your classroom, the way you want it.

Don’t try to be their friend

 

The next major mistake that so many teachers make, when it comes to controlling student behaviour, is that they try to become the students friend, or they try to be “nice” to them. Again, because students are still children, this is a flawed strategy since it’s in the nature of students to test your “friendship” to the limits to see what they can get away with. You will find yourself being stretched more and more by their incessant pushing of the boundaries and testing of your friendship.

 
The sort of thing I’m thinking about here is, where a teacher will go into a class and to try to befriend their group and pretend that they are one of them. Students can see right through this behaviour and will take advantage of the situation.

Being nice to the students means, from their perspective, giving them what they want. What the pupils believe they want, is not very often what you want to do in the lesson. Therefore they’re continually going to push you to do this or that to get their own way because you've indicated to them that you want to accommodate them, and from their perspective, being nice to them, means letting them do what they want to do. Students do not respect this type of teacher. They will be perceived to be weak and a pushover. Listen to a few of their conversations, and you'll hear what I mean. Not only is befriending the students totally ineffective over the medium to long term, because it does not lead to trust or respect, it is a total disaster when there finally comes a point (and it will come) when you've got to sanction them and issue corrective measures. You would then become public enemy number one, since not only are you no longer their friend, you'll be perceived as someone who has betrayed them. Poacher turned gamekeeper.

You’ll be the devil in the making and they will hate you. Ouch!! Fundamentally though, the main reason why trying to be nice to the students it's absolutely ineffective is because the real reason why the teacher has chosen to control a class in that way is because of fear. Fear that they’re not good enough. Fear that they can't do it any other way. Fear because they know issuing traditional kind of punishments like detentions, lines, or even shouting at them, is about as useful as a chocolate teapot! If, from inside your mind, you’re coming from a place of fear, the students will detect this at a subconscious level and you will be perceived to be weak, which will adversely affect the way the students see you. Being positive to the students is an integral part of any effective classroom strategy, however, this is different from trying to be the students’ friend, which is not what the pupils want, and will only be perceived to be a sign of inner fear and uncompelling vulnerability.

Don’t take their behaviour personally

The final major mistake, that the vast majority of classroom practitioners make, is that they invoke their negative emotions at inappropriate times.

They simply become too emotionally attached to what's happening in their lessons and take things personally when things go wrong. This doesn't mean you should be cold and clinical, because that in the long-term is ineffective too. It simply means that one must learn to detach themselves from how the students behave in the lesson, to how that really relates to you as a person. The students don’t really know you at all, so how can that really have any bearing on you as a person? I once read a quote that went something like this: if I offered you a gift and you absolutely refuse to accept it, to whom does that gift belong? Think about it. I'm sure that’s heavily paraphrased, but you get the point. Many teachers are adversely affected by the negative behaviour that occurs in their lessons, and blame themselves for what's happened and continue to focus on the problem and not the solution. But there are solutions out there. There are solutions available to all of the troublesome situations that occur in the vast majority of school lessons. These problems can be completely avoided, or at the very least, constrained to a very low level. My philosophy is very simple: kill the monster while it’s little, while it’s a baby. Don't wait until its eating the city before you kill it. And we all have little monsters in our own classroom management techniques that can be destroyed or, at the very least, tamed. All it takes is taking a few effective strategies and implementing them on a strategic and systematic basis.

Mark Nicolaides

Despite its age this is worth watching!