The first thing to remember if you want to reduce the incidents of bad behavior
in your classroom is...
"Behavior problems are much easier to manage
if you prevent them happening in the
first place or catch them before they
get out of control."
It's an obvious statement to make but so many of us
forget just how much relevance
this actually has.
Let's take the issue of preventing incidents from happening in the first place:
If we
think about the reasons why children misbehave, there are strategies we could
adopt to prevent these factors from being an influence in our lessons, and
when we
remove these triggers or causes of bad behavior it stands to reason
that there will
be fewer actual incidents.
Unfortunately there are
many factors which will determine how a child behaves on any
given day which
are completely outside our control.... not having breakfast, losing
property
on the way to school, having a fight at break-time, staying up too late the
night before, peer pressure, inadequate parenting, drugs, media, etc. etc.
etc.
We may have no control over these factors as teachers, but we do
have a certain
degree of control over how the pupils feel about these
factors during our lessons.
And that is crucial.
Feelings are
driven, or caused, by our experiences - bad experiences lead to bad
feelings
while good experiences lead to good feelings.
And what's more, our behavior - good or bad - is dependent on these feelings.
If we feel
good, then we behave in a way that reflects that feeling. We smile, we
get
on with people, we are open to new ideas and generally more responsive to
others.
On the other hand, when we feel miserable, we tend to be
negative with others.
We become argumentative, pessimistic and less
responsive to suggestions or
instructions. And this is a situation teachers
find themselves in throughout the
day - with pupils who feel the world is
against them.
So if we were to concentrate on giving pupils good
experiences in our lessons, is
there not a chance we could effect their mood
for the better and thereby reduce the
likelihood of them causing
problems?
"A child who is in a good mood in a lesson is less likely to
misbehave during that
lesson"
So it follows that by providing
children with more good experiences in our
classrooms we can sustain their
positive mood - and therefore give them fewer
reasons or excuses to behave
badly.
Please don't think I'm suggesting we pander to children who
strop into the
classroom with the clear intention of wrecking the lesson.
No, I'm talking about
'preventative' measures here - keeping students in a
positive mood as much as
possible as a means of reducing their excuses for
behaving badly.
Preventing a problem is much easier than trying to cure one.
Tomorrow I'll quickly go over a list of ways in which you can help
keep your
students in a more positive mood and make their learning
experience an enjoyable
one.
Until then, warmest regards,
Rob Johnson
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