Now that you have your classroom rules or goals established, it’s important to talk about 2 key classroom management factors that will play a vital role in the overall success of your classroom.
- Factor #1 Follow Through
- Factor #2 Building Strong Relationships with Students
My Aha Moment
About 15 years ago, when I first began this teacher journey, I worked as a trained instructional aide at a school in Jersey for emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children. Being a trained aide meant that if a student got out of control, because I’d gone through extensive restraint training, I could then restrain the student.
I remember one student in particular who I grew very fond of. This student would do something wrong and then would immediately apologize for what they did. In wanting to give this student another chance, and because he apologized, I often times would let it go. I would give this student a word of encouragement along with a warning, and we would. move on. It was my hope that they would follow the rules next time.
Well this behavior or doing something wrong, apologizing, giving words of encouragement, and moving along happened continually. As you can imagine, the student began to realize that when he did something wrong if he simply apologized, Ms. Cook was going to ultimately let it go. Well at some point I began to grow tired of the warnings, heart to hearts, and repeated apologies. This student was now what I like to call, a repeated offender haha..
As you can imagine, the consequence finally came and this student went into a total meltdown. When I say total meltdown, I mean they were crying, throwing things, cursing; at this point they really were having a total loss of control. After a long while, the student did calm down. And I walked away from that situation having learned a lesson myself.
My Invaluable Lesson
As teachers we want to give our students the best chance possible. But when it comes to rules, we have to make sure that we follow through. It’s ok to give a student a chance, and as you work with your students you’ll know how to gauge that. But giving chance after chance and never having students face the consequences or rewards of their actions is a dangerous place to be in especially when working towards your self-sufficient classroom.
Follow Through Is Key!
As you work with your kiddos just remember that in order to have your self-sufficient classroom you’ll need to have a strong follow through.
It will become easier for you to gauge your follow through when you’ve established your relationships with students! Come on back next week when we talk about building those genuine relationships.
It really doesn’t matter how great your rules are, how specific they are, or how you’ve chosen to implement them. If you don’t have genuine relationships established with your students, it will make it a lot harder to see your self-sufficient classroom through successfully.
Check out my blog on Building Strong Relationships With My Students! There I discuss why it’s important and some ways in which I work at building genuine bonds with my students.
