Why You Should Never Fear Misbehavior Smart Classroom Management

If you stress over the possibility of misbehavior, then it’s a sign your classroom management is in need of an overhaul.

You see, when you take on, mentally or otherwise, even an ant’s toe of what should be your students’ burden, you ease the healthy load of accountability on their shoulders.

It’s a phenomenon of teaching as certain as gravity.

But most teachers aren’t aware of this. They don’t realize that when they fear misbehavior, they naturally and subconsciously behave in ways that cause more misbehavior.

Some examples:

• Fidgeting and pacing nervously, which creates tension in the classroom and excitability among students, which is one of the biggest causes of misbehavior.
• Showing through their disappointed reactions, facial expressions, and emotions that misbehavior gets under their skin, which encourages more of it.
• Adding dirty looks, lectures, and talking-tos to their consequences, which causes resentment in students and a desire to get even.
• Looking away and pretending they didn’t see what they just saw, which makes them inconsistent and untrustworthy.
• Dulling their personality and keeping a lid on fun because they’re afraid to lose control, which ironically results in students creating their own form of fun.

Again, most teachers don’t realize they’re even doing these things. Rest assured, however, if you fear misbehavior, you’re doing some or all of the above. No matter how good an actor, it’s something you can’t suppress, hide, or avoid.

So what’s the solution?

The solution is to let your classroom management plan do the dirty work for you. Lean on it entirely to manage behavior. Accept only the responsibility to follow through.

This includes allowing your plan to take on your emotional burden.

As long as you teach your plan thoroughly so that your students know it backward and forward, and you’ve eliminated all gray areas, you’re free to never again worry about misbehavior.

This doesn’t mean that misbehavior will never happen. What it means is that you can rest in knowing that you’re handling it in the most effective and efficient manner.

When students realize through your fair and detailed explanation and calm follow through that you are not your classroom management plan, and that the plan is for them and their protection and freedom to learn and enjoy school, everything changes.

They begin to feel the load of responsibility. Accountability works as it should. Misbehavior takes a nosedive and you’re able to build rapport effortlessly with every student in the class.

You’re just a referee, nothing more, doing what you promised.

None of the responsibility for misbehavior sticks to you. It can’t because you don’t fear it or justify it away. It weighs on them, however, ever the more. It leaves them with zero excuse and nothing and no one to rail against.

It leaves a void filled with reflection and the conclusion not make the same mistakes. This all happens naturally and predictably no matter your grade level or where you teach.

It’s been tried and tested over decades with thousands of teachers just like you.

Combined with the freedom now afforded to you to create great lessons, trusting relationships, and a class your students love and look forward to, leaning on your classroom management plan is the lever that works with every student.

It has to. Because it’s human nature. It’s reality wrapped in universal truth. It’s why emotionally you shouldn’t care a fig whether your students misbehave.

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