For the new teacher, no single aspect of the job determines success or failure more than the teacher’s effectiveness in gaining and maintaining control of a class. The most talented teacher in the world can not be effective without the ability to make students focus on planned tasks.

Several factors tend to cause new teachers to underestimate the importance and difficulty of maintaining discipline:

• Only the most conscientious students tend to enter the teaching profession. Prospective teachers have a higher-than-average interest in education in general, and in their chosen content areas. They tend to forget that most high school students are not particularly conscientious, and are not particularly interested in education, or in the teacher’s chosen content area.
• Most college professors are used to dealing with well-behaved college students. Discipline is just another academic concept to them. They assume that their techniques and theories about how to deal with high school students would work, but have not tested them with actual students in the recent past.
• Much of the student teacher’s attention has been focused (rightfully so) by these professors on developing philosophies and techniques necessary to be an excellent teacher. They don’t often remind you that beginning teachers must first aspire to be average teachers. Recent college graduates often think that their own particular combination of technique, personality, enthusiasm, and empathy for students will make them more effective than "old-fashioned" veteran teachers. Only beginning teachers that excel in maintaining discipline can hope to be as effective as the average experienced teacher.
• Beginning teachers often overestimate the importance of being liked. Everybody wants to be that "cool" teacher they remember from high school. It feels awkward at first to be in a position of authority, reprimanding students who seem so close in age to oneself. Every class, however, contains students with an uncanny way of sensing when a new teacher desires the students’ approval. They will express disapproval to gain control over you.

Discipline is Teaching

Discipline can not be separated from teaching. This is true on three levels:

First, important concepts like civility, respect, and fairness must be lived in order to be taught, and there’s no better place to experience them than in the classroom. It is not enough that students obey; they should also be given the opportunity to understand the how the rules benefit the class as a whole, just as rules benefit society as a whole. We have the opportunity to teach students that self-control is crucial if any group or society is to meet the needs of its members.

Second, discipline is not separate from teaching because a good lesson plan—a well-planned set of engaging activities joined by smooth transitions—eliminates the opportunity, if not the desire to misbehave.

Third, the lack of discipline in the classroom will allow the bold and the brash to seize control of the class. They direct the focus of the teacher and students to themselves, rendering effective education impossible.

The Power of the Bold

It is important to understand that the atmosphere of most classes is determined by a few students. Disciplinary policies need to be formulated with these two goals in mind: to make non-compliant students stand out so that they may be dealt with, and to deal with non-compliant students in a manner which discourages students "on the fence" from joining in non-compliance.

While human beings are capable of basing their behavior upon transcendent values like respect and honor, many students have not yet achieved that level of moral development, and act only out of immediate self-interest. You may try to teach them a higher level of moral reasoning, but you must first deal with them on the level they can understand—punishments and rewards. The boldest of these morally immature students are the first in line to set the atmosphere of the class. You are second. You must have consistent, enforceable policies in place so that the bold are not successful. When you thwart their attempts to set the atmosphere, you have the opportunity to do so. If you do not seize the opportunity, the bold set the tone, the timid come out of nowhere to join the party, and you take your place at the back of the line. This can be easily compared to a feeding frenzy; when a shark draws blood, other sharks swarm to get their piece of the prey. When some students see a crack in the confidence or authority of the teacher, many students relish joining in.

The most common version of the feeding frenzy occurs when when a student demands an explanation of your judgment or punishment, and/or another student jumps to his defense. It is important to give the reasons behind policies, but not when you’re supposed to be teaching. Explain your policies at the beginning of the term, give students a copy of them, and then do not swallow the bait when a class begins defending a student by questioning your policies or judgment. As pessimistic as it sounds, a portion of your class will comply only when a challenge is met in an authoritative way: "Here’s your penalty—end of discussion. We can talk about it after class if you have questions". You’ll often find that they’re not really interested in justice, but in sidetracking the class and gaining attention by trying to chink your armor of confidence. If students sense hesitancy or indecision, an argument ensues that can quickly turn into a feeding frenzy.

If you’re skeptical of my portrayal of students’ malicious potential, consider this: Before class one day I overheard a group of students laughing and bragging about making a teacher cry. I later found out that those students, and several others from my class, were the main participants in the episode. In my class, only one girl seemed particularly bold. In the other classroom, several of my "nice" students, emboldened by the power they felt when students gained control of the class, had participated in humiliating the teacher, who subsequently turned in her resignation and left the profession.

Being the Cool Teacher

The easy, collegial relationship that exists between those teachers we admire and their students only exists when troublesome students have learned that non-compliance is not worth the effort. Those teachers have built the foundation for good behavior. They can sense misbehavior before it occurs and can prevent misbehavior with a look. They seem so calm and pleasant because nobody bothers testing them.

This relationship is easier to establish in smaller schools, where students learn from their friends which teachers have high behavioral expectations. In smaller schools, the respect you earn one year is evident in the students entering your class the following year.

You do not become a well-liked teacher by trying to get your students to like you. Students can sense when you desire their approval, and they will try to manipulate you with their disapproval. You must not be hesitant to reprimand or punish students. Kids are very forgiving. The ones you’ll be punishing are used to being punished and getting mad about it, so don’t take their anger personally. They’ll have forgotten about it by the next day, probably because they have been punished and angry two or three times since you’ve seen them last! Ignore students’ reactions to you, and maintain a confident, firm persona to establish your authority over the class.

Establishing routines and procedures is also an important part of keeping a pleasant personality in class. When students do things automatically, you don’t have to nag them. Students are quick to adopt routines, but they must be established in the first week of class, or the lack of routine becomes the routine, and it’s very difficult to get students to do break out of what they’re used to. Use students’ natural conformity and rigidity to your advantage.

If you have control of the class, students will get to know how cool you are, because you’ll spend less time in crisis management mode and more time being yourself.

The Civil Classroom

In order to help students understand the fairness of your rules, frame rules in terms of student rights. Students have the right to learn, and you are the hero that preserves that right. Rules are separate from the teacher—you don’t have the right to make exceptions to them, because it wouldn’t be fair to others who have been punished by them. As much as possible, make rules black and white, to minimize teacher judgment as a factor in rule enforcement. The quickest way to be labeled unfair is to be "nice"—when you give one student a break, all students will expect a break. When you finally put your foot down, there’s an ugly mutiny.

Anything you require of students must be stated in such a way that doesn’t force you to make impossible judgments of gray areas. It’s much easier, for example, to enforce "I need silence within three seconds" than "quiet down". Silence is easy to define, the non-compliant are very obvious if they keep talking after the clearly stated deadline. Saying "keep your head up" is more effective than saying "wake up". "Wake up" always evokes the argument "I wasn’t sleeping", which you can not disprove. If you require students to have all materials zipped inside their backpacks during tests, any materials outside the backpacks will attract your attention and inspection. Non-compliant students are very obvious. If you allow materials to be left on the floor, and happen upon a vocabulary list conveniently placed within sight of a student, the student can claim that it was left there inadvertently, and claim that he was not looking at it. You are left with no fair way to dispute his claim—you either have to risk letting someone get away with cheating, or risk punishing an innocent person.

If you keep yourself separate from and subject to the rules, you’ll seldom have to stop being friendly. If a student wants you to let him slide "just this once", apologize that you’re unable to make special exceptions to the rules because it would be unfair to others. Make it clear that you do not want to put yourself in the position of believing one student’s excuses and not believing another’s.

Some students will force you to be harsh—they expect it, and they don’t understand anything else. But there’s seldom reason to be unpleasant if you have the proper deterrents and the ability to enforce your rules consistently.

Of course there are occasions that call for mercy, but mercy must be given very discreetly, and only in very special circumstances.

Your Teaching Career

Best of luck in your teaching! Do not be discouraged if things do not go as well at first as you had hoped—this job is difficult! Remember, it may take you a while to become an average teacher, and it will be years before you’re an excellent one. Most of the lessons you learn in the first year can not be effectively implemented until the second. Whatever you do, don’t quit the profession until after your second year of experience. It is not until then that most teachers get a glimpse of the type of teacher they’re capable of being.

And keep in mind, during those long stretches in which you feel the job is not fulfilling—most jobs are never fulfilling. When you don't feel fulfilled, remember that you're getting paid, and you get summers off! And every once in a while you have the privilege of making a difference in someone’s life.
 
 

Contact Todd Hawkins at todd@mentalnotemusic.com

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