Eliminating The Middle Man - The Myth Of Giving Warnings
Okay, you’ve got about 25 students in your room. Someone told you when behavior issues arise, there should be a sequence of events that ensues, starting with a warning.
What warnings do is insure that all of your students know they can get away with certain behaviors at least once a class before any real consequence takes place. It’s like ONE FREE PASS for bad behavior.
So if each student wants to misbehave, that’s a good 25 warnings to start.
Of course, what usually happens, is that the student gets more than one warning–that’s a bonus pass.
Now if you go to second layer warnings–you know–the SERIOUS warning, you could be up to 50.
I know–I was kind of a goof off when I was in school. If I knew the teacher was going to warn me every class, that meant I could do whatever I wanted until I got warned. Good behavior begins where consequences begin.
Listen–all of your students know what good behavior is already, right? If not, give them a lesson on what you expect. Then say, “Consider yourself warned.” So let’s cut out the middle man.
Give your rules clearly, the first day of class, then WARN students that in the future they won’t be the beneficiaries of any more warnings (you might change the wording on that).
Then, if a students misbehaves, hit them directly with your consequence.
There is one time I find it effective to give students a warning, and that is the first day of class. Students are given a complete list of rules and procedures, and included in that list is the warning that there will be no warnings.
When students see your mouth open, not to say, “Jane, stop talking, this is a warning,” but “Jane, you are disrupting the class–come 15 minutes after school,” your behavior problems and your stress level will decrease simultaneously.
In my eBook “Classroom Discipline 101″ I outline all of the techniques that I have used with the toughest students in Los Angeles over the last 20 years to consistently get a quiet, respectful, on-task classroom under any circumstance. The concepts I teach have been tested in the field and are the methods that work in the real world. You can download the book
Here’s to happy teaching,
Craig Seganti
Tags: Classroom Discipline, Classroom Management Techniques, classroom Management