{"id":1976,"date":"2016-03-27T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecornerstone.wpengine.com\/?post_type=podcasts&p=1976"},"modified":"2024-08-13T02:11:08","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T07:11:08","slug":"6-ways-prevent-students-misbehaving-teachers","status":"publish","type":"podcasts","link":"https:\/\/truthforteachers.com\/truth-for-teachers-podcast\/6-ways-prevent-students-misbehaving-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"6 ways to prevent your students from misbehaving for other teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are few things that annoyed me more as a teacher than picking up my students from P.E. or lunch (or having a small group return from a resource room pull-out class) only to discover that some students had been completely out of control while they were gone.<\/h2>\n

With some classes I taught, it seemed like the moment I was out of sight, there was almost guaranteed to be an incident of disrespect to another teacher, a physical altercation between students, or something even worse.<\/p>\n

Once I went to pick up my class from the media specialist and learned that a student had gotten mad and run out of the building! He was missing from school property for\u00a0two hours<\/em>, and the police eventually discovered him sitting on the railroad tracks behind the school. He was escorted back to my classroom with a huge pout on his face and told me, \u201cMrs. S. told me I couldn\u2019t check out a new book because I didn\u2019t return my old one, and that wasn\u2019t fair, so I left.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean \u2026 you just can\u2019t make this stuff up. And it\u2019s so, so frustrating, because you as the teacher aren\u2019t even there. You have no idea what actually happened, who was in the right and who was in the wrong, and you have no idea how to respond. Do you discipline a kid for something that happened when you weren\u2019t there? All you wanted was a few minutes of planning time to make your photocopies, and now it seems like it would have been easier to just keep the kids with you in class because now you\u2019ve got a disaster to sort out.<\/p>\n

This was an ongoing problem when I was a classroom teacher, so it\u2019s something I gave a lot of thought to and continue to consider when I hear from other elementary teachers who are experiencing the same thing. And the good news is that while you can\u2019t control what happens when you\u2019re not around, there\u2019s quite a bit you can do to pro-actively to prevent the problem from reoccurring and to open the lines of communication between you and other teachers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1) Take into consideration your students\u2019 perspective on specials and lunch.<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s start by looking at this from the kids\u2019 perspective. Lunch and recess are times when students feel like they can be free and be themselves. They naturally exhibit less self-control at lunch because it\u2019s their break, and most students view specials classes as a break from regular learning, too. That\u2019s not true, of course, but it\u2019s often how they see it. P.E. is just a second recess. Art is just a time to paint or color.<\/p>\n

This means that the moment the specials teacher expects students to actually learn something, they start acting out. They just want to run or create or play music. If you\u2019ve ever tried to conduct a lesson outdoors or you\u2019ve done an art project with kids or brought instruments into the classroom, you\u2019ve experienced this firsthand: The kids are so distracted by the potential for something really fun that they don\u2019t want to listen to instructions and definitely don\u2019t want you to make the moment a learning opportunity. They\u2019re ready to PLAY.<\/p>\n

This is an issue that\u2019s compounded by the fact that students have been in their regular classroom for a very long period of time and were expected to focus, concentrate, and stay on task. When they\u2019re finally allowed to move down the hallway to another space, they release all that pent-up energy and continue doing so during lunch or in their other class.\u00a0In many students\u2019 minds, it\u2019s not necessary to sit still and listen to the teacher or follow the rules until \u201creal\u201d learning takes place again back in their own classroom with their \u201creal\u201d teacher.<\/em><\/p>\n

2) Recognize that the deck is stacked against \u201cspecials\u201d teachers from the start.<\/h3>\n

Teachers of subjects such as art, music, media, and physical education are generally expected to teach the entire school, which means they need to memorize all the students\u2019 names and learn all their personalities. That\u2019s nearly impossible, of course, so it\u2019s easy for a specials teacher to forget (or never even learn about) the triggers and quirks of individual students.<\/p>\n

When they\u2019re working with your class, specials teachers often have less than 30 minutes to get everyone settled, teach the lesson, ensure everyone has learned it and has had time to practice, AND get everything cleaned up and students lined up at the door so a brand new group of kids can come in literally ten seconds later.<\/p>\n

You can see why there are so many behavioral issues that don\u2019t manifest quite as seriously in your classroom, and why even a minor disruption can be enough to throw off the entire morning for the specials teacher.<\/em><\/p>\n

If the teacher before you was two minutes late in picking up his class, the specials teacher has to somehow manage the behavior of two wound-up classes at once, one group in the hall and one in the classroom, and figure out how to condense her lesson into the even shorter time period she\u2019ll have left with your kids. When someone\u2019s under that kind of pressure, it\u2019s hard to have much tolerance for kids acting out.<\/p>\n

Want to listen instead of read?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Listen to season 3 episode 13 below,
\n<\/strong>or subscribe in your podcast app.<\/strong><\/h3>\n