From the Opening Page…
The Discipline Dilemma
“This is a book about classroom discipline. This is not a book about lesson plans or grading papers or writing objectives on the chalkboard each day. It’s not about taking attendance or delivering lectures or even about designing fair test questions.
Instead, it is about an issue far more puzzling and complex than any of these. It’s about being sent to the principal and sassing the teacher and passing notes in class. It’s also about teen substance abuse and bullies and students who bring weapons to school.
These problems have plagued teachers for as long as students have been coming to school. If you have discipline problems during the school year, take heart. Everyone who teaches does. Everyone.
We long for a positive discipline climate in our classes. Everything runs smoothly when that happens. We teach well. Our students learn what we want them to learn. The school day is a satisfying, joyous experience.
When the climate is a negative one, however, even our best lesson plans are useless. We can’t teach because our students are too disruptive to pay attention. We do not enjoy these frustrating days. We endure them. Our students do, too.
With this in mind, it’s understandable that the word ‘discipline’ usually has a very unpleasant connotation for most of us. Our hearts sink at the thought of coping with discipline issues. We tend to think of ‘discipline’ in the same way we think of the word ‘misbehavior’: discipline referral, disciplinary detention, or being sent to the office for disciplinary action.
‘Discipline’ in this book is not a negative. Quite the opposite is true. In this book the word ‘discipline’ means the systematic and positive training you provide for your students to help them develop self-control. It is the means by which we have orderly classrooms and successful students.
Fortunately, the discipline dilemma that all teachers face has solutions. We can take control of our classes. We can have a positive learning environment in our classrooms.
This book offers a wide variety of ways to create a peaceful and productive classroom. It’s about how to manage the students in your class with sensitivity and dignity so that there is harmony in your classroom instead of strife.
This book is also about the most important factor in the discipline dilemma—the teacher. In many ways we are the most idealistic people in our community. When other adults see a group of teens loitering on the sidewalk just wasting time, we don’t seem to notice the silly clothing and too-cool hairstyles. Instead, we see the future.”
From Section 5
Adapted from 50 Actions that Will Grab Your Students’ Attention
"There are countless ways to wake up and shake up your students. Prepared teachers take time in advance of the lesson to prevent their students from being bored in class. They combine various techniques and try all sorts of new approaches to get their students engaged in a lesson. Don’t be afraid to try as many as it takes to get your students in the fast lane to success when their attention begins to lag.
Although there are dozens of approaches to take, the following list includes some that are designed to meet the needs of just about every teacher. Mix and match and use these to experiment with the best ways to keep your students on task.
1. Put a humorous drawing on the board or on the overhead or give your students chalk and have them draw a sketch on the board of some of the facts of the lesson. You could also ask the right-handers to use their left hands and vice versa. Asking blindfolded students to draw some of the facts from the lesson also helps focus their attention.
2. Use Christmas tree lights or other colored bulbs to spotlight a part of the lesson.
3. Write on the board three quotations that don’t seem to be related to one another and ask not just how they are related to each other, but to the day’s lesson as well.
4. Use music. Play raucous music or ask your students to identify sounds from a tape. Play bits and pieces of songs for students to put together to make sense of the lesson for the day. You can even sing to your students or have them sing to you.
5. Wear a costume to class or have your students wear costumes. Even simple accessories such as ties and hats can spice up a lesson.
6. Ask students to identify the pieces of a word or sentence relevant to the lesson. Write the letters or words on construction paper. Then hand out these so that students can unscramble them to recreate the relevant word or sentence.
7. Time as many activities as you can. Students work efficiently when they work to the clock. You can also put a student in charge of timing an activity or ring a bell or buzzer when the activity is over. Another way to keep students focused through timing is to announce that a change of pace is about to happen and then begin a countdown. Timing pupils almost always causes them to focus on the activity at hand and mentally prepare for the upcoming change.
8. Videotape your students in action. Even a mundane activity is more interesting when your students are given the opportunity to mug for the camera.
9. Give pupils a checklist of the highpoints of the material they will be studying and ask them to tick off the points that are covered in your presentation.
10. When you ask students to take notes on the day’s lesson, focus their attention with a list of the key words and phrases you want them to learn.
11. Play a tape recording of yourself giving information, or even better, of your students giving information.
12. Show a videotape of other pupils modeling the same work you expect yours to do.
13. Give your students soft play clay or other gooey stuff with a specific task to accomplish with it. It’s hard to be bored and to play with something gooey at the same time.
14. Make nametags for your students. There are many different ways you can use this strategy in your classroom. Your students could role-play the names they have been given. You could place the tags on your students’ backs so that they would have to work with other students to try to figure out the roles they have been given. You can also use nametags in group activities to assign various tasks.
15. Hand out pictures of people and have your students make guesses about the people in the photographs, match them up, notice specific details, or use them in other activities.
16. Have your students vote to respond to questions by signals, standing, holding up signs, or other ways that appeal to their sense of fun.
17. Counting down from ten to one will alert even the most mature students that they need to focus on you, and not on their classmates or daydreams.
18. Ask everyone to stand and do a series of silly movements such as touching their left elbows with their right hands or putting both hands on their heads. This will generally shake out the cobwebs.
19. Hand your students a newspaper or magazine with words missing and ask them to supply the missing information.
20. Show a cartoon that pertains to the lesson and ask students to create a caption for it.
21. Present a slide show. Even better, ask your students to prepare a slide show about a school event, a lesson in class, their interests, etc.
22. Turn the lights low to signal a change of pace.
23. Use computers in your classroom. Even the most routine tasks are more fun and are easier when students get to use computers to do them.
24. Put a list of words on the board and ask your students to determine what they have in common. Use this to change the pace of a lesson. Adding unlikely names or words to the list will force your students to stretch their minds.
25. Take photographs of your students in action during a lesson."
From Section 9…
50 Quick Ways to Reduce School Stress
"1. Clean out your desk. Do you really need to hang on to those dried-out markers?
2. Color-code your grade book so that it’s easy to tell test grades from other averages. Use colored paper clips or folder labels to easily find the attendance records and grades for each class period you teach.
3. Join a professional organization. Read professional literature. You will learn many things that will make your school days easier.
4. Stay two weeks ahead in photocopying and planning.
5. Use a syllabus to help your students stay organized. A syllabus will let your students and their parents or guardians see that you are a serious teacher who has a serious purpose in class.
6. Have enough supplies even if you have to purchase them yourself. It is annoying to have to hunt for the last paper clip or marking pen.
7. Leave your desk clean at the end of the day so that you can start the new one off fresh.
8. Make a real effort to grade all papers on the same day that they are turned in to you.
9. Have an established routine at the start and ending of class so that your students can discipline themselves.
10. Have a set of emergency plans in a folder for a substitute to use in case you have to be absent and can’t leave plans.
11. Keep a small kit of adhesive bandages, sewing supplies, cough drops, aspirin, and other personal items for your own use.
12. Take a copy of the teacher’s edition of your texts home so that you won’t have to carry one back and forth when you are planning lessons.
13. Have a system for students to use to check out shared supplies.
14. Be accurate in the way you keep attendance records.
15. Don’t work through lunch. You need a break.
16. Have each student complete an information sheet so that you have all of the information you need to contact a parent or guardian without having to go to the office.
17. Be reasonable in the amount of homework you assign. Help students see that it is an important part of their learning process.
18. Use a seating chart from the first day of class until the last day of class.
19. Delegate as much work to your students as you can. This will not only improve their self-esteem, but it will free you from the tasks they are doing for you.
20. Share tasks with department members: clean out book storage areas together, hold term paper grading parties, or share duty assignments. Many hands make light work of even the toughest tasks.
21. Have a 'To Do' list that you follow each day. Planning how you need to accomplish the many chores you face at school will make it easier to get them done.
22. Keep accurate documentation of parent contacts.
23. Plan for the unexpected.
24. Don’t procrastinate when it comes to paperwork or other dreaded tasks. You’ll soon be overwhelmed.
25. If you can, use your most productive time of day to do your hardest tasks.
26. Eat a nutritious lunch. You need the energy. The universal teacher lunch of a soft drink and anything from a vending machine will not give you the energy you need to get through the afternoon.
27. Wisely use those small blocks of time you have between appointments. Don’t arrive at meetings too early.
28. Listen and take notes at meetings. Take along your yearly planner and jot down upcoming events you need to remember.
29. Plan interesting lessons with lots of varied activities to hold your students’ attention.
30. Have a place at school to safely store your keys and other personal belongings.
31. Take time to have well-written lesson plans that follow a logical format.
32. Plan for your students to do as much independent work as possible.
33. Arrive at school at little early and stay a little late.
34. At the end of the day, store your grade book in a safe place.
35. Jot quick notes on your lesson plans about what worked and what you need to improve before you teach the same unit of material again.
36. Dress professionally even on casual days. You don’t want to attend an impromptu parent conference dressed in ragged jeans and old sneakers.
37. Carefully read the faculty handbook so that you know the rules and procedures you are expected to follow.
38. File all papers when you are finished with them instead of letting them accumulate into disorganized stacks.
39. Set up a folder for each student so that you can store the paperwork that crosses your desk.
40. Learn each student’s name quickly.
41. Photocopy your grade book so you will have a record of your students’ names and progress to refer after your original grade book has been placed in storage.
42. Share a laugh with your students and with your colleagues. Nothing chases stress away faster.
43. Plan your lessons by the year, the semester, the week, and the day.
44. Keep a book of inspirational sayings handy for you and your students to read on tough days.
45. Be flexible. Much of what you do at school just can’t be done perfectly. Adjust your expectations for perfection if necessary.
46. Be friendly with everyone.
47. Add a green plant or flowers to your room to cheer up everyone’s day.
48. Decorate your classroom with students’ work.
49. When the task seems impossible, remind yourself that teachers made a difference in your life when you were younger. You can do the same for your students.
50. Make a list of the reasons why you chose education as your profession. Tuck it away in a safe place, but carry it in your heart."
From Section 5...
How to Avoid an Awful Day at School
"Step One: Be a Good Leader
1. Establish a warm and supportive class identity where students can work together as a team.
2. Provide an organizational framework to help students stay focused. Help them set goals. Use a syllabus or daily planner. Show them how to make and use 'To Do' lists. Plan lessons around learning objectives.
3. Keep your students active. Use every minute of class.
4. Do the unexpected. Include a variety of activities that will intrigue your students.
5. Don’t make success an impossible dream. Start out with familiar material, and then move on to more challenging assignments. Build their confidence.
6. Mix up the type of activities you include. Individual, cooperative, and competitive work during the same class period can be effective.
7. Let students have a voice in some of the decisions in the class.
8. Reward and praise as many students as you can when things go well.
Step Two: Get Help
1. Call on the support personnel at your school: guidance counselors, social workers, or administrators. Turn to other teachers and coaches for advice, too.
2. Call a parent while the problem is still small.
3. Arrange a time-out situation with a nearby teacher. If you see that misbehavior is beginning, send the offending student to the other class to get back on track.
4. Be a good role model. Arrange guest speakers who are also good role models for your students. A little inspiration always helps.
5. Have students help each other learn something new.
6. Arrange for older students to visit your class and give advice, counseling, and support.
Step Three: Make an Attitude Check
1. Keep in mind that in spite of your very best efforts, not every student is going to like you or enjoy your class. Do the best you can and then go on.
2. Laugh at your problems. Even the most annoying problems at school have possibilities for humor. Look for the lighter side of a problem.
3. Remind yourself that even the worst-behaved child in your class deserves the best from you.
4. Plan to ignore the small stuff. Make a list of the behaviors that you can and should ignore.
5. Focus on the positive. Being negative will not make a situation better; it will only make you miserable.
6. Be sincere. Adolescents have a special “teen radar” for phonies.
7. Do not engage in a confrontation with a student. Shouting is a sure way to ruin your day.
Step Four: Be Courteous and Alert
1. Stand at your door and greet your students. This gives you a chance to check the emotional weather as they enter.
2. Be aware of the messages your body language sends. Make eye contact and smile. Don’t point at a student.
3. Be friendly and firm. If you have to say 'no,' do it pleasantly.
4. Never lose your cool. All kinds of bad things can and will happen when you indulge yourself in a petty tantrum.
5. Allow no disrespect. Treat your students with exquisite courtesy and expect the same from them.
6. Use those teacher-eyes that grew on the back of your head during student teaching. Pay attention to what is going on in your class at all times. Alert teachers can spot and nip trouble in the bud."
