On the Importance of a Malleable Filter

To effectively manage a classroom, you must:

1. Notice everything.
2. Mention only what is absolutely necessary.
3. Structure the method and audience of your response to elicit the most positive outcome.

I know an assistant principal, who shall remain unnamed, who notices almost nothing (problem number one.) Therefore, whenever he does manage to notice a misbehavior, when, say, walking by a teacher's classroom, he feels obliged to mention it. "Doniesha! SIT DOWN IN A CHAIR, NOT ON THE FLOOR!" Whenever he mentions something, he does so to bolster his lack of authority, so he wants students and teachers to hear it, and in doing so, he distracts the entire class. #whatnottodo #level1screamer

​When you "call out" students during class time, even when it’s justified, you become as big a distraction as the students themselves. Good students learned to ignore Theresa since first grade. Who is this Karpie teacher that keeps calling Theresa out? All the kids know she chooses to fail each year. Why is Karpie wasting their time to explain how important work is to Theresa? Theresa doesn’t work.

​Plus, in terms of modifying students’ behavior, your words are about useless compared to students’ own words. With the push towards silent management, you need to master the art of modifying inappropriate behavior you notice without interrupting class. There are few simple tricks that help.
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Sunflower seeds on the floor, directly next to a garbage can, in a location that only one student could have caused. Measure the outcomes of mentioning it when you catch it, and ultimately, decide that a private conversation with the individual student (ideally by calling her out of lunch, so her minutes are more valuable than yours, and she'll be most likely to quietly and quickly acquiesce to her own wrongdoing.)

Upon seeing my approach, this group decided to pop their arms out like a body builder, and hide their faces with paper and hoodies. I could've yelled at them in the moment for focusing on me and my smartphone and not the learning task, but instead, we all laughed, and adopted a universal sign for "ready to learn" by iterating Seth's "bodybuilder arms." Respond immediately, or develop a silent sign to help build a culture of learning... hmm...

How to enlist student voices to define and build a positive behavior culture:

1. Run a two minute wrapup at the end of each lesson during which students evaluate their own (and their classmates) behavior. Establish some ground rules, like “no names,” “only constructive criticism,” “only cite specific examples, not general statements,” etc. Chances are, students noticed the same bad behavior in themselves and their classmates that you did. It is a way stronger message to hear the disappointment from each other instead of from you.
2. If infractions are small and do not destroy the classroom environment, do not mention them during class. Instead, call the student over at the end of class, and go over all the behaviors you noticed with them then. There is no audience, no class time is wasted, and you can have an adult conversation that builds a relationship instead of a teacher to student screaming match that destroys a relationship. Think of classroom management not as a "student misbehaves - teacher corrects" immediate cause and effect. Think instead about classroom management as a year-long, and in fact, career-long exercise in building an effective learning culture.
3. Before saying anything aloud to anyone during class to modify their behavior, ask yourself if the possible positive outcome (better behavior) is worth the distraction and possibility of explosion. If a student is bullying the little kid, it’s definitely worth it to end the behavior, if a student is silently tearing little danglies off her binder and placing them on the floor next to her during directions, it probably isn’t worth mentioning it immediately.​

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Again, it’s important to realize that for a classroom to run properly, both the students and the teacher need to be focused on the learning task. If either the students or the teacher are too focused on behavior, you might end up with a really well behaved class of students who know nothing. That would be sad.