Episode Summary
Get rid of the clip charts and public behavior displays! We need to understand behavior as communication and advocate for a problem-solving approach. In this episode, we explore effective classroom management strategies, and highlight the inefficacy of quick-fix systems. It is important to invest time in proactive measures rather than implementing instant solutions. Key components such as teacher language, classroom setup, routines, and student relationships are identified, alongside the significance of responding to misbehavior with empathy and logical consequences. Consistent reinforcement of positive behaviors and clear expectations through proactive strategies are so important. As well as strong student-teacher relationships in successful classroom management.
In this episode, I share:
- How behavior is a form of communication
- Proactive classroom measures
- Building relationships with students
- Responding to misbehavior with empathy
Related Blog Posts:
Resources Mentioned:
- Classroom Management Workshop (through my website)
- Classroom Management Workshop (through TPT)
- Kindergarten Classroom Management Resource
- The Power of Our Words
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] I asked you this spring, hello teacher friends, I asked you this spring what topics you might like to hear more on the podcast, and overwhelmingly a ton of requests about classroom management, specifically about the behavior systems that teachers can use. So we’re going to get into it, but I just want to say first that there’s no quick fixes to classroom management. There’s no quick fix systems that will instantly change your class into a well-behaving class. And that people that tell you they have a quick fix are just lying to you because we’re going to get into it. The effective strategies are the ones that take time to set up and that take time to work. And the reason I know that is, one, I have tried some of them telling you they might work for a day or two and then they stop working again. And then you’re looking for another quick fix. And the other reason I know they don’t work is because those teachers that I see saying, oh, this is the best behavior system for you to try. It’s a quick win. You’re totally, it’s going to game change your classroom. Well, guess what? In a couple of weeks, they are sharing about some other new system that they are trying that’s been working because they have to keep changing up their systems every couple of weeks because guess what? They stopped working.
[1:18] So we’ll get into what you should do instead, but I want you to have that mindset that it’s Classroom management should not be a quick fix reward system that you can implement in a few minutes and have the perfect most behaved classroom ever. Just it’s not going to work.
[1:38]You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love?
[2:33] Okay, the first classroom management system that I need you to all chuck out your window into the trash, just take it out and never put it back in, are clip charts. Clip charts that show off the stoplight to red, yellow, green. Green for good behavior, red for bad behavior, yellow in the morning. Or some variation of that where they have cards where you show a color they’re on. or you have emojis for frowny face and happy face, whatever.
[3:04] Any system that shows off how the students are doing publicly to the other students, you need to not use. And I know some schools mandate them, which is mind-boggling to me. And if that’s the case, I don’t know, if I were you, I’d put it up there like they told me to and I would never use it. and it just becomes wallpaper like we talked about in the last episode. There is so much research on the negative effects that these clip charts have on students, specifically the kids that need the most support that are in the yellow and red more than others. They have a real impact on their self-esteem and it causes real negative problems for them and causes stress and makes kids not want to come to school and makes them very anxious about being in school. So there’s just like so much research on why these are so terrible for kids that please just don’t do it.
[4:07] Please don’t do it. So what can we do? Well, knowing that the behavior systems in your class are not a quick fix, a quick win, we need to think about all the preventative and the proactive strategies that we we need to put into place from day one. So the first is understanding that behavior is communication.
[4:31] That’s a really important mindset change, mindset shift for you. Because once you start realizing that when the kids are misbehaving, they’re telling you something, you become the detective. You want to start trying to figure out what is causing their behavior. What are they trying to tell you what do they need? And you look at it as a problem-solving strategy rather than a kid just misbehaving. So do you need to figure out, do they need to learn a social-emotional skill? Most likely in kindergarten, yes. They just need to learn a social-emotional skill. They haven’t been taught it. They haven’t had a chance to practice it. Do they need help with their academics and this is why they’re acting out? Or they need more support with that? Do they not know how to to ask for a break. All of these things could be contributing to their behavior and then some, and it’s our job, and I’m happy to get into this more in future episodes, but it’s our job to be detectives to figure out why they’re misbehaving.
[5:31] In addition to that mindset shift, we could put in proactive measures to create a classroom that doesn’t need some fancy schmancy behavior system because we
[5:42] have put in these proactive measures in place. So things like teacher language, classroom setup, and explicitly taught routines. So in terms of teacher language, the words we say really make a difference. I totally recommend the book Power of Our Words, I believe it’s called, from Responsive classroom. I’ll put the link below. I have a quick little synopsis blog post that I’ll share as well. But the power of our language makes a huge difference with the students that were in our class. So if we say don’t run, automatically this is not telling kids what to do. They don’t know what we want of them. They only know what they shouldn’t do. So a very simple shift of our language is saying what it is we do want our students to do. So instead of saying don’t run, we need to say walk. Very simple shift, but makes a huge impact. When things are not a choice, we need to make sure that our words are not giving them as a choice. So instead of saying, do you want to go to your seats now? It’s just go to your seats. Or can you go to your seats now? Nope, just go to your seat.
[6:48] So we want to be reinforcing the behavior that we do want to see. So we’ll say, oh, wow, so many of us are going to our seats quietly. Wow, look, they have their hands by their side, so they’re not touching anyone. Oh, they’ve gotten their books out and gotten started right away. Their books are already out and they’re already reading. This is helping them be better readers. So we’re reinforcing what we want to be seeing constantly. And that’s something that you and I forget to do all the time. But that makes a huge difference in the classroom management of your community.
[7:20] Classroom setup is something that we can be proactive about by making sure we’re setting up, as I talked about with the organizational systems in a couple episodes ago, that we’re not creating traffic jams. And so we’re setting up the classroom so that kids can be independent and put things away in the way that you’re teaching them, but that they’re not going to get into pushing fights with each other trying to get the same crayons or the same glue sticks and explicitly taught routines. This is a super important part of classroom management, but everything that we want our students to do, we have to teach them. We have to assume they know nothing. Assume they don’t know how to push in their chairs and come to the rug. We need to teach them that. We need to model for them those routines. We need to have them practice those routines. Kids want to do well. They want to do what you want of them, but they often don’t know what that is. And so the more that we can proactively teach those routines, the better off we are in the winter and the spring because they will have had the chance to practice and they will know exactly what’s expected of them. They will rise to the occasion when they know what’s expected of them.
[8:32] Kids also need the predictability of having routines that they can trust in, they know will happen each day, having a clear schedule for the day, you’ve warned them about any changes in the day, having smooth transitions for them between the activities. All of these things are important preventative strategies for classroom management.
[8:55] The other incredibly important part of proactive classroom management is building relationships with your students. We should be building relationships with every single student, and we can use morning meetings and community building activities to help us build our classroom community and to help us build relationships between the students and between us and the students. But the students that are going to need the most support, that are going to have the most challenges with behavior, take the time to go on a walk with just them when you’re able to, or have them sit at your table and eat their breakfast with you and have you eat your breakfast with them. Play a game with them that you know they like. Make a point to get to know what they like, show an interest in it, and have these moments where you’re conversing, sharing with each other, having a positive relationship so that when things get hard, They know they can trust you. They know they can rely on you to be that support for them. It will help any misbehaviors to have that strong foundation with a relationship.
[10:07] Another part of classroom management is how to respond in the moment to misbehaviors. And as I said at the beginning, we want to view the behavior as communication. So we want to respond to misbehaviors with empathy and logical consequences. So that means that we’re using the consequence as an opportunity to teach the kids what it is that they need to learn. And for most cases, they’re probably needing to learn social emotional learning. Social-emotional skills, which is why you should have, as a preventative measure.
[10:43] Constant explicit teaching on social-emotional skills. And if you need help with that, I have a whole social-emotional curriculum that I use, so you could check that out. Back to the logical consequences. If a child is drawing on the table, say, go get a paper towel and wash that off, or I’ll spray it down and you wipe it off. That’s one one logical consequence is making them fix or repair the damage that they did, which helps them learn what you do want to see them doing, which is using the markers on the paper. You could also say, well, now you need to switch to crayons. You can’t use markers for the rest of this activity period. We’ll try again later. Markers are just for paper. Another logical consequence could be you’ve put the marker on the table again. You need to now take a break and you need to go to the control spot. That’s what I call my take a break space because I tell the kids it’s there for us to get our bodies back in control because we’re the bosses of our own body. So we need to get our bodies back in control. So they’ll go to the control spot for a few minutes.
[11:46] They take some deep breaths. They calm down. They come back and they’re ready to be behaving again. And what this is teaching them is how to self-regulate and how to calm their bodies down.
[11:57] So listen, there’s a lot more to classroom management. This is a very quick snippet. I have a whole hour-long workshop. If you’re interested in learning more, you can purchase it on my website or on Teachers by Teachers. I’ll put the link below. That goes into a ton more depth on classroom management and all of these preventative strategies, but also a ton more about the reactive strategies for when kids are misbehaving. And if there’s a topic that you want me to dive into more let me know could be a future topic absolutely we can we can discuss further all of these things but the key takeaway that I want you to have is that there’s no quick fixes to classroom management and anyone telling you that there are is lying because any of those fancy systems will have to be changed again and again and again after a few weeks when the kids get used to them bored with it because it’s not actually setting in the proactive and the preventative measures that you need as the teacher to help with classroom management by having a good relationship with the student, by having clearly established routines and expectations, by your teacher language that you use, and the classroom setup that you have. And then I mentioned building student relationships because that’s just such an important part of this. So those systems aren’t quick fixes. They’re not going to save your classroom management for the the entire year. They might work for a week or two, and then you have to change them again.
[13:23] But what I’ve told you takes time. It takes time to put into place, but it will work the entire year.
[13:30] And it will just get stronger and better as each day and each week goes on.
[13:36] So definitely let me know which part you liked, which part you want to hear more about, and check out that workshop if you want to learn even more. And one final takeaway, please get rid of those clip charts. They are harming your students. They are not good. Okay, that’s the end of my rant. So, quote of the day. A five-year-old boy was talking to another five-year-old boy and said, did you know that there’s no such thing as a good dinosaur or a bad dinosaur? Dinosaur and the other boy replied yeah they’re all bad so it kind of relates to classroom management there’s no such thing as a good kid or a bad kid no they’re not all bad they need all just need our help they all are just needing to learn what the what is expected of them what’s the right thing what’s emotional emotional skills they need to be able to be well behaved to be able to be able to be learning in the classroom, to be a good friend. It’s our job to teach them. So behavior is communication. There’s no such thing as a good dinosaur or a bad dinosaur. And I hope you have a great rest of your day.
[14:37] Music.
[14:44] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.