We’ve all had those classes where it seems like a simple direction turns into an argument. You spend more time dealing with redirections, disruptions, and disagreements than teaching, and by the end of the day you feel mentally and physically drained.
I’ve had plenty of those days! At 21, I started teaching in a boys’ reformatory, while my longtime teaching partner, Marcey, began her career in a psychiatric ward. We eventually found ourselves in the basement of an old, rundown urban middle school. Seven classrooms, one principal, three lockup rooms, and the violence was no joke.
Our 24 boys were identified as conduct disordered, and it didn’t take long to realize nothing we’d been taught about teaching or managing behavior was going to work.
Typical expert advice for classroom management is familiar: Be consistent. Set clear expectations. Don’t engage in power struggles. Stay calm.
It’s all good advice. But when we’re frustrated because we’ve repeated ourselves for the fifth time, or we feel our authority is being challenged, that advice can go right out the window.
And the same is true for our students. We can’t expect a student who’s been responding one way for years to suddenly do something different because we’ve told them to. Research on habit formation suggests it often takes two to five months to establish a new habit (Singh et al., 2024). Not a day, not a week, and certainly not because we’ve repeated the same negative consequence for the hundredth time.
When emotions take over, knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.
Where Stress and Frustration Set In
As teachers, we have two big responsibilities: creating the conditions for learning and making sure our instruction meets academic standards and pacing expectations. When either one is compromised, frustration sets in. And when it happens day after day, staying calm becomes harder and harder.
We can control how we respond to a student’s behavior. We can influence what happens next. And based on experience, we can often predict how a student might respond.
But we cannot control the student. Or can we?
No, not really. But we can teach, model, and practice how students can calm themselves and pause long enough to think about what they want to happen next.
We’d start every class with three to five minutes of focus and relaxation. Teach students to use their breathing to calm their minds and bodies and prepare for learning. Do it every day until it becomes part of the classroom culture. Those few minutes may save you more time than you spend redirecting, re-engaging, and dealing with disruptions.
Marcey and I discovered that the practice also calmed and grounded us. A perk we hadn’t seen coming!
Plus, you’re teaching a skill students can take with them for life.
“That there is relaxation, your never gonna forget that, like you used to say, you can take it with you where ever you go.”
— Terrell, former student interviewed 15 years later
Is Misbehavior Intentional?
Our brains are wired to learn from our environment, and some kids have spent years watching adults argue and yell. They’ve argued, yelled, and talked back themselves for years. It’s their brain’s default response.
Telling them to stop arguing, sending them to the office, writing them up... those consequences may stop the behavior temporarily, but they don’t teach students what to do differently the next time. And there will be a next time! We have to show them what those alternatives look like, practice them together, and reinforce them over and over and over again.
Think about how people learn to do something differently. Athletes are coached and practice plays daily. Musicians rehearse the same piece over and over. Experts in every field practice, reflect, and adjust their craft. They don’t wait until the pressure is on to figure out what to do. They’ve practiced so they can do it when the pressure is on.
Why would we expect students to change their behavior without the same opportunities?
You may be thinking, my students don’t need this. It’s only a few kids causing all the problems. But Marcey and I would argue that everyone benefits, including you!
Marcey and I had to teach and practice alternatives. Our survival and sanity depended on it! But after leaving our conduct disorder boys, we learned that it wasn’t just our students who needed this. All students benefited.
When a disruption occurs, learning stops for everyone, not just the students involved. So why not spend some of that time practicing the behaviors we want instead of constantly correcting the ones we don’t?
I Don’t Have Time
If you think you don’t have time, you may be right. But how much time are you already spending dealing with the same disruptions over and over again?
Instead of spending that time correcting behavior, why not use it to teach alternatives? You don’t need another program or worksheets. The problems happening right in your classroom give you plenty to work with.
You ask a student to change seats, stop talking, or follow directions, and he refuses. Or students are making fun of each other, calling names, or arguing.
Instead of repeating yourself, pause the lesson and take five minutes to discuss the situation with the class. What happened? What emotions were involved? How else could the student, or even the teacher, have responded?
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, and experiences. Please share them in the comments, and if you found this helpful, consider sharing it with other educators.