Classroom Management, Teaching Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Jan 21, 2013
When your students misbehave for other teachers
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
When your students misbehave for other teachers
By Angela Watson
I received a question about this topic through the anonymous form for Ask Angela Anything, and I thought it was such a common issue that I’d address it in its own post. KM writes:
Usually my grade 3 students are very well behaved when I am teaching them, but if they go to specials, they are very misbehaved. How can I help them to have more consistent behaviour? Am I being too authoritarian? Or do I need to be more strict?
I have totally been in your position so many times, and I know it’s incredibly frustrating. I kind of expected it on days when my kids were a little crazy in the classroom. But there were also days when my students spent the entire morning focused and on-task, and then when I picked them up from art or music or the library, I’d hear a huge list of complaints about everything from disrespectful behavior to not following the rules to physical altercations.
While I sympathized with the specials teachers and was glad they told me about the problem, I did find the situation awkward. Ignoring it would undermine the teacher’s complaint and send the message to my students that I didn’t care how they behaved at specials. But I was not comfortable giving students a consequence for something they did while they were not under my care and authority.
Usually I’d end up giving my sternest teacher look to the class while listening to the teacher’s report, and then talk with the student(s) involved while walking the class back to our room. After all, there wasn’t much else I could do after the fact. But, I discovered there was quite a bit I could do pro-actively to prevent the problem from re-occurring, so that’s what I’ll focus on here.
Let’s start by looking at this from the kids’ perspective. Most students view specials classes as a break from regular learning. That’s not true, of course, but it’s how they see it. They’ve been in their regular classroom for a very long period of time and expected to focus, concentrate, and stay on task throughout that time. When they’re finally allowed to move down the hallway, they release all that pent-up energy, and continue doing so during PE, art, music, etc. In many students’ minds, it’s not necessary to sit still and listen to the teacher until “real” learning takes place again back in their own classroom with their “real” teacher.
Being mindful of your students’ perspective on specials will keep you from getting aggravated. It will also help you make good decisions about how to structure your class time. It took me forever to figure this out, but eventually I realized I was likely to get a bad report from the specials teacher when I had administered tests during the morning, or assigned otherwise unengaging tasks that involved lots of sitting still and being quiet. So if you can, plan those less active lessons for the days students have PE or other specials that permit them to move around, and on the days when students will need to concentrate during specials, try to plan more hands-on activities in your classroom beforehand.
You can coordinate this with certain specials teachers if they repeatedly have issues with your students. You could say, “I’m so sorry my students have been giving you trouble lately. I’m wondering if they’re spending too much time sitting before I drop them off. Can you give me a heads-up first thing in the morning if the kids will need to sit and listen quietly for the whole specials period, or do mostly paper and pencil work while they’re with you? I’ll try to make sure they get to move around in my room beforehand. If nothing else, we can do a few stretches and brain breaks to help them get the wiggles out before I drop them off.” If the specials teacher is unwilling or unable to do this, you can automatically incorporate those movement opportunities into your instruction on the days your students will be attending that special.
If a particular teacher has a hard time handling your class or certain students in your class, talk with him or her about it when the kids aren’t around. You could say, “I know __ can be challenging sometimes. One thing I’ve tried in my classroom with him/her is ___. I’ve also tried ___ and sometimes that works, too.” Find out what kind of routines and behavior management/reward systems the teacher is using, and share what has worked in your room. You can also offer to stay and observe your students during specials: you might be able to recommend that certain kids not sit near each other, or you may able to spot attention seeking behaviors or other sneaky things kids try to get away with when the adult in charge doesn’t know them well. Having an open dialogue about the situation can provide the other teacher with helpful suggestions and shows that you’re taking his or concerns seriously.
Ultimately, though, you cannot control how your students behave when you’re not around. It’s up to each individual teacher to set, model, practice, and reinforce expectations for his or her classroom. Don’t put yourself on a guilt trip about something that happened while another teacher was in charge.
Your job is to build a strong sense of community, respect, and personal responsibility in your students while they’re in your classroom. Often, those qualities will be reflected in your class even when they’re not in your room. The key to getting students to behave appropriately no matter where they’re at is teaching them to make wise decisions for themselves and exercise self-control rather than depending on teacher control. Obviously that’s not something you can accomplish in just ten months with every single student, but it’s a goal you can strive for as a school community, and you can work with your specials teachers as much as possible to help nurture those qualities in your students.
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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Thank you for such a thoughtful response to a complicated problem. I am a CHAMPS trainer and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist and will share your advice when this comes up.
Thanks, Sandra! I appreciate that!
In my room, I think it’s so important for my kids to be able to extend their good behavior with me to other situations, but I do know that it’s harder for them. I have a “marble jar” for my kids, and normally a compliment earns one marble. They are never taken away. Compliments at lunch and recess, when things are tougher? Two marbles. During an emergency drill? Three. From a sub? Up to FIVE. Yes, it’s bribery, but the kids place a higher priority on good behavior when I make it clear that it means more. It has worked well for me! I still do enforce punishments for serious things that they know they shouldn’t do, though, particularly if I happen to see something through the window when I walk by or pick them up.
Jenny, thanks for bringing this up. I know many, many teachers who have used these kinds of systems, and they definitely do communicate to kids that their behavior matters EVERYWHERE in the school, not just in the classroom.
Thank you for focusing on the positive and complimenting students more than consequences and punishment. Students who feel valued are more likely to pay attention and be productive.
I approach this dilemma from the perspective of the music teacher who sees her students once every 6 days. Even though I report to homeroom teachers about their class progress every day I’ve never told a teacher about a behavior in class because I expected the homeroom teacher to punish the students or “fix” something that happened in my class. I work hard to create my own immediate and meaningful consequences, I write my own office referrals, I send home notes, call home and arrange for parent conferences…. for almost 800 students…… It is important to remember that we share students and we have the same goal for our students. Even still, OUR students NEVER leave their problems at the doors of our classrooms and I promise to always deal with the issues that our students bring with them from your classroom if you’ll do the same for me. I noticed MOST of the time the discipline issues that show up in my room are identical or related to the ones already occurring in the homeroom. Therefore I report and share documentation of behaviors during my instructional time as a favor to the homeroom teacher. After all, we have the same goal…. we want our students to be on task. As we work to develop plans for students success it is important to notice behavioral trends that happen across the board. Because I am teaching your students during your conference time I probably won’t be invited to that behavior conference you’ve scheduled. When it is time to meet with parents it is nice to be able to have a truly comprehensive view of how that particular student behaves in a variety of situations…..If I don’t take the time to share with you, then you won’t have any other documentation other than your own. Students come to music to be challenged in ways they are not challenged during the rest of the school day. Therefore we shouldn’t be surprised when students who function beautifully everywhere else may come up against some interpersonal challenges they haven’t faced before. Imagine that you are an only child of the video game generation who gets great grades, reads well and is generally compliant to authority. Now imagine that you are “it” during a musical game and you have to have a turn with someone else in your class. In today’s culture that may be the most socially challenging event of your entire week. Some students will navigate the situation beautifully, while others will become hostile and rude. That shouldn’t remove them from the situation or the consequences of poor behavior, but it does mean that some unlikely students might end up with an unexpected behavior report. As a music teacher who will teach my students over as many as 6-7 consecutive years it is in my best interest to deal promptly and appropriately with discipline issues but sometimes I’ll admit that I mention behavior issues to my homeroom teachers in hopes of creating some accountability and collaboration for myself. If I don’t say something then I may never figure out how to help that student that needs my attention. Especially with only 45 minutes every other week, I don’t have the luxury to keep my own council I’ve got to get those issues dealt with sooner rather than later and as you get to spend most of the day with the same students, you may have some useful insight that I could use to help our students. There is also something else to consider. My school is one where over 90% of the students are considered to be “at-risk”. In a circumstance like that where a healthy definition of parenting is not what my students experience at home, their homeroom teacher becomes a surrogate parent. The homeroom teacher is the one who my students want to brag to, to perform for and the one who is the holder of the judgement that matters. I could call parents all day, but when a child is dismissed by their parent, the home room is supremely important. Never underestimate the value of your approval or disapproval. To the students that I teach, what their homeroom teacher thinks matters more than Santa Claus…… Overall school culture determines how specials are viewed. If as a campus they take on an ancillary role then you are right, students will view them as another version of recess. If however, the campus is intentional about protecting and valuing the instructional time of those specials classes as they do other core subjects then students and parents will view them as important as they are. I have also noticed that homeroom culture has a GREAT deal to do with how students behave in my class. It is amazing that I can tell you right now what kind of classroom culture “Ms. Smith’s” class will have next year and the year after that. I can tell you this because I have taught her class for the last 5 years and each year the same joys and challenges arise when her students enter my classroom. As I get to know “Ms. Smith” I get better at teaching her class and anticipating their group personality. The biggest favor that you can do for yourself is to never ever take any comment made by a specials teacher about the behavior of OUR students personally. Keep working with us weird specials teachers and given the opportunity we will likely become your best collaborators and problem solvers.
I agree! I never expect a classroom teacher to fix the problems in my classroom. If your students are exhibiting poor behavior in the special’s room, it is up to the special’s teacher to fix it. Plus, I never “blame” the classroom teacher on the poor behavior of a class. My room is completely different, I don’t have clips/cards, etc…
I see my 700 students once every five days and don’t have many issues. But I also figure out what is going to work or not based on what is going on in the school. If the students had indoor recess or testing, I change things up to get the students moving quite a bit more. This helps the classroom teacher too!
While I appreciate the support and will always give a report to the classroom teacher, it is more of a conference of “here is what I’m seeing do you see it too?” That way I’m better informed and I might see somethings that the classroom teacher isn’t.
I am also a Music teacher reviewing this article, and I do agree with you on some key points. First of all, collaboration between the home room teacher and the specials teacher is extremely important. You make the point that we can all help each other, and sometimes we depend on the homeroom teacher to do just that, even if it is dealing with a consequence that comes out of a special. For instance, maybe a student has had a poor day and looses all his music time eventually. I may need to call that parent, but I would also like for that student to serve a recess detention or something in addition to the consequence I was able to give during class time. I would love for a homeroom teacher to be supportive of helping with that since I am usually teaching during recess times and can’t manage a detention situation and a full class of instruction simultaneously. Support in forms like that, or in referencing behavior when you are talking to a parent, etc., are much appreciated since we see FAR more students than you do each day. Learning what makes our kids “tick” is beneficial to all of us, and we SHOULD work together to help our kids, both in giving them incentives to work hard and consequences when they don’t. I think most specials teachers would agree that we do our best to manage our own classes, but this support from the homeroom teacher can often build that bond between us and form a bridge of learning that is so greatly important. I agree with another poster that we often can predict certain teachers’ classes behavior from year to year because that community and sense of procedure is so important. The homeroom class culture will spill out to other places, be it good or bad. Don’t discount your influence on your students…it can make a world of difference to them. No, you cannot ultimately control what they do when they are away for you, but what you value in Your classroom does influence them in more ways than you may think. Building that personal responsibility that you spoke of AND showing your support to specials teachers go hand in hand to create a true culture of responsibility and respect that your students can learn to carry with them throughout their lives.
Bonnie and Tracey,
Thanks for chiming in from the perspective of specials teachers! I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to share your experiences. I think your thoughts about are spot on.
You’ve both gotten me thinking more about the importance of communication between the homeroom teacher and the specials teacher. Do you have any tips for how to make time for that communication? I find it uncomfortable to discuss students’ behavioral issues in front of the entire class while they’re all lined up and waiting for me to take them back to the classroom, especially when another teacher and his/her class are standing there waiting to begin their specials. And yet I know it’s really hard to find other times during the school day to talk about these kinds of things. Ideally, there would be a private opportunity to talk that is more than a minute long. Any ideas on how that can work?
Thanks for replying! I know one thing that has worked for me in past schools is a traveling clipboard system where any issues the specials teachers are having can be noted during class and discussed later. Time IS a premium for us all, so emails are extremely effective in getting to the bottom of things and not doing it right in front of kids. Some sort of traveling documentation system certainly can help as well. I agree with Jenny that rewarding students for their behavior, either indivually or as a class, can help remind them how important learning is regardless of who the teacher is. Systems like hers do help place the emphasis on responsibility and reflect that learning is to take place even outside of the homeroom teacher’s class.