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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I am a teacher and I have found that if I write the word COMPLEMENT on the board and tell the students that if their PE, Music, Art teacher give them a complement on their good behavior they will “earn” a new letter in the word COMPLEMENT. When all the letters have been earned, we have a COMPLEMENT party. These parties can be: 15 minutes of extra recess, pudding party with sprinkles, special art project, game/puzzle time, a trip to the treasure box for each child in class. Anything that will encourage the students to follow through with your classroom rules in the other classrooms. They will be amazing when positive behavior is noticed and rewarded!
I think you mean “compliment”. “Complement” has a different meaning. Lots of people get those homonyms mixed up. >smile<
Compliment with an i!
Another specials teacher here, I teach technology at the elementary level and just found this post through Pinterest. My building has a very we are a team approach to students and discipline. If a student misbehaves and receives a written warning, that follows them class to class. I often have students come to me with a behavior slip and they behave wonderfully. If I have given a verbal warning and the behavior continues I fill out the behavior slip and pass it on. The slips go home to be seen and signed by parent and student. Students knowing that teachers discuss these issues and that we are aware what happens really does help with their behavior. If the action is severe enough I write my own office referral but I always let the teacher know so they will be aware and can watch for further issues while the referral is being processed. I have taught middle school previously and had students who were experts at pushing the boundaries just far enough to avoid getting in trouble and they did this hour after hour because they could, because teachers were not talking. Once we started communicating things changed, even if it was as simple as a quick e-mail or whisper in the hall that so and so is having a rough day.
I am a seasoned elementary music teacher. I have noticed over the years that teachers who center their classroom management and discipline around the COMMUNITY have classes that behave well for ALL adults on campus.
On the other hand, I have seen fantastic classroom teachers with classes that behave well only for them. What these teachers do is base their classroom management and discipline around themselves. “I want this. I don’t want you to do this. ” These students are behaving only to please their classroom teacher. There is no reflection on how their actions affect others.
Another thing that will help is if you, the classroom teacher, sing the praises of the special area subject. Do you know why PE is so important for your classes growing bodies and brains? Do you know how music and art awaken corners of the brain that go otherwise unused? This will help your students understand that the very “real” learning that takes place in our classes is just as important for them as that reading test you just took. Teachers that champion me and my class leave me with well behaved, eager learners.
Also, it is important for me to communicate severe behaviors to each classroom teacher. I don’t like it when the classroom teacher delivers an extra consequence. I prefer to take care of my own discipline. I’ve found, over the years, that consequences are only effective when delivered in person. Sometimes that takes a little creativity with a schedule like ours, but creativity is what we do for a living!
I heartily agree with your reply! I DO want to know if my students are behaving in Specials classes because I use that information when I communicate with parents. Our Specials teachers have small blue forms to document–simply by circling behavior that is noted and writing the consequence that was given, if any. They hand it to us at the door. In our class meetings, we always discuss behavior outside of the classroom and how we can help each other have fun and productive days. The children need to see that we (parents, all teachers, peers) function as a team.
Thank you for sharing a system that works at your school!
As an emotional support teacher for many years I had students who appeared to be well-behaved in my room but created havoc for other teachers. One technique that worked for me was creating behavior cards that these students could take with them to specials (P.E., art, music). The card was simply made from construction paper. I drew three faces on the card – a smiley face, neutral face, and sad face. These cards were tied into my classroom management system. (2 points for a smile, 1 point for neutral, 0 points for sad). I laminated the cards so that they were reusable. This technique gave students and special teachers some control but allowed me to monitor behaviors and see improvement over the school year.
I really like Vicki’s idea. I have had the rare student come to music with a “behavior plan” where all I had to do was sign my initials on their sheet in either red for a bad day or green for a good day. This figured into whatever reward, etc. was being used for this child. That really worked for these special children, but I have never heard of doing it for kids who don’t have severe behaviors, but act up outside of homeroom, because they know they can get by with it.
I believe that I am ultimately responsible and rarely tell a homeroom teacher anything negative, although I will compliment the class if they were exceptionally well-behaved. This really helps with the classes whose teachers reward their students for compliments.
Most teachers are not particularly supportive and expect me to just deal with it, and I understand that. However, I don’t think they understand what it is like to teach every child in the school, and not have access to the kinds of consequences they can use. I did have one teacher who was so supportive that she would often come a few minutes early, join whatever we were doing, and tell her class how lucky they were to be learning the guitar, etc. This was above and beyond, but her classes were always well-behaved for me. I miss her!
I concur with the “specials” teachers who can predict what a class will be like because they have observed over the years that certain teachers almost always have rowdy classes and others almost always have cooperative classes. There are exceptions, of course.
The best way for me to manage is to have an engaging lesson. I don’t do “worksheets” in music…we use games, manipulatives, and we make music. I also do Whole Brain Teaching and a lot of character education. But when a student is intent on being disruptive, I don’t have the luxury of consequences, unless it is bad enough to call security or notify parents. Specials teachers almost have to have some tie-in to what the homeroom teacher does, or just manage by the strength of our personalities. I am not very good at using the teacher’s documentation notebook, but the ones who bring it send the message that their students’ behavior matters wherever they are, and I really appreciate their support!