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’ve taught art in 8 different elementary schools in the past 11 years. (Traveling teacher) Every school has a different vibe towards specials. Some teachers drop their class off and say, “Have Fun.” This is so annoying to me. Yes we have fun but it sets the mood when a teacher says this. The students then think, “Ok we are in art, time to get buck wild!” Others drop their class off and say, “I want a good report.” A report at the end is very important. Good, bad, or a little of both. It shows that both teachers respect each other and it shows a visable and audiable exchange of authority to the students.
When you teach about 800 students a year you cannot contact every parent for minor things that occur in your room. If it is something major, yes I will write them up, make them sit out, call home, or send them to the office. But it is nice if I can say to the classroom teacher, “Timmy needs to clip down because he was being disruptive on several different occations today.” If I call a parent saying that their child was talking too much in art, the response I usually get is, “uh, ok.” And that’s about it. And I can’t imagine how many phone calls I would make everyday. But if I can use the teachers behavior system, it shows that it is important to behave eveywhere in school not just their classroom. And clipping down does not always lead to an automatic consequence. It just gets them closer to one. Teachers who let me use their class behavior system on a regular basis, will see that there are not as many bad reports when they pick up their class. Because students know that they will be held accountable for minor misbaving when they get back to their classroom. As a classroom teacher, you may say, “Well if it is something minor why do we need to deal with this?” My answer would be, taking care of these minor offences now will nip those major offenses in the butt for later.
The two schools that I am at this year are a dream! The classroom teachers are very supportive and do show that exchange of authority I was talking about. The students behave pretty well at both schools because of this. And one of the schools is a title one school. When giving a bad report at the end of class, I make sure I stand where students cannot hear what I am saying. It usually goes a little something like this, ” Timmy was doing x,y, and z today. I was thinking about calling home. What do you think?” Sometimes the classroom teacher has more insight on this student than I do. They might say, “oh yes, please call home.” Or they might say,”You know, something is up at home, why don’t you let me talk to him and I will give him a consequence in class.” Sometimes they miss part of centers or fun friday or whatever fun things they get to do in class. Or they might say, “that is minor, I will just have him clip down when we get back.”
I do positive rewards too. I have sticker charts for each class and every 5 stickers they earn they get a class reward. Most schools I have been in have a whole school reward system and I use those little paper slip incentives as well. If the school has a school wide consequence system, that works really well. But they seem to be pretty non – exsistant these days. There is only so much a specials teacher can do in the form of negative consequesnces, as we only see each student once a week for 50 minutes. But if we have a Monday or Friday off we may not see them for two weeks! And as mentioned before we usually teach during the students recess time so it is hard for us to give them a lunch detention. But I have been in schools where the lunch mom’s supervise lunch detention which works quite nice too.
In closing, show your students that you care about what happens outside of your room. It might be a lot to deal with at first but once they see the consequences, you will have less to deal with in the future. Your students will behave for the specials teachers just like they do for you. And it helps if all classroom teachers in the school are on board with this because then students see that this is just the way things are from year to year.
Danielle, thank you for taking the time to share so much information with us. It’s very much appreciated.
Hello,
I recently had this issue with my students – I just started my first year teaching, and I have a wonderful group of 6th graders. Last week I was disappointed to hear that my kids were holding off and not paying attention during music, so I had a chat with them afterwards. It reminded me of this part of your post:
“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.”
That’s part of what I addressed with my students. I explained to them that I know music is fun – I love music, I’m a musician – but music is a scholarly pursuit as well, and it’s just as important to focus, listen, and follow directions when you’re in the music room as it is when you’re in our classroom.
I went over that last week after music and again today before music and it seemed to help, at least in the short term. Hopefully the message sinks in and really lasts. Luckily, I’m working with older students. Not sure if it would work with, say, kindergarteners.
I have a group of students who are near-angels for me but are repeatedly unruly with subs. What unconventional and creative ways have you used or overheard that would teach them this behavior is unacceptable…and embarrassing for the teacher?
I’ve had the same problem and honestly never found a solution. The biggest change I made training was myself to let go of that feeling of responsibility for how students–other people’s children–behaved when I was not even in the building. I took their misbehavior as a personal affront, something that was embarrassing to me…but a) they’re not my kids, and b) I can’t control what they do when I’m not around. I did my best to encourage them to make good decisions and tried to be supportive of the sub, but ultimately, the adult who is in charge of maintaining order in the classroom is in charge. I’m just not going to stress out if the sub has a tough time. Maybe that sounds callous, but I just think teachers have too many other responsibilities on their shoulders to let this become one more thing they have to control and feel guilty about.
Thank you for saying this. I always feel the guilt… I need to let go.
To keep my 3rd graders motivated to behave in specials I reward good reports. We have a 2 cup measure into which I put marbles for good behavior. When the marbles reach the 2 cup mark we have a class movie party. They are totally invested in the reward.