The worst part about hitting classroom management rock bottom is that you don’t know you’ve hit rock bottom.
All you know is that when your alarm clock rings in the morning, it feels like your skin is getting ripped off. It’s like you’re mad that you didn’t just die in your sleep, and now you have to go into school and face these students.
I’m kind of exaggerating.
But if this is where you’re at right now, you know I’m not exaggerating by that much.
The Reality of a Completely-Out-Of-Control Class
The one student who you thought was going to be your biggest problem at the beginning of the year is now just one of a big group of students who have followed this student’s lead or come up with their own creative ways of making things unbearable in your classroom.
The only way you can get your class’s attention is to yell louder than they’re yelling, which is almost impossible.
And even if you do get your voice loud enough to get the class’s attention, there’s a good chance they’re going to ignore you anyway, or yell back, or just turn this whole thing into an argument about who was doing what first in the first place.
Things are constantly getting thrown across the room.
The lights get turned on and off.
You find things missing from your desk.
You hear the kids insulting each other.
The noise level never goes down.
When the students leave for the day, you look around the room and it’s such a disaster that even though you’re completely exhausted and you have so many other things to do, you find yourself cleaning up just enough so that the room will be presentable enough for the custodian to walk in.
And one day while doing that, you find out someone has peed in the trash can.
The Students Who Deserve Better
The worst part about all this, if you can pick a worst part, is that some of your students are genuinely nice kids and they are doing their best. They deserve for your class to be better than this.
You know that.
And yet…
Things are not better.
These students may even be getting bullied on your watch. At the very least, they are getting cheated out of the education that you hope to give students when you became a teacher.
You did not come for this.
The scenario that I just described is a composite, but it is all based on real stories that have come up in my 20 years of working with teachers.
I run The Maintain and Stay Sane Program for Teachers–a series of online courses meant to help teachers through the issues they can’t bring up at a faculty meeting.
And if the situation above sounds familiar to you, hearing about the importance of classroom management probably makes you lose your appetite.
You already know that you need most of the class on your side for a traditional classroom management system to work, and you already have a sense of what you should have done better or earlier or whatever.
You just need something to help you fix this.
Now.
The Freedom of “Nowhere to Go But Up”
A class that is completely out of control is most teachers’ worst nightmare. But it does offer you a certain freedom.
You have nowhere to go but up.
So there might be some room to be creative.
There are four general things that tend to help with an out of control class.
- You need to get your students’ attention.
- You need to make them see themselves as a team.
- You need to show them that you care about them in spite of everything that’s happening.
- You need to give them some reason to change their behavior.
Those four things will look very different in each class, but you want to keep those things in mind as dots on the horizon that you’re just constantly steering toward.
Keep pushing in this direction even if progress stalls out a little bit some days.
What to Keep in Mind Before Your Classroom Reset
Now, let’s talk about some specific things that you want to keep in mind before planning a classroom complete hostile takeover or reset.
Timing Is Important
The best time for a major change is when you haven’t seen your students in a few days. If you can’t wait until after a break, at least start on a Monday. That usually works better than you rolling in on a random Thursday and just going like, there’s a new sheriff in town!
Don’t Rely on Shock Value
On a related note: even though I’m saying get your students’ attention, I’m not telling do something so out of character that it makes students think you went crazy.
It’s tempting to use this as a starting point, but we live in an era where anything dramatic can easily be recorded on a cell phone, and that can become your main reputation as a teacher.
And the stunned silence you get from your shock value move probably won’t last.
As a rule, don’t that requires you to be far from the teacher that you intend to be.
Have a Plan Beyond Silence
Another thing to keep in mind is that, as much as you want the students to finally be quiet, that is just the first step.
You need some type of plan to put in place once you have their attention.
Your Plan Will Be Tested
Students will try to shake off your plan. They’re not going to take you seriously right away.
Any new system you try will be tested repeatedly before your students believe you are serious. So be prepared to hold on tight as students try to shake off your new routine.
Time Is Often on Your Side
The good news is that, if you don’t give up, time is often on your side. You may be in a classroom that has run off teachers in the past or has had a string of long-term subs.
You may be surprised at how much student behavior improves over time if you just continue to show up every day and do your best to try to teach.
Believe Recovery Is Possible
The final tip is just to believe that your students want to be in a well-run classroom—and that it is possible for you to give them one.
Teachers have bounced back from out of control classrooms.
It is possible.
I’m not saying it will happen for you. I’m not saying it’s easy. But it is possible.
That’s your starting point.
Make Sure You Know about The Disillusionment Phase
If it’s your first year of teaching and you’re reading this in the middle of October, please also know this is widely known as what’s called the Disillusionment Phase for new teachers.
It’s when teachers are exhausted, they’re still paying off the mistakes they’ve made at the beginning of the year. The end of the year is nowhere in sight. And it can really feel like things are never going to get better.
The Disillusionment Phase is the reason that I created the Disillusionment Power Pack® , which is a free series of emails meant to get you through the absolute worst part of your first year of teaching. You can sign up for those using the link below.
Thanks for reading, and. . . I would say, “have a great day,” but let’s be realistic.
You’re probably not going to have a great day.
So, instead, I will say the line that my sister and her roommates used to say to each other during their first year of teaching.
Every morning, as they left the house, they would just say, “Have a day.”
And. . . well. . . they did.
They had days.
So, for now. . . have a day.
® The Disillusionment Power Pack is a registered trademark of Roxanna Elden.