Age-appropriate classroom management varies for elementary, middle and high school and even from grade to grade. All grade levels require procedures and routines that evolve to being less restrictive from kindergarten through 12th grade as students mature with the goal of taking on greater responsibility for their learning as they become young adults at the end of high school. For example, high school freshman and sophomores require stricter confines and more specific guidelines for such arrangements as assigned seating than juniors and seniors.
No matter your teaching style, good classroom management will result in a teacher being able to direct students to be on-task with only a look or gesture and little to no disruption of the learning process. Insecure teachers often lose sight of the teaching objective and come to focus on “controlling” students. Students pick up on this insecurity creating an unnecessary contest of control that devolves into teacher frustration and ineffectiveness.
A confident teacher does not take student negative behavior personally and has a well-thought-out management plan and philosophy that clearly communicates to students the learning and behavior expectations. A successful plan denies disruptive students the reward of distracting classmates and frustrating the teacher while taking away a privilege important to them. An important student privilege is the ability to have a seat of choice next to friends. Students who are moved to sit next to the teacher’s desk because they apparently want more teacher attention are motivated to exercise self-restraint to move back to their regular seat.
A clean, well-organized classroom conveys to students that they are there to learn. The procedure should begin with an opening activity connected to the day’s lesson for students to start automatically upon entering the classroom while the teacher completes attendance. Instead of telling students it is “my” classroom as the teacher, explain to them it is “our” classroom with shared responsibility to be respectful to each other and maintain its cleanliness.
A productive classroom requires politeness among the students and from the teacher. On the first day of school, the teacher should ask simply whether anyone does not know how to be polite. If students were not taught rules of behavior at home and do not know how to be polite, the teacher can offer after-school classes on proper behavior. This eliminates feigned ignorance of how to behave properly and makes it clear that classroom time will not be wasted dealing with bad behavior; rather, it will require the misbehaving student's own time after school.
Procedures, routines and physical layout converge and are consistent with the content objectives, which vary from class to class and within a class session. Teacher-led instruction requires full student attention and listening, while completing individual or group assignments may require student interaction and communication. Student testing requires silence and that students finishing early find something to quietly read until all of their classmates are finished. The “be polite” foundation for a classroom philosophy and management plan covers all situations, creating positive learning outcomes with a pleasant and rewarding educational experience for the students and teacher.