Are you the worst behaved in the room?

9 TEACHER behaviours that contribute to discipline problems.


1. Extreme negativity. The teacher's comments to the class are frequently negative and highly authoritative. (“It's obvious that nobody knows this. It looks like everyone will fail")

2. Excessive authoritarian climate.These teachers desire to be the absolute and complete authority figure in the classroom. All decisions are theirs. (“It's my way or the highway!”)

3. Overreacting. This teacher creates mountains out of molehills by escalating minor disturbances into major ones. (“I'm tired of you being late. I want all of you to write one hundred times, 'I will not be late to Mrs. Northwing's class.'”)

4. Mass punishment.These teachers hope peer pressure will result in a change of behaviour for a few select students. (“No one is leaving until everyone stops talking")

5. Blaming.This teacher often picks out two or three students and consistently blames them for every little infraction that may occur. (“Alright, who made that noise? Was it you again, Johnny?”)

6. Lack of instructional goals.Often teachers will engage students without a clearly defined or clearly understood (by students) goal for the lesson. (“Okay, who can tell me what Pythagoras said about triangles?"

7. Repeating or reviewing already understood material.In an effort to make sure students are exposed to important material, teachers might constantly repeat material in the same way. (“All right, I want you to look up the definitions for these 20 words, write them in your notebook, and then write them again on this chart.”)

8. Dealing with a single student at length.This teacher often disrupts his own instructional rhythm by spending an inordinate amount of time on one student. (“I can't believe you are still talking, Sierra. I've told you over and over and over again about talking in class... followed by several berating comments")

9. Not recognizing students' ability levels. This teacher plans a lesson that is often over the heads of many students in the class. A single lesson is much easier to prepare than multiple mini-lessons. (“This is material everybody should know, so I want everyone to listen carefully so you can all do well on the exam.”)