The Way you View your Students is Making or Breaking you
The way you view them matters
How do you view your students?
The way you view your students is directly helping or harming you.
The Importance of Mindset
Your mindset determines your authority.
Your authority determines your classroom.
There are a multitude of reasons why you’re struggling to manage your classroom.
Prioritising relationships, modelling expectations, teaching without friction and animosity, as well as being consistent with follow-through are a few reasons.
There’s also some other reasons why you may be struggling to build the relationships with a select-few of your students.
You might be struggling with defiance, resentment, outright rebellion or clear dislike from them.
Let me tell you why you’re probably struggling here.
Do you do any of the following?
· Dislike certain students
· Gossip about them
· Label them
· Hope certain one’s don’t show
· Take misbehaviour personally
· See it as disrespect
· Expect trouble
· View your class as ‘good’ or ‘bad’
Doing any one or more of these is setting you up for failure with your students.
It’s confirmation bias. It’s because you need to respond to your students as they are, not to the story you’ve created about them.
Your students – all of your students – need you. You are the leader and one of the adults in their lives they see the most, sometimes more than their own parents.
Successful classroom management comes from strong relationships, clarity of expectations, consistency, and calm authority.
Start thinking negatively about your students, gossiping about them in the office or staff room, and complaining as if you’re powerless to do anything about the state of your classroom is a losing strategy 100% of the time because it doesn’t help you constructively.
Instead, it leads to resentment of the job, hostility towards some of your most vulnerable and dissociative students, as well as tension in the classroom.
How You Should View Your Students
Make a conscious decision to genuinely care about all of your students.
Young people are unpredictable. Sometimes they’re rude, aloof, cranky and emotional.
When you were a teenager, were you any different?
Students have a profound sense of awareness in regard to the feelings you have for them. Harbour any resentment, anger or hostility and it will show. They will feel it. They will know it.
These feelings towards your students will manifest in your behaviour.
If they feel you lack respect, kindness and care for them, repairing your relationships will be that much harder.
Avoid the need for repair in the first place.
Show them what a privilege it is for you to be in front of them every day and build lasting influence. The kind of influence that makes your career satisfying - the influence that first got you into teaching.
You must treat your misbehaving students with the same level of respect as the others.
There are no differences.
This also means you need to hold them accountable without hostility.
Leave the emotion out of it because you can’t force empathy from students. They need to discover it for themselves through accountability and self-actualisation.
Why You Should Make the Change
When you’re able to manage misbehaviour quickly, efficiently and without drama, teaching becomes significantly easier. You’re free to teach the content you enjoy with the confidence to let your real personality show.
Most importantly, you can finally have fun with your class and build a classroom that’s truly special and unique.
Don’t join the scores of teachers at your school who whine and complain about their students while unknowingly sabotaging their relationships due to poor behaviour management strategies and harmful interventions that escalate and create conflict.
This isn’t happening because you’re not using P3-F3, circles, or behaviour contracts that label the student and communicate that they can’t do it loud and clear.
It’s happening because your students know you dislike them and you’re harming the relationship you’ve built with them. (If one exists at all)
It doesn’t mean you should blindly like and trust your students no matter what.
It means you hold the internal belief that all of your students have a good side, are capable of making positive changes, and belong in your classroom.
You will be the difference, the immovable object, the person who’s always got their back.
Even if it means keeping them in line.
Mindset Determines Follow-Through
Dislike leaks through your behaviour, whether you consciously know it or not.
Gossip will also destroy your professionalism, and the staff room negativity will inevitably shape your mindset.
It’s your mindset that determines your calm authority.
Your mindset is how you respond calmly. View all your students positively like we’ve talked about.
View them negatively, view them incorrectly, and watch things escalate.
Remember this:
Bias creates inconsistency.
It will pre-dispose you to make poor judgements, misrepresentations and fabricated narratives about your class.
It’s likely to lead to arguments, resentment, rebellion and outright refusal to follow your directions given enough time.
Your internal beliefs become the climate that determines your classroom culture.
When little Omid in your Year 8 classroom tells you where to go and to just leave him alone ‘because you’re picking on him,’ that doesn’t accurately reflect the relationship the two of you have built.
You might be one of his most trusted teachers.
He might need some time to cool off. There’s no battle to be fought.
He does need some clear expectations moving forward, and some trust that you’ll have his back to help him get there.
But there won’t be any excuses, and you’ll hold him accountable while continuing to build a strong relationship with him as much as you can.
Because you’re his teacher, and he needs you.
Defiance Isn’t Personal
Defiance isn’t personal. We know that teenagers become dysregulated.
The funny thing I’ve noticed over the years of teaching classroom expectations, modelling them explicitly, and explaining the reasoning behind why they’re there, is that….
Students rarely push back. They buy into it.
Healthy boundaries make sense. It’s logical. They’re something everyone should have, and they should absolutely take top priority in your classroom.
Strong relationships depend on boundaries.
If you’ve been struggling against a chaotic classroom for a while and you haven’t yet defined the boundaries, they may not take you seriously at first. They might laugh, joke, or quickly dismiss what you have to say.
That’s ok. It’s a sign they should have been in place from day one.
You’re going to teach them consistently from now on.
And the next time you have that one individual or group of students who get on your nerves, you’re going to pause….breathe.
Don’t take it personally, deal with it calmly, and follow through.
When your students get used to your calm authority, your consistent presence, and your genuine sincerity, you’ll have lasting relationships that are impactful.
You’ll have real control over your class and experience what it’s like to have influence.
That’s powerful.
That’s what creates lasting change and a deep trust from your students.
Reframe how you view them.