Follow-through: The Missing Ingredient in Most Classrooms

The Problem of Teachers Misunderstanding Consequences

I wish I’d known this at the start of my career as a beginner teacher.

There are no perfect consequences – only consistent follow-through.

We’ve already discussed the importance of building relationships as much as possible in this space. Strong relationships with students give you leverage like nothing else. It allows you to create an engaging, welcoming and safe classroom students want to be a part of.

This is what gives weight to your expectations.

On their own, they really don’t do much.

You can’t convince students to behave based solely on your powerful rules and weighty consequences.

What makes students behave is a great student-teacher relationship and a well-run classroom with clear expectations, consequences and consistent follow-through.

When rules and consequences are combined with a classroom students love coming to (due to your awesome teacher presence and effective behaviour management) classes start to feel natural, seamless, yet still intentional.

So what should the consequences beif things go wrong?

If you’re just starting out, this will likely happen more often than not.

That’s okay.

You see, there always needs to be accountability for behaviour. Students can’t get away with anything they like. However, it’s a sliding scale.

The Mindset: Calm, Neutral, Consistent

There are always varying degrees of severity when it comes to holding students accountable, and if you’re focusing and leaning on a strong student-teacher relationship and maintaining a calm, approachable and kind teacher presence like I advocate, student misbehaviour can be ‘nipped in the bud quickly and consistently, without drama or retaliation.

This is how it should be.

Many teachers approach this incorrectly, and it causes waves of quiet, or loud and blatant, resentment and misbehaviour amongst students.

Doing things like interrogating students, lecturing them, or arguing with them only escalates behaviour and erodes trust.

They all end in disaster for managing behaviour, maintaining trust and respect with your students, and preserving your confidence in your teaching ability.

Don’t do it.

We’ve all been there. But…..

The way you hold students accountable matters. It must be done in an open, honest and non-judgemental way.

This will vary depending on the class you have, what year level they are and how well you know your students.

First, you’ve already implemented and taught thoroughly your expectations. This is the most important factor.

Next, you manage behaviour according to the severity under the guise of calmness.

Why Calmness Matters…..

Why do you need to be calm?

Being calm has a profound effect on your classroom because:

·       It settles students

·       It slows a chaotic and wild classroom

·       It allows for self-control and clear-headed thinking – something you’ll frequently need to thrive day-to-day

Consequences can be firm or gentle – what matters is that they are logical, calm and consistent.  

Some of the most obvious and de-escalating strategies I have found to work include:

·       Eye contact and calling out the student’s name

·       Proximity (and actually using your presence constructively – not as a threat)

·       Moving particular students when necessary, done with plenty of warning

Boringly simple, I know.

High Level Follow Through

What about the others for really disruptive, brazen, or disrespectful behaviour? Consequences like…

• Sending them out of the room

• Isolating them

• Pulling them aside for a one-to-one talk

• Questioning them repeatedly – why did you do it? What made you do it? What were you thinking at the time? How do you think everyone else feels? Etc.

• Threatening that you will call their parents if they don’t behave

• Threatening them with a detention, staying back after class, or community service

• Signing them up for behaviour contracts

I’m sure there are others I’ve missed, but you get the idea.

The reality is that some of these have their place.

However, many of them encourage further misbehaviour and don’t really encourage the student to build empathy, awareness, or a sense of moral responsibility.

You can’t force this from students because it must be from their own accord.

They can worsen misbehaviour because students, although young, are also human beings with emotions, street smarts, and a strong ability to see through manipulation and a lack of sincerity from adults.

They’ve been dealing with it all their schooling lives.

Now, there’s nothing stopping you from pulling a student aside before they enter your classroom because you’re concerned about how they’re going.

There’s also nothing stopping you from giving a student a community service because they were carelessly littering at recess, or asking them ‘what’s up today?’ if you see them lose their temper at one of their friends.

Matching Consequence to Behaviour

The consequence should suit the behaviour, and it should make logical sense.

Assigning a community-service detention, where they pick up papers, to a student who is repeatedly calling out while you’re trying to teach doesn’t make a lot of logical sense.

What does make logical sense in this situation is addressing it directly, respectfully, and quickly. Furthermore, if it’s persistent, it might warrant a quick chat after class to touch base about the behaviour, and what you’d like to see moving forward.

What you need to remember is that it’s about positive working relationships with students, regardless of how you feel about the student.

Oh, and you’ll like and appreciate all your students regardless, because how you feel about your students shows in your….

·       Body language

·       Attitude

·       Mannerisms

·       Interactions with them

Consistently Consistent

At this point, if you’ve came away thinking ‘but I still don’t have the answers!’

I’ll say again; there are no perfect consequences. What matters is that they are used consistently.

It can be a quick acknowledgement through eye contact, a hand gesture of quiet, or something much more serious.

There are no magic tricks for making students behave. You’re holding them accountable because unchecked misbehaviour will gradually worsen over time and destroy your hold on your classroom.

Yet, the relationship between you and your students matters first and foremost. Acting in a way that respects this and preserves this is paramount.

You must be calm, objective, neutral, non-judgemental.

Remove emotion from the interaction. Students respond to calm authority, not reactivity and confrontation.

If you’re not already teaching this way, it will make a big difference.

It will transform your classroom.

But not through the ingenuity of your consequences – through being able to deliver them and still have a great relationship with your students.

Be calm, be concise and be consistent, and you’ll walk through your classroom door tomorrow in control.