Well, we are in the middle of September and "the honeymoon is over" for most of our kids and for some the "honeymoon" never happened. In other words, teachers have established expectations for behavior and we now know who are going to challenge those expectations. It's easy to say that you are getting to know your kids pretty well by now...in some cases we know more about our kids than we want to. In other cases wonder what the home life of the child is, or maybe what they have been through that has created the behavior patterns that exist.
Here are two words of encouragement to help when you are feeling the frustration of persistent behavior management...Let understanding and compassion lead the way. When I mean by understanding is referring to what motivates the student, what makes the student get up in the morning and come to school, and most importantly, understand what they are trying to get out of the misbehavior (the function of their misbehavior). If you ask what the student is trying to get out of it you have a greater understanding of the how to move forward. Leading with compassion means allowing the understanding to guide your emotions. If the emotions are too tightly tied to focus on "projects" instead of "people" we lose the humanity and compassion that is needed to nurture our children. If we forget that they are feeling, hurting, imperfect, sensitive, and human we treat students like are a barrier to achieve our agenda and the teaching process becomes about us, not about the students we serve.
Remember, as we seek to understand and think compassionately about the students we serve, we will serve them better while reducing our stress and anxiety to move at a pace that leaves those students behind.
