Running the Room: The Teacher's Guide to Behaviour

by Tom Bennett

good behaviour should be the central concern of any teacher.

Everything of value you can conceive of was acquired through sustained effort, practice, and delayed self-gratification.

Most students could, if they decided, do otherwise. In other words, most misbehaviour can be modified.

All children in your classroom are important. Including the ones who are harder to love.

no one student should be allowed to set fire to the learning of their peers. Which means there will have to be clear boundaries of acceptable conduct.

Your students need to learn to trust that your instructions are just, efficient, fair and useful. You must not delegate this responsibility.

You need to be the authority in the room, or the students will be.

The most common mistake teachers make is this: They wait for misbehaviour to occur and then they react to it.

if you teach them well, they probably will like you.

Proactive behaviour management involves what I call ‘getting in front’ of misbehaviour by establishing what they should be doing before it happens.

The most effective teachers use a combination of proactive and reactive strategies.

It is equally foolish to take a class and assume they all have the habits and qualities hardwired into them that they need to behave successfully.

all behaviour management is ultimately persuasion.

a lot of what we call misbehaviour is mostly just messing around.

We’re not just teaching them how to behave. We’re also teaching them to value that behaviour.

If you really want to set children free, teach them how to control themselves. Self-regulation (inhibitory control) is frequently referred to as one of the key factors of success in many fields.

it’s OK to make mistakes.

rudeness, bullying, mocking or discrimination, and banish this things forever.

We tell students, even if they’re in trouble, ‘You can do better than this. I believe you can. I can show you how.’

So to answer the Maslow/Bloom question: neither model precedes the other. We do both. We don’t wait until perfect learning conditions are achieved in the lives of all of our students, because that will never occur. We teach them, not just the curriculum, but how to cope with life, with all of its mountains and canyons.

One mistake many teachers make is to expect instant compliance as soon as you issue an instruction.

If you can persuade students to do the right thing, if you can convince them to truly believe this behaviour is desirable, or useful, or normal, then classrooms can become places of endeavour, success and wonder.

‘My room, my rules,’

The teacher’s duty here is to clarify that there are different expectations to the ones the students assume,

people are more likely to behave in a way appropriate to a group when they feel part of that group;

in schools, even the rebels seek other rebels to bask in their approval.

Sometimes fitting in is a good thing: following the herd encourages approval, acceptance, friends, position, status.

Avoid trying to appear cool to the children. You have already failed to do so even before you try.

Not only do social groups offer powerful models of acceptable behaviours (and concomitantly, ways in which recent arrivals may understand how they should act), they also offer powerful influences on behaviour and values. They suggest strong and established norms that a new person is offered not just as a guide of how to behave, but as a guide to how they should behave .

there appeared to be seven moral rules that could be said to be universal, across the world and throughout time.

If the teacher chooses not to address what the norms of the classroom should be, then norms will still exist – only this time they won’t necessarily be the ideal ones.

The golden rule of behaviour: make it easy for them to behave and hard for them not to.

in order for values to be encouraged, they have to be consciously and consistently teased out, insisted upon, and demonstrated. It is not enough to say, ‘We think being grateful is great.’ It has to be lived. And that means breaking it down into lots and lots of real-life, physical things they are expected to do.

What you do is what you normalise.

Teachers need to demonstrate constant, unconditional positivity about school, other staff and students, or at least their potential.

‘And Ryan, I need to speak to you later about shouting out,’

deliver a reprimand at the same time as encouraging someone to do better, at the same time as praising or sanctioning them.

What they need to see and feel is a kind of immersive environment, where the norms are everywhere, all the time, and they grow to expect them.

‘You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.’

Establish a clear, explicit standard of behaviour, and write it down.

Schedule time in your calendar to revisit norms explicitly with your students,

The best time to issue a behaviour instruction is when students are behaving.

Catch it as soon as it starts to slide

‘A fence at the top of a cliff is preferable to an ambulance at the bottom.’

All students, if we want them to participate in classroom norms, must feel that these norms are there for their benefit,

In one-to-one conversations, constantly reiterate that the student is a valued member of the class,

Flood the students with the normative message that they can succeed, that you want them to succeed, and that you will show them how to succeed.

Focus on the behaviour more than the person.

If students need to be removed from the class, or sanctioned, emphasise that you want them to do better, and that they are being removed or sanctioned for the behaviour, not as some form of retribution.

The trick is to make the desired behaviour (the one you desire) as easy as possible for them.