Unless you work with easy, mellow students, you will love our
“Top 10 Best Classroom Management Interventions to Turnaround
Problem Student Behavior.” These interventions are taken from
Youth Change Workshop’s Solution Center (
HREF=http://www.youthchg.com rel="nofollow">http://www.youthchg.com). There
are hundreds of strategies on the site, ready to be used by
teachers, counselors and youth workers. If classroom or group
management is an on-going nightmare, it will take more than
these ten new techniques to transform your class or group into a
dream, so be sure to check out the web site for methods that are
especially designed to rein in even the most uncontrollable
students.
1. Teacher Telegram (or Counselor, Therapist… Telegram) A
veteran, “world-class” special ed teacher was working with a
student when the child suddenly flipped over his desk and fled
the room. You won’t believe what this teacher had done! She had
written on the student’s math paper! That child interpreted that
help to mean that the teacher thought he was too stupid to do
the work himself, and bolted from the room in anger. Of course,
had this teacher known that the child would react in that
manner, she would have been happy to let the child do the
writing, or she could have written on scratch paper instead.
This incident is a classic, common situation that could have
easily been avoided if only the teacher had known the child’s
views. The Teacher Telegram surveys your youngsters to gather
the information you need to avoid problems that can perhaps be
averted or minimized. Make your telegram have about five
finish-the-sentence statements, and include queries like: “Some
of the things I like about your class are…,” “The one thing I
wish you would do differently is…,” “The one thing that helps
me is…,” “The one thing that does not help me is…,” and “My
other comments are…” You may be pleasantly surprised at how
much this little device, done periodically, can reduce or end
problems.
2. Studies have indicated that when girls are involved in
sports, they are far less likely to become pregnant, drop out or
engage in serious misbehavior. To encourage your female students
to consider sports, ask your girls to craft collages or posters
entitled “Silly Boys, Sports Are for Girls.”
3. A Taste of the Real World It can be very hard to convince
youth that they will desperately need education. For children
who have very poor reading skills, here’s an interesting and
compelling activity. Create a menu in a foreign language and ask
the students to order. To get you started, here are some Dutch
dinner items, but you can also go to a page like and enter
English menu terms and have the words translated into German,
French or other language. You may wish to actually serve some of
the items your students order. Select items that are very likely
to be viewed as distasteful, so you might consider offering
treats like sardines, stewed prunes and liver, foods that might
be thoroughly disliked, but are easy to purchase.
Choose Your Dinner Gebakken garnalen (Pan-Roasted Shrimp)
Gegrilde lamskoteletten (Grilled Lamb Chops) Vegeratische
pastachotel (Vegetarian Pasta) Rijstpudding met frambozencoulis
(Rice Pudding) When your students protest that they can’t figure
out what to do, let them know that could be their on-going adult
experience in the world if they don’t learn to read.
4. Education– You Can’t Live Life Without It Ask your students
to list out the most difficult things that they may face during
their lives. Elicit answers like manage a serious illness or
find a job. After reviewing the list, ask the students to
identify if education would help or hurt in each situation.
Assist students to note that education almost always helps, and
never hurts. Assist students to realize: Education– You Can’t
Live Life Without It.
5. There’s Always Welfare Hurry up. Welfare is going the way of
the buggy and 8 track tape deck. The number of welfare
recipients has dropped a phenomenal 50% in the past six years.
Plus, in most cases, you can be on welfare for five years and
then you are out for life,– yes, life. The amount of money
given out is down by as much as 90% in some places. The average
person may live nearly 80 years so welfare may be available only
6% of the time. To convey how tiny 6% is to your youngsters,
give 6% of your class a small treat, like a mint. Or, give each
student $300 in play money and then take all but 6% away,
leaving each youngster with just $18.
6. Three Little Lies To convincingly teach students how hard it
is to tell and keep a lie, ask each youngster to tell three lies
about things that are occurring that day. So, a typical lie
might be: “I have pink hair,” said by a brunette. Ask students
to repeat each lie at least three times an hour all day. The
next day, discuss how much energy, concentration and focus it
took to maintain those lies, and relate the discussion to actual
lies students have told in the past. Include in the discussion:
“Who does lying really fool?” Assist students to realize that in
many ways, the liar really most fools himself or herself.
7. Pay Attention Adults often expect young people to magically
know how to pay attention, but no one may have actually taught
the child how to do so. To teach the skills needed to pay
attention, teach each of these five skills one at a time: Get
your area ready, get yourself ready, watch the action, listen to
the action, control your body. You should use pictures, rag
dolls or other attention-grabbing devices to teach and drill the
skills into habits. But, until you teach the skills, you
shouldn’t expect them.
8. Can You Compute? Internet and/or computer skills are becoming
required for almost any job. You may have to scan a badge to
clock in at your job, or log onto a network to get your
assignments. Have your students strut their stuff by performing
internet or computer tasks. Here’s one to start: Find where to
get bakeapples, and locate a shipper to transport. Answer:
Bakeapples are a Newfoundland, Canada food; UPS could provide
shipping. Discuss with students where they can hone key internet
and computer skills.
9. Computers Rule For good or bad, computers are becoming
absolutely key to everyday work and living. More and more mail
is being sent over the internet, but at the same time, spam is
becoming a bigger and bigger hassle. Here at Youth Change, we
receive about 300 spams each day. It has gotten harder and
harder to spot the real e-mail from the junk e-mail. In fact, an
invitation to present our workshop in Europe was at first
deleted as our spam deletion program thought it was junk mail.
So, save up your real mail and junk e-mail (eliminating
offensive or personal items) then ask students to sort through a
very large amount of e-mail. Alternatively, create simulated
e-mails to use instead. Note how many times important items like
bills, renewal notices, and password information, are deleted.
Be sure to include bogus virus alerts, e-mails containing
“viruses”, and deceptive offers in the e-mails you give students
to process. When students mishandle items, note that education
and computer training can help.
10. Misbehaved Employees Wanted To show students that present
classroom management problems, that misbehavior won’t be
tolerated in the adult world, ask them to search the employment
classified ads for employers who seek employees with behavior
problems.
WANT MORE ANSWERS TO YOUR WORST “KID PROBLEMS?”
A quick Top 10 list is no replacement for having all the skills
and information you need to work with youth and children. Based
on the recent questions to the Live Expert Help Area of our web
site, many professionals struggle with major gaps in their
training. Many of you have said that you’re uncertain how to
rein in rowdy youth, or you wish you had a broader mental health
base, or better understood what to do about fragile kids. We’re
here to help youth professionals help troubled youth. Consider
getting our free Problem Student Problem-Solver magazine at our
site, link below, or downloading some of our lightening fast,
problem-stopping ebooks.
