A teacher shares her 7 Effective Strategies to Discipline Students without Suspension. Can you share yours?
How should teachers deal with students who are disruptive or disrespectful?
“Suspend them!”
This is a common conclusion you may come to. However, uCANcomplain is here to promote constructive disciplinary practices. We believe that there are better ways than suspensions to discipline students.
Frankly, I am no expert at disciplining students. Lucky me, in my bygone 10 years as an educator or tutor, I had never encountered a misbehaving student or tutee. How was that possible? It’s all a matter of mind-set.
First of all, culture helped. The majority of my educating career occurred in Hong Kong, where a teacher’s social status is highly respected. Children are taught to respect teachers even before they start kindergarten.
Also, naturally I believed my pupils were my little friends. So I bonded with them, and vice versa, at a socially equal level inside and outside the classroom.
With respect and friendship working in my favor, it is easy to understand why my little friends never gave me a hard time.
But teaching in the United States is a totally different story. To gain the knowledge from an experienced teacher on how to deal with students who are disruptive or disrespectful in the classroom, I “interviewed” my sister-in-law, Marianne. She is a highly respected 17-year veteran high school teacher in Tennessee.
S: “How do you deal with students who are disruptive or disrespectful in class?”
M: “It depends on how they are disrupting.” She suggests the following 7 strategies that have been working for her.
7 Effective Strategies to Discipline Students without Suspension
#1. Change the seating arrangement
M: “For example, if they develop a habit of chatting with students sitting next to them, I change their seating arrangement. And the dynamic in the classroom totally changes.”
#2. Make the student see the situation from a teacher’s perspective
M: “Or, I will bring the student out in the hallway and talk to him/her privately. I kind of put up a mirror, so they see how it looks like or sounds like from my viewpoint. And I say, ‘So what do you think I see?’ To just help them be reflective of their own behavior.”
#3. Make the student look at oneself and realize how the teacher feels by his/her act
M: “If a student is being funny at my expense in order to get their peers’ attention, I might speak to the individual in private. I say, ‘Do you understand that you are undermining me when you do that?’
They are kind of surprised by that idea, and might respond with, ‘That’s not what I meant to do.’ I would then say, ‘I understand. But that is actually the effect. You are not just getting a laugh out of your friends; you are actually hurting me in the process.’”
#4. Impose consequences subtly
M: “I teach 11th graders. They will soon need to ask teachers to write letters of recommendations for the college applications process. Sometimes I have a conversation with them about this letter: ‘You know, I have to comment on your social maturity and your lack of taking responsibility for your behavior. What do you suggest that I write based on what I just observed? That paragraph in my letter looks pretty sketchy right now.’”
#5. Call the parents
M: “For somebody who is not really engaged in the course, and does not respond to my attempts to reason with the student, I call parents/guardians. Students often understand that the adults are invested in helping them to be successful.”
#6. Have a conference with all parties concerned
M: “Sometimes when we have a kid who is not engaged in several of the classes, we try to figure out why this individual is not involved. Sometimes we bring in all the teachers, the individual student, and the parents for a conference.
We go around the table stating what we each believe to be the student’s strengths. And say, ‘This is what I see you are capable of doing (mentioning specific observations).’ As a group of adults, we try to make the student understand that we are there to support him/her, but it is up to the student to take advantage of this by using the opportunities presented at school.
Many times kids say one thing at home and another thing at school. As a result, the adults at home and at school have a different understanding of the situation. Parents at times do not know that their student is not working at their potential. A conference usually turns things around.”
#7. Give parents a heads-up of what to expect from both the teacher and their child
S: “A student can be disruptive because he or she is not engaged in what is being taught. And one of the reasons why a student is not engaged could be because his/her skills are not on grade level. So giving parents a heads-up certainly may avoid conflicts down the road and prepare parents for what could be coming.”
M: “Yes, we have an ‘Open Night’ event at the beginning of each school year when parents visit each of their student’s classes. At that time, I tell the parents: ‘I will check your students to see if they have the academic skills sets they need. There will be a red flag for some of them, as those students might be considered below grade level in reading comprehension or writing skills. If that’s the case, you might hear at home that ‘she doesn’t like me,’ or ‘she is picking on me all the time.’ But that could actually mean that I am intensively working with your student to strengthening skills needed to be successful in the course.
Some students are not willing or open to learning at the time. They see my attempt to work closely with them as something negative. They don’t see it as an opportunity. If that’s your child, you will get a phone call from me to let you know that I cannot do much more for your child right then, as I have trouble reaching your son or daughter.”
Thank you, Marianne. Surely, implementing these 7 Effective Strategies to Discipline Students without Suspension benefits both teachers and students. Now, they all can focus on the lessons need to be learned without wasting time on the disciplinary issues.
Related article: Are Suspensions and Expulsions Necessary to Discipline Students For Non-violent Misconducts?
To help our teachers, please share your strategy. Tell us the best way you know or have experienced below on how to deal with disruptive or disrespectful students in the classroom without suspensions. Or simply give us your comment on this disciplinary issue.
I think the situation can be very different now even in Hong Kong, Mainland China or the rest of Asia. Discipline is a huge problem for educators anywhere nowadays. In HK, while some children are very pampered at home, others are neglected or almost abandoned. The last ones are the most vulnerable obviously, their parents provide them nothing other than a small cage-like place to sleep, eat and live. In Hong Kong we have this kind of accommodation called cage dwellings where one small apartment is sub-divided into a few units. Some of these units can even be further divided into triple floors to hold more people. I am not saying children coming from such environment are always trouble-makers. Maybe I’m just trying to see problems coming from different social background.
Maybe other educators can offer useful tips on dealing with classroom order. In my days as a teacher in primary and secondary schools, I was lucky not to have too many of them. The few naughty ones are usually just lazy or weren’t able to catch up. I’ll say finding the cause of their behaviour can offer insight to teacher as well as parents. I’ll say normally a student will not be uninterested to learn. Even if we cannot find the cause, the process of offering such care and concern will already make the student feel respected, attended and even loved. I remember I had a Primary Two boy who was way behind the standard and had no interest to learn at all. I somehow kept him busy with some simpler learning and in our heart we both knew and felt understanding each other. He used to tell his classmates that he liked me.
Maybe from a holistic standpoint, and without saying these are the only or better ways, educators and parents can try these:
– Never give up on anyone of them, there must be some urge to learn deep inside them;
– While using all means to find out about the cause of their problematic behaviour, inwardly talk to them, sing to them, think about them in the heart; the heart has a power to resolve things much better and easier than we think;
– Get inspiration from nature about what can be done; I often like to go for a walk whenever I need help to deal with a problem, to work on a project, and almost always I’ll get ideas this way. Trust the process!
– Use the trouble-makers as models for helping others, taking the lead, getting organized, etc.. They just need attention and to be occupied.
– Introduce them to art, music or some creative courses. Our learning is often too rigid and knowledge based, something creative will help everybody.
– Listen to them, real listening from the heart and with full attention. Often we focus too much on the words and the meaning of the words, they are not that important. Finding the feeling behind the words is real listening.
Well, I’m not sure if these will help as I haven’t been in a classroom in a long time. I still give private classes to children and have no serious disciplinary problem. I’ll be very happy to hear from you educators.
Good luck and thanks for sharing,
Agnes Tang