Chapter 11 page 249
Responding to Behavior Problems
Even when teachers are extremely proficient at employing teaching strategies that prevent
misbehavior, students will sometimes misbehave. Behavior problems requiring a teacher’s response will
arise even in the best-managed classrooms. These misbehaviors can be classified into two categories—
minor or more serious. Teachers (and schools) may vary in which misbehaviors are classified as minor and
which are classified as more serious. But most would probably agree that examples of minor misbehavior
include calling out, eating a piece of candy, daydreaming, and talking to a classmate instead of
participating in group work or in a class discussion. More serious misbehavior may include fighting,
bullying, and disrespecting the teacher or other students. When students chronically commit minor
misbehaviors despite the teacher’s warnings, teachers should treat the chronic pattern of misbehavior as
more serious misbehaviors.
According to teacher educator Carol Weinstein (Weinstein & Mignano, 2007), teachers should
always follow two guidelines when addressing all misbehaviors, whether the misbehaviors are minor or
more serious. First, teachers should preserve the dignity of the students. All students want the respect of
their teachers and peers. In many cases, students will attempt to “save face” with their peers at any cost.
Therefore, if teachers discipline students in a way that embarrasses them, they run a risk of having the
situation escalate rather than achieving their goal (stopping the misbehavior). The student may react
defiantly, worsening the situation. Even if the student stops misbehaving, she or he may remain resentful,
making it more difficult to teach that student in the future. Other students, too, may resent the teacher’s act
of embarrassing a classmate, even if they agree that the student should have stopped misbehaving. These
feelings can undermine positive personal relationships that the teacher is trying to build.
The second guideline for responding to misbehavior is to keep the lesson going with as little
disruption as possible. It is vital to remember that one of the goals of classroom management is to
maximize learning time. This means that, whenever possible, discipline should be done in a way that
distracts students from the lesson as little as possible. It is very common to see teachers interrupt their
lessons every time misbehavior occurs, resulting in a very choppy lesson with no instructional flow. It is
more effective to address minor misbehavior in ways that do not interrupt the flow of the lesson and reserve
interruptions for dealing with more serious misbehavior.
Beginning teachers are told to be consistent in their classroom management plan. But consistency
does not mean treating all misbehaviors the same. It is ineffective to treat calling out or daydreaming
(minor misbehaviors) in the same way as a fight (a more serious misbehavior). That is why classifying
misbehavior as minor or more serious is an important first step in planning a discipline program. Once
teachers make this classification, they can consistently respond to minor misbehaviors using one set of
responses and respond to more serious misbehaviors using a different set of responses.
Responding to minor misbehaviors. The majority of behavior problems that arise in the
classroom are minor. Teachers can usually respond to these misbehaviors quickly and efficiently using a
nonverbal and/or verbal interventions. A good rule of thumb for responding to minor misbehavior is to
begin with a nonverbal intervention and then move to a verbal intervention only if necessary. Nonverbal
interventions are less disruptive to the flow of the lesson than verbal interventions; in fact, many students
may not even be aware that the teacher has used a nonverbal intervention with a misbehaving student. If
nonverbal interventions are not effective, teachers can move to verbal interventions. With verbal
interventions, it is best to try to disrupt the lesson as little as possible. Gently saying a chit-chatting
student’s name is less disruptive than stopping the lesson to formally reprimand the student. Some
examples of nonverbal and verbal interventions are listed in Table 11.3. All of the responses in the table are
consistent with the two guiding principles for dealing with misbehavior (preserving the dignity of the
student and keeping the instruction going with minimal disruption).