When to "Clamp Down"

Hello everyone,

Occasionally I team teach with new teachers, and I often help with classroom management. We play a sort of "good cop/bad cop" team; I'm the "bad cop." I take this role to let the new teacher be the friendly one, and to save our having to send students to the deans.

I find that there are times that it is necessary to be very strict, even though I really don't enjoy doing it. If a class is especially immature; if the class has a low, cumulative reading or math score; if the class has had a long period of loose or undisciplined behavior; then it is usually necessary to clamp down pretty hard for an extended period.

It inevitably makes me feel bad, but I've had so many terrible experiences where I've been abused by the sorts of classes I just described, that I've learned to steamroll rather than be steamrolled.

I try to make the strict persona that I play remain distant and emotionless, not angry or vindictive. (I want discipline, not war.) If students misbehave, and I am team teaching, I take them into the hall and call their parents right in front of them. When I send them back into the class, I give them specific instructions on how they should behave. If they don't follow my instructions, I take them out into the hall and call their parents again. If I am in charge of the class all by myself, I sometimes have to impose class-wide consequences, even when I know there are only a few clowns acting out and not getting caught.

As I write this, I have several memories of times in which my Super Disciplinarian alter-ego has caused me problems. I blush to remember some times it backfired. If I'm smart, even when I'm strict, I will listen to students; I will assess the depth of their problems; I will have a depth of sensitivity beneath the facade of Unfeeling Discipline Machine. Of course, I'm not always smart. I'd rather not go into details of the times I've had to clean up the messes I made by being a steamroller when it would have been better to have been a feather duster.

Still, there were times when it was necessary to just clamp down.

I almost always had to be pretty strict with my 8th grade remedial reading classes. I have had to be strict with large English classes with large numbers of Limited English Proficient students. Classes that I have taken over from other teachers are very difficult to manage, and some of those students are still not reconciled to me after many years. (Frankly, I've come to believe that it might be better to simply compromise my standards for the rest of one semester, then come back stronger the next semester.)

"Clamping down" rarely involves the deans or the counselors. In fact, when you turn things over to them, it's usually a signal to the students that you've lost control completely, and then it's a real holiday for them. "Clamping down" usually means making a lot of phone calls home. Not just Teleparent, but personal phone calls. It means immediate follow up with consequences. It may mean actually taking ipods and cell phones away, though students try to talk you out of it. It may mean refusing passes for anything but the most extreme emergencies. It does not mean dumbing down your curriculum, but it may mean using more SDAIE techniques or adapting your presentation, or giving up the really cool discussion or film you had planned.

The truth is, if you don't clamp down on difficult classes, you will completely lose control of them within a very short time. (It takes a little longer for high school students to go berserk than middle school students, but they will be just as bad when you lose them.)

I sometimes resented the way my students forced me into being the disciplinarian I didn't want to be, but I never resented them as much for making me a disciplinarian as I resented them for taking complete control of my class and making my life miserable.

Don't clamp down unless you have to; but when you have to, don't be afraid to.

Jeff Combe