One of the first things I tell my student teachers is, “Don’t be their friend.” This is one lesson that new teachers have a tough time learning. We all want to be connected with the students. We want them to trust us and want to see us as their friend, but it’s important to create that separation between student and teacher early, and maintain it throughout the year. If not, you’re going to have a hard time implementing any kind of discipline program in your class.

With all the new ways to keep in touch with friends, like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter,and others, you will get a lot of requests to be on their “friend” list. Don’t do it, at least not right away.

I get many Facebook friends requests from current and former students. As of this writing, I have 97 pending friend requests. I tell my students in the beginning, that I will not be their friends on Facebook until they’ve been out of my class for two years. If after two years, they still want me to be on their friends list, then I’ll accept their request. Even then, I think twice about it, especially if the student was memorable for the wrong reasons. You have to maintain that “professional distance.” It’s a tough thing to do for new teachers, but trust me, it will make all the difference in the world when it comes to discipline. You can still create a connection with your students, but it has to remain a teacher-student connection.

Thanks,

Sam

Hello everybody,

I want to share with you what I’ve done this year with YouTube. When I give lectures, I use Powerpoint, moving from slide to slide as I speak. The students copy down the notes from the slide, and these notes become what they study with for the test. I don’t use the book a lot. I find that the book is too hard for a lot of the students to understand. I read the book, then I use the lectures to make the concepts easier to understand. I’ll have a post soon teaching how I give lectures. It’s not as boring as it sounds.

What I’ve found, however, is that inevitably there will be students who are absent  on the day of the lecture, and they won’t get those notes. Normally, I would just print out a copy of the notes or I would post them on my class website for them to download. Although they get the information, they miss out on the other relevant explanation or clarification that I offer in the lectures.

To solve this, I’ve begun using YouTube to broadcast my lectures. Continue reading “Using YouTube to Help You Teach” »

I’ve been asked a lot about dealing with students who are being disruptive in class. I always tell them that there are different levels of disruption. The more serious disruptions need to be handled immediately with the student being sent out of class to the office. The more common disruptions, however, can be, and should be, handled in class.

These are the disruptions where the student is talking while you are talking, or  where the student is in some other small way distracting another student.

Every class is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all discipline plan. I do know, however,  that you have to give students a warning before you lower the boom. This is where a lot of new teachers make their mistake. They don’t allow students to be imperfect. They are kids, not robots. Accepting this is the first part of any discipline plan. Continue reading “That’s One. Dealing with Minor Disruptions” »