I was recently looking through Jill Jackson’s book “How to Coach Teachers to Teach (Almost) Anything: A Totally Practical Guide to Instructional Coaching” and I found myself nodding when she was talking about the difference between classroom management and behavior management. While some love talking about these topics, some stray away because of a variety of reasons: Fear of being wrong, feeling like “we are already doing everything,” or being downright frustrated with behaviors in the classroom. On the blog, I talk about all things reading and writing all the time, but the truth is, unless you have classroom management in place, the teaching of content cannot occur. This post provides a launching pad for brainstorming different areas of classroom management. The effort that goes into your routines and procedures really pays off, and then, you can focus on the skills that are attached to behavior management in your classroom.

I have been talking to my teacher friends about something that naturally occurs each school year: Each of us will end up with at least one tougher class than the rest of the classes. This might be an advanced class that is really concerned about grades, a class that struggles with engagement or behavior, or a class that seems to constantly be at odds with each other. We have all seen the teacher memes or posts that highlight many of these ideas:

Your most challenging student will never be absent.

Dear teacher, I talk to everyone. Moving my seat will not help.

When a student asks to go to the restroom, just seconds after their best friend.

Welcome to teaching! When salaries are low, and everything is your fault.

When you find out that your worst-behaved student…has 3 younger siblings.

There’s no tired like teacher tired.

The sayings are true. We are tired. We are constantly making minute-by-minute decisions, and we are genuinely exhausted. Instead of dreading a class, I would like to offer some ways to turn that class into one that you love again. Nobody wants to be miserable. So, if some systems are put into place for both the teachers and the students, then the parameters are setup to safeguard your happiness as the leader of the classroom. You are no longer controlling chaos, but perhaps enjoying being in front of 30+ middle schoolers (at least in my position) again. This post offers 25+ tips that are designed to revise and edit classroom systems, reframe negative thinking, and insert more love and joy into your classroom for each and every hour. Take what you need. If you are struggling with a particular hour in your day, maybe you try one or two of these tomorrow or next week.

The title of this post is also what I named my This I Believe Personal Narrative assignments in the fall. Let's talk cell phones. I would like to start this post by recapping every single conversation I have ever had with a new teacher, a seasoned teacher, or an intern about the use of cell phones in the classroom.