I  am a veteran teacher with more than sixteen years in the classroom ranging from middle school through college.

The most common complaint I hear is that teachers, regardless of their level of experience, are always looking for some ways to make classroom management more effective and stress free, both for them, and their students.

Typically teachers will find that in a tough class they have a small core of troublesome students, surrounded by other students that range from fence sitters who just watch whatever is happening to the  “good” kids who would like to appear cool, and still learn but are intiidated by the actions of the bad kids. Now understand that this is a typical mix, but it can easily go to other extremes. In this hub I am going to talk about the solution to these common and basic problems

So, it seems the problems, in summary, are as follows:

1) The class will not listen to instructions.

2) They are not motivated to accomplish anything, or are accomplishing less than they should because of distractions.

3) The ring leaders are not too worried about consequences of their actions.

4) Too many times the administrative end of things is not helpful, either apathetic, blaming the teacher rather than the students, scared of the parents, or swamped and unable to help.

5) The parents often have no more control over the behavior of the troublemakers than anyone else.

Typically there are several kids who are not the problem. I would guess that a handful are the instigators, and are pulling the rest off. One problem is that you need to get the silent support of the good kids away from the troublemakers.

As a teacher  in this classroom you want to A) get a handle on them with an effective classroom management approach, reducing your stroke level stress, and B) find a teaching approach that will work with them and they will buy into.

Solution:

You REALLY need to look at Whole Brain Teaching. This is an integrated classroom management approach that the kids will buy into, and they will end up doing most of the work. You can end the silent support of the good kids for the undesirable actions of the bad kids.

You have a funnel approach to discipline. The main piece (the Scoreboard "Game") will handle most of the problems. For the difficult ones you can step it up (the Independents). For the big discipline problems you can bring it down from a whole class blow up to a one on one thing with you and that kid. You can remove the silent support of the good kids for the unacceptable behavior of the bad kids with the Guff Counter.

You can make your rules part of your class, and not just decorations on your wall. Each student will know them be heart, and you will use them everyday to direct their behavior and reactions without pissing anyone off, or calling out anyone's name, leading to power struggle's that derail the class at the loss of your instructional time.

You can also use the teaching methods that integrate, and simultaneously differentiate for learners who are visual, auditory and kinestethic. You will greatly increase your students' retention of basic concepts, and make it easier for them to kick it up to higher order thinking skills.

Does this sound interesting so far? Good. I have a link coming up that will help. Now let me throw in one caveat here. No system is perfect. No one approach works for every kid. This one works for more kids than any other I have ever used in sixteen years of teaching.

If you want to see how to become a Whole Brain Teacher go to classroompower.com. This site is designed to explain what Whole Brain Teaching is, how it came about, and very simply, the steps you can take to become a Whole Brain Teacher, and take control back control of the learning in your class, even as you make your students your allies.