If you ask any potential or new teacher, they will tell you that their number one concern is classroom management.  How will they be able to handle classroom to ensemble sized groups of multi aged students and accomplish the goals they have set?  How do you get students to follow your directions, maintain orderly transitions, work together without complaining and keep their attention?  It’s a crapshoot, that’s for sure.

There are many books out there that claim to have the secrets to keeping a well maintained classroom, with one book in particular having the egotistical title of “Classroom Management that Works!”.  My argument is that if it works, then why do we have all of these other classroom management books and why are teachers still struggling?  I would argue that while there some good basic strategies to keeping your classroom running smoothly that it’s more personality driven than technique driven.

There’s just something special about a teacher who is confident, energetic and passionate about kids.  It doesn’t seem to matter how young or old they are or how many years of experience they have.  Those teachers seem to hold their students in the palm of their hand.  I have had a couple of student teachers over the years who literally walked in the room and owned it and the kids LOVED them.  They’re usually a little quirky, don’t mind being silly and the kids follow directions because they love the teacher.

The truth is, teachers don’t want to “manage” students, they want to teach, relate, care for, guide, motivate and any other number of things, but manage isn’t something we strive to do.  If we truly “manage” students, are we allowing them to be themselves?  Classroom management isn’t really for them, it’s for us.  It’s so we can do what we need to do to get them down the hall or transition from one place to another without losing our minds. However, teachers who are engaging, who tell great stories, who make their subject fun and exciting don’t need the same kind of management strategies as a teacher who is virtually a robot, spitting out information given to them by some curriculum specialist.

Just between you and me, while I believe consistency for kids is important, what’s more important is for teachers to be themselves, unique individuals who handle things differently because it allows students to grow more flexible in terms of handling different people and situations.  It’s a life skill, something they’ll use every day as an adult whether it’s going to college or in whatever career they choose to pursue.

I believe unfortunately, that teachers who struggle with so-called classroom management strategies are more apt to leave the profession because we haven’t figured out that management doesn’t really work.  They try all the tricks they’ve been taught rather than just be themselves and build those relationships and all their dreams of being that teacher go out the window, leaving them discouraged and deflated.

Here’s my final point.  Managing hints at an attempt to “control” someone.  I hate to break it to you but the longer I teach, the more I’m discovering students who aren’t afraid to say what they think, whether it’s respectful or not, they’re not afraid to say no or refuse to do something and not blink an eye.  Some have parents who will back them saying things like teachers aren’t challenging them enough or allowing them to be creative.  Management in today’s culture is useless. Teaching teachers how to be themselves and making the most of building honest relationships with kids is the key.  Stop pursuing the myth of management and pursue those relationships!