Practical Approaches to Behaviour Management in the Classroom

Moulding a classroom where students are actively engaged in learning is a challenge for a teacher. It is a teacher’s responsibility to create a classroom environment where students are disciplined, calm and focused.

In the presence of challenging behaviour from children, it is essential that teachers know how to overcome it. It can be a way for students to communicate their feelings, express their needs, or cope with stress and anxiety. Therefore, responding to challenging behaviour should be about finding its root cause.

Types of Challenging Behaviour

 Not all children behave in the same way. Teachers may find it challenging to decode individual behavioural traits. A few of the many could be these:

• Disruptive behaviour: This is perhaps the biggest challenge a teacher faces from students in the classroom. This can include children taking turns talking during class, interrupting the teacher while the class is taking place, or arguing with other students. Disruptive behaviour is usually associated with a lack of discipline.
• Withdrawn behaviour: There may be students who have difficulties and are not interested in participating in classroom activities. This may manifest as a refusal to talk or interact with other students or teachers, avoidance of eye contact, or lack of interest in learning.
• Inappropriate behaviour: Inappropriate behaviour can be challenging for teachers to manage if it’s disruptive or distracting to the learning environment. This includes misbehaviour among students and behaviour inconsistent with the school’s behavioural expectations.
• Violent behaviour: Violent behaviour can be defined as any act that causes physical harm to another person or damage to property. This includes hitting another student, physically abusing a student, throwing objects, or damaging school property.

Causes of Challenging Behaviour

The causes of challenging behaviour are complex and often interrelated. It is the duty of a teacher to find out the problems in a child and to solve them.

• Classroom organisation: How a classroom is set up is a factor that greatly influences a child’s behaviour. Such as classroom layout, seating arrangements etc, how a classroom is set up is a factor that greatly influences a child’s behaviour. If the student falls into a comfort zone, it can be difficult to bring the student out of it. It will reflect in the character of the student when he attempts it. For example, it can cause frustration, sadness and anger.
• Cultural factors: Language barriers may hinder communication for a student. Also, cultural differences can be challenging for a student. If a child is not able to communicate effectively, it can lead to isolation in the classroom. It causes challenging behaviour in a child.
• Home life: A child’s family environment plays an important role in shaping his/her/their character. If the child comes to school from a troubled environment, the child’s behaviour will also depend on it. For example, family conflict, financial issues, trauma or abuse can all cause challenging behaviour.

Practical Behavioral Management Strategies 

Forming activities in which a teacher plans, prepares, and implements strategies to control student behaviour in the classroom can help create major changes in student behaviour.

• Creating a positive classroom culture: A good classroom ensures the group participation of students. Learning also includes clear expectations for their behaviour, opportunities for them to make choices and participate in decision-making, as well as collaboration between teachers and students.
• Establishing clear rules and expectations: As a teacher, you must clearly communicate to students how you want them to behave in the classroom. This includes giving clear instructions for tasks, moving on to the next activity, and so on. This way, you can mitigate the possibility of students getting bored, which may lead them to act out.
• Providing varied activities: Providing your students with various engaging and varied activities will keep them engaged in the classroom and interested in what they are doing. Another way to do this is to vary the types of tasks you give students, some that require creativity and others that require concentration or memory. Try to adapt to their interests and embrace different cultural aspects.

Everything you do as a teacher positively affects you and affects your teaching. As students grow up, they may not remember the content you taught them in the textbooks of their education period, however, they will remember the way the teacher treated the students and the types of interactions the teacher made in class. A good teacher is never forgotten by a student in their lifetime.