Teaching tips: Dealing with difficult parents

As if our job is not made hard enough when we're given unruly students, we sometimes have to deal with difficult parents who seem to be hell-bent on making our lives more complicated. It is important to understand that these parents where once students themselves. As we all know, traditional teachers were allowed to use discipline policies which are generally frowned upon in today's modern classroom. Some traditional discipline methods included whole-class punishment, psychological abuse and, for the older parents, even corporal punishment. Of course things have now changed but it should come as no surprise that some parents regard teachers with great distrust; for them we are, and always will be, the scary dictators who ruined their childhood. You have a certain responsibility to show difficult parents that times have changed, show them that you are their friend and that you and them share a common interest: the success of the student. Showing them how concerned you are for their child's long-term well being is key for obtaining a healthy relationship with the parents. These points may help you deal effectively with difficult parents:

• When talking to them, make sure that your eyes are at the same level as theirs. Don't let them look down at you. If you are sitting down, then stand up.
  
• Listen attentively and don't interrupt. The need to justify yourself may be strong but it is important that you take your time to device a proper response.
• Be rational. Offer a reasonable solution to whatever it is that's bothering them and make sure that you both agree on the solution. It is important that you don't make compromises in order to avoid further conflicts, otherwise this may be harmful in the long run.
  
• Mind your Ps and Qs.
• Constantly be assertive, if the parent tries to verbally bully you need to show them that their behavior is unacceptable...if the parent doesn't get the gist then show them that you won't continue the discussion unless they change their attitude. This is EXTREMELY important, failing to do this might cause the situation to quickly get out of hand.
  
• If the parents try to haress you outside the school, then you have the right to call the police. Your responsibility does not extend outside your classroom.

Please feel free to share more ideas with us by leaving a comment with this post.
Take care, and as always, I'll keep you posted.

Teaching: Effective classroom management

I have already written a post about effective classroom management. This should hopefully be a more detailed and direct post tackling the subject.
As a teacher you MUST avoid:

• Over-appeasing students: some teachers will do anything to be the students' best friend. Keep in mind that before you are the students' friend, you are their teacher. If punishment is needed then use it.
• Ambiguous questions: questions need to be direct and easy to understand. A good way of overcoming this problem is to tell students who have understood a question to explain it to their peers.
• Not learning students' names: it is very difficult to conduct an effective lesson when you don't know the names of your students since directing questions to particular students or correcting student's behavior becomes overtly-complicated.
• not acting on bad behavior: verbal threats alone will not accomplish anything.
• Ignoring bad behavior: this is a definite no-no. Bad behavior will not stop simply by ignoring it. Act immediately on it. Set down some ground rules and give out punishment if students challenge these rules. Punishment may involve writing lines, take away a fun activity, whole-class punishment (use this sparingly as a last resort)
• Standing in the same area of the class during lessons: While conducting your lessons, move around the whole area of your classroom. This will discourage bad behavior.
• Silent classes: unless the students are working on a test or an individual exercise, your classroom must not be silent. It should constantly be a flurry of ideas and information.
• Being too serious: Lessons need to have some fun elements in order to make it interesting otherwise students will get bored and break your class-rules. Crack some occasional jokes and use lots of media for your lessons. On the other hand you must not over do this, otherwise students will not take you seriously.
• Overpraising students: don't praise students for doing things that they are expected to do.

That's it for today. As always, If you have any questions or ideas that you want to share with everyone, feel free to leave a comment.

Education - Maintaining discipline in the classroom

Most teachers dream of the perfect classroom, where all the students respect them, are easily motivated and work hard...now lets get a bit more realistic.
This post will cover some important points which will help you be more assertive in your classroom.


As a teacher you might already know that motivating a student who is absolutely not interested in learning is extremely difficult....some would say that it is practically impossible. However you are responsible for the education of these students, and, whether they like it or not, you are expected to teach them. If all positive motivational tools fail (please read previous post) you need to assert your position in the classroom. Often, students who don't want to learn will disrupt the rest of the class so it is very important that these students are kept in check. The right modes of discipline will allow you to, not only help difficult students stay more attentive, but also to easily deliver your lessons to the rest of the class.

• Consistent strictness - it is important that you are consistently strict, start being strict from day one and always be assertive. Don't be biased towards some students, i.e. don't be strict only with the difficult students. Preferential treatment is a definite no-no. It's not fair and difficult students will pick up on this and will purposely make life more difficult for you. Also, you need to make sure that you follow through with what you say. If your threaten writing lines as a punishment for disobedience, and a student still disobeys, then follow through with the punishment...otherwise you won't be taken seriously.
• Don't shout - Raising your voice does not make a noisy situation better. If anything, it will make rowdy students shout even more. Instead, make a sharp noise that will easily get the students attention (clap your hand, beat a ruler against the board) and immediately lay down some ground rules before continuing with the lessons.
  
• Positive reinforcements - don't rely solely on punishing bad behavior. Make sure that good behavior is praised. This makes students realize that you are taking notice of their good actions. This method will also motivate difficult students to do better.

As always, if you want to ask some questions or leave your own ideas, then leave a comment on this post.

Cheers :)