Although procedures are the foundational step to efficient instruction and reducing discipline problems, sometimes we forget to be creative in their establishment.
In some cases, the teacher might create a new CLASSROOM PROCEDURE to proactively deal with misbehavior from certain students. In other words, rather than reacting to the same type of misbehavior day after day, the teacher might restructure the environment more carefully in a way that would allow immature students to be more careful.
Here is an example posted on the Yahoo group Discipline Without Stress:
This year in our primary classroom, we have a number of students who find it difficult to maintain appropriate behaviour in the cramped quarters of the cloakroom at dismissal time. To deal with this, we simply CHANGED OUR PROCEDURES for the cloakroom. Rather than having the whole class go into the cloakroom at the same time (which has always worked in previous years,) we divided the students into three groups (with the three most immature students each in a separate group). Now, each group has a turn in the cloakroom while the other students sit at their desks and chat with the teacher. As each group finishes up in the cloakroom, they return to their desks and a different group of children go and get their belongings.
Our problem was solved–not by trying to change the children–but by changing the routine.
