Years ago as I was preparing to enter the teaching profession, I was taught that classroom management was about discipline. A college professor once told me that he didn’t like the word, “discipline,” so he used “classroom management” instead. When I returned to the classroom years later, I began to reflect on the differences between these two concepts and found them so great that just understanding the differences significantly reduced behavior problems as well as my stress levels.
All classroom management strategies have to do with making instruction efficient. This is the teacher’s responsibility.
Unfortunately, too many classroom management strategies refer to behavior or discipline problems. These have to do with behavior—which is the student’s responsibility.
The sooner teachers refer to classroom management strategies as using procedures to make instruction efficient—rather than concerning student behavior—the more learning will significantly increase. The Resource Guide has pages of classroom management strategies.
