When I present my Classroom Management Training, I ask the teachers who attend:

What do you think is the most important aspect of Classroom Management?

The teachers provide some terrific, valid responses in which all of them are obviously critical in creating good classroom management. Things like:

• Creating good rapport and relationships with the students
• Being able to organize your classroom
• Providing creative and engaging lessons
• Being consistent

All of these are obviously critical in making sure that you have good classroom management of your class. However, if we would really be pushed to identify the most important, the most critical aspect of classroom management, I would have to say to you that would be Teacher Presence.

In the Conscious Classroom Management Training, the very first topic we look at just before morning tea is this idea of Teacher presence and how we develop it, what creates it. Of course the rest of the day, we then do look at classroom management strategies.

Teacher presence is who we are in the classroom, strategies is what we do in the classroom. The strategies are divided and systemized into:

• Preventive strategies
• Supportive strategies and,
• Corrective strategies

The reason why Teacher presence is the most important aspect of classroom management is that all too often we may go racing in with different strategies to manage our classroom and if we don’t bring the correct presence into the room, who we are, well then the strategies obviously aren’t going to take hold and what we can do and what can be tempting is to blame the strategy, or worse, the students, the school or the parents – everyone else but the teacher. While this is a provocative and controversial concept at times, it’s very important to make sure that we understand that Teacher presence is important because it can save a lot of time.

One of the things we need to do is to look at what beliefs we have or what’s the mindset that we have. The question we need to ask ourselves if we are struggling to manage a class is:

Are the beliefs that I’m taking into that classroom working?
Am I feeling good about it?
Am I satisfied with the class?
Is it working with the students?

If the answers are No to that, well then we’ll need to analyse our own mindset and the negative beliefs and change them.

Firstly, identify the negative beliefs and then we need to challenge them and that’s how we change the beliefs.

Is that true that the student doesn’t want to learn?
Could there be other things that are driving that student’s behaviour?
What else is contributing to this?

We need to have a full analysis of what’s going on and that includes obviously looking at ourselves and the negativity or the negative mindset that we could be bringing into the class because that will affect who we are in the room and our presence. As Einstein says,

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

If what you’re doing in a particular class is not working, it’s time to change that. It might very well be that you want to just come in to that class with a new mindset. That is a lot easier said than done and we have more information about this on our website,

http://www.humanconnections.com.au/

You may want to come to one of our trainings, and there are some testimonials below on this page that’ll give you some insights about how teachers found the Classroom Management Training.

Here is a small but powerful action step.  Identify the teachers in your school who have great presence?  You’ll know who they are because they are teachers who command respect and attention in the classroom or about walking into a classroom and the students will be giving them their attention even before the teacher asks for it. It would be very worthwhile to identify who they are and spend some time with them. You know who I’m talking about. You do have teachers like that in your school.

Don’t ask them what are the strategies you’re using, it would be good to pick their mind about how do they see teaching, how do they see the students. When they have a student who is misbehaving, how do they view that student? Pick their mindset and then model that.

I hope to see you at one of our Conscious Classroom Management Trainings this year. There’s only 4 in Sydney scheduled or perhaps you may want to email me at info@humanconnections.com.au. I’d be more than happy to help you out in any way or find out some more information on our website.

Here are testimonials from attendees at the Conscious Classroom Management Training in Sydney

As a teacher in a behaviour or emotional disorder school, it was great to see that the strategies we have in place are what you recommend! I’m not sure I could use all the teaching or learning strategies in the Conscious Classroom Management Training but I will try to modify them and give some a go. I did find the presentation very engaging – you have great presence! It did seem high school focussed at times but I suppose it’s hard to give examples outside your own experience, although it would have been beneficial (for me) to have some stuff framed in a “primary setting” way. However, to be fair, my classroom of K-4 emotionally disturbed students probably doesn’t fit a high school or primary school environment!
I actually found that the extra slides that you showed at the beginning were incredibly beneficial and should be part of this presentation all the time. I visit mainstream teachers every week and they all want to know when and how I am going to “change” the student that is in my class before they return to mainstream of fix them. Realising that the students choose their behaviour and that you can’t make them change is a powerful piece of information or insight for all teachers. It frames beautifully everything else you present. Sorry about the essay!

Linda O’callaghan, Cook School

The Conscious Classroom Management Training reaffirmed a lot of what I was already doing (good stuff) and made me realise some of my negative approaches to management. This would be an excellent P.D. for teachers just starting their teaching profession (along with everyone else) as when people leave one and start teaching, they either have been told conflicting help on management or have no guidance whatsoever. This info is great and will support one into the rest of any career.

Helen Scevity, Menai High School

The Conscious Classroom Management Training was an engaging and informative session that provided tools to help teachers connect with and support students. It gave me great ideas and also reinforced strategies I found I already use.

Elyssa May, Menai High School

Attendees from the following schools joined the Conscious Classroom Management Training in Sydney

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