What do you do to not become irritted with your students?

That’s a very good question. Students can be very irritating at times. Hey, they are children...

Here are some ideas off the top of my head that worked for me when I was a teacher:

• Ignore the student’s irritating behavior so long as he/she is not disrupting others. This can be a negative response because other students will observe that problem student can misbehave without consequence. However, it depends on the severity of the behavior.
• Remain calm so that you do not give the irritating student the reaction that they may be purposely trying to solicit out of you and calmly ask that they cease the behavior
• If the behavior is severe enough, get the parent on the phone and explain the behavior and how it is disruptive to the learning environment and learning of others. Let the parent know that the student’s success is important to you and you would really appreciate it if parent can have a talk with student to ensure that he gets on the right track and is successful this year. If necessary, put the student on the phone next to speak with parent (in hallway)
• Set clear expectations for behavior so that undesirable behaviors are minimized - routines and procedures are critical
• Reward the problem student with a positive call home when he/she has a good day in hopes that this will encourage student to continue with good behavior
• Find a strength in that problem student and make a big deal about it from time to time - a talent, a skill, etc
• Allow problem student to be your teacher helper when he has a good day in hopes of motivating him/her to continue to display good behavior

There’s no one size fits all approach to classroom management. You have to explore and discover what works best for your population of students.

Hi Anastasia,

A short answer to your question is "Be Patient" :) let me elaborate a bit on what I really mean by this. Let us take an example you are delivering a lecture and for some reason the students are not interested in your lecture and they start making noise which irritates you, what will you do? you have 2 options:

1.) You start shouting and scold whoever you think is most notorious in the class, doing this will be a temporary solution as the issue here is the students are "not interested" in the lecture, and soon you will see them doing something else if not making noise which might again irritate you.

2.)This is a little difficult and requires a lot of "Patience". You turn around towards the class and start a discussion to understand the sentiment of your pupils to better understand what they are expecting out of the lecture and if there is something that you can do to make it more interesting maybe you can use some audio/visual content or you can discuss a case study etc. which gathers their attention and makes the lecture more fruitful.

So, what I really mean is you got to have "Patience" to listen and understand the reason for there actions, so that you can be more effective and the time spent by you and the pupil in the class is fruitful.

Cheers!

Tumul