You are taught to teach the students your expectations. From day 1 you share the expectations, practice the expectations, and then expect them to follow them. When you do a new activity or one you haven't done in a while, you remind the students of the expectations and yet I found myself correcting so many behaviors on a daily basis. It seemed that students didn't know, remember, or want to follow the expectations. Last year was different, last year didn't involve nearly as many corrections or behaviors. This is what I learned last year.
Each day, after the students completed the warm-up I went over my expectations. Every single day, I reminded the students of my expectations. I reminded them of how to participate and how to signal they had a question. I reminded them of what I expected and what it looked like.
Did it go perfectly? No
Did students come back from break full of energy and need extra reminders? Yes
The difference was the corrections weren't happening daily, students weren't testing the boundaries daily, and the few who tested it from time to time were easy to address. The 2-3 minutes that it took to go over the expectations was much less than the 15+ minutes I lost daily to addressing the behavioral problems.
If you are struggling or fighting with daily behavioral problems, I suggest giving this a try.
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