For many teachers, you get one shot.

If you don’t establish effective classroom management within the first few days of school, you’ll never get there.

The window opens the moment the bell rings on day one and closes less than three weeks later. Because, you see, for students it’s an opportunity for a fresh start, a new leaf to turn over, a better path to choose.

Therefore, they’re at their most open, most attentive, and most willing to follow a real-deal leader. And if you don’t strike when the iron is hot and prove you’re legit, then it becomes more difficult the cooler it gets.

So from the jump you must:

  • teach your classroom management plan in great detail.
  • boldly set your expectations.
  • model routines precisely and explicitly.
  • observe and supervise like a hawk.
  • enforce every rule transgression.
  • reteach sloppy performance until perfected.
  • refuse to accept less than excellence.
  • lead your students from one success to the next all day long.

Otherwise, bad behaviors, bad habits, and bad attitudes will grow like autumn azaleas.

It’s classroom management 101.

You’ll wake up one day and wonder what happened. Where did it go wrong? You loved your class so much the first couple weeks and now you dread seeing them.

The truth is, you got lulled by your new leaves into thinking that they were different. They were special and didn’t need you to be so clear, so detailed, and so uncompromising with your standards.

But can’t you just start over again?

Yes, you can. You can start over anytime you like. However, our experience here at SCM is that few teachers actually do.

The reason is confidence, or lack thereof. The potential for aggressive pushback from students, and even more brazen misbehavior, is so great that they fear taking the stand they should have taken the first day of school.

To put it plainly, they lost control and are now afraid to do what it takes to get it back.

So they endure it. They get up every day and face the music of their weak classroom management. Stressed out and exhausted, they resolve themselves to waiting another year before finally getting it right.

Don’t let this be you. You have the best opportunity you’re ever going to get to have the teaching experience you really want.

But it doesn’t last. You get three weeks max. And you have to grab hold of it from the first moment of the first day of school.

The countdown is on.

Will you be ready?

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.