Behavior Expectations for Middle School Classrooms

hi guys so I got a couple requests to share the PowerPoint that I use when I go over behavior expectations with my middle schoolers so I sort of like hesitated to show this on the internet because mine's a little bit weird like you'll see mine's a little bit weird and I'm not going to link it below or anything because I think that your behavior expectations and the way that you start off the beginning of your class in the beginning of your year is just really personal and you should find whatever kind of fits your personality and the way that you are going to deal with you know behavior that is not at your expectations but I think also this is something you never get to see if you go observe a teacher it's almost never on that first day of school when they're doing their behavior expectations and you never get to see like what your colleagues do so this is just something a lot of people are in the dark about and they just never get to see what other people do so I'll insert the PowerPoint slide into the video and then explain kind of what I feel like I have to explain myself pretty thoroughly after every single one so anyway this is my first clip so I like to start it off with kind of a funny one and as you'll see I do a lot of my behavior expectations through means and this one I just thought was pretty funny we just came in from recess and now you want to go to the bathroom my kids don't have recess they have like snack or lunch or they just had passing period or whatever and so this is the first thing we talked about and I think that your bathroom policy maybe says a lot about you as a teacher some people do like little bathroom tickets or they keep track of how often their kids go to the bathroom I don't ever know that so I just tell them like there are different rules depending on the time and this is just kind of how life works and so this is how it's going to work in my class so if you are my third period class and we just had snack don't ask me to go to the bathroom because you just had 15 minutes to do that so you should have taken care of it then if it's right after lunch don't ask me either because you should have just done it then kids will come in right at the beginning of a period but I can I go to the bathroom now and like you just had Thai - why did you waste your time coming and asking me just go to the bathroom when you have passing period so I don't really have like a set procedure but the procedures that I do have with that are that if I am giving instruction you do not raise your hand and interrupt me and ask if you can go to the bathroom so if I think you have a legitimate question about something and you raise your hand and derail us and throw us off just ask if you can go to the bathroom I'm not going to be happy and my sixth graders always come in doing this thing I guess this is what they did in elementary school like this means they have to go to the bathroom and like something else means get a drink or whatever which i think is super cute I kind of love that but still if I'm giving you instructions about something no you can't go to the bathroom because you need to know this too and I'm not gonna repeat it just for you later you just need to listen and then when I'm finished and we're working on whatever then shirt come up and ask me like okay I went to the bathroom really quick yeah no problem this is just a thing in life if I'm in the middle of a wedding ceremony or something like that I can't go to the weather I've gotta wait until an appropriate time so I just kind of use this as like a teaching tool also just for them to learn like an appropriate time to ask a type of question like that or an appropriate time to leave the room they need to start being aware of things like this and they get it wrong at first you know if they'll interrupt and I'm like nope now it's not the when you would ask that so no so I know that's not a very clear-cut procedure but that's just one of the things that is kind of nuanced and you have to learn it plus I always tell them yeah I have to go the bathroom - can I go right now no I wish I could but I have to wait all the way until lunch so you can hold it until we're finished with his - my next slide is my favorite this is the one thing that I just kept on finding myself saying over and over my first year of teaching pay attention with your face pay attention with your face with your face type so many students were like I am paying attention I am paying judge I am listening I'm listening like no no you're not no you're not if I cannot see your eyes and see your lips like this you are not paying attention so we study this giraffe for a while we look at his nice big eyes we look at his ears that are paying attention we look his little smile like this is what you should look like when you come in here and we've got something to get done I've got something to tell you this is how you should look we do a lot of like group work and stuff in my class so a lot of times they kind of have to transition right from like talking with their friend working on something to listening to what I have to say and so this is how I need them to be when they're moving into that transition of listening in each patient with your whole face and a lot of times I'll just leave this slide up on the board like you know on other days besides the first day of school just this is what you should be doing right now actually I think on Monday like I'm gonna have this up especially for my 8th grade classes they've gotten used to coming in and they're still talking the bell rings they're still talking to their friend messing around in their binders getting out their stuff but nope you need to be paying attention with your whole face and with the sixth graders I just kind of tell them like I'm not seeing any of these giraffe face if the baby giraffe can do it you can do it you need to look like that baby giraffe and so with them it's a little easier to stand like alright do your best baby giraffe impression show me show me what that looks like so I'm with your eyes show me with your mouth and this is kind of what works for me I cannot handle the like class class class yes yes yeah and you have those little like call-and-response things that are like really cheesy I'm people love those and I think they actually do work I've seen it work really well I just can't bring myself to do it I just can't so this is what I do I tell them Paige inch with your face and I'm going like this and like look up here and I'll stand there and wait and I'm like I see some french braids I see some ears I see the sides of some faces and you know they know who I'm talking about they kind of start poking each other like hey look up there so that's my expectation for my students and I am trying to give them some instructions or directions should we pay attention with your face okay the next thing is just my expectations right at the beginning of class being your assigned feet get out your materials check the board for instructions I always have a list like a little agenda of what we're gonna do for the day because kids always come in like what are we doing today just like looking forward it's right there I think that's just a question that kids asked just because they want to talk to you about something so they just come in and you know that's something to say like Oh what are we gonna do today but then I get that question like seven times in the span of two minutes so I'm like well just look at the board get out whatever you need and have a seat that's another thing too as a teacher if you try and move along with the class before they're like settle down then it just kind of gets worse and worse like they never start to come together it just kind of grows so calm down at the beginning make sure they have something that they know that they're supposed to do every single time they come in okay so then these are my four rules basically follow directions the first time this is something that I'm really big on if you didn't hear me because you were talking to your friend and messing around that's your problem so then kind of during the beginning of the year like oh what are we supposed to be doing I like give them the space who am i right now Who am I and they remember from the little meme they're like oh yeah okay okay and I tell them stuff too like just because you think that your conversation is more important than the instructions I'm giving to you maybe the person sitting next to you doesn't and they actually came to school to learn today and they are trying to figure out what their homework assignment is and they wanted to write it down and you're distracting them and that's not fair you don't get to do that you don't get to steal time and steal attention and steal focus from the entire class just because you feel like having a conversation so you need to be listening and you need to be following directions the first time this type of one respects your classmates and teacher the reason that I have the markers up there is because one really big thing for me is that I like to decorate my classroom I spend a lot of time like making it really organized and putting cute things up and buying supplies for them and everything I'll show you a classroom tour soon it's I'm working on it still there's awesome stuff I don't have abso waiting til it's all done but anyway I tell them that's one big thing about respecting me is respecting my stuff and respecting the time that I put into it some kids like to steal my little um like pushpins off the wall that was like holding up little charts and stuff and I'm like don't do that don't be that kid also you do not come near my desk I like have a little corner that like this is my stuff this is my space and my desk and you don't come over here for any reason you don't ever steal my scissors or take a pin from my desk I have plenty of stuff for you this year I have even more stuff I've got like boxes and pouches and all types of things if you forgot anything there's a way for you to get it but you don't take it from me that's a big thing for respecting me and then we talk about respecting our classmates as well and especially with US history I just kind of give them a little preview about how when we talk about US history we're going to talk about all of the different people who have had an impact on US history and all the different people who've lived here and the ways that people treated each other and sometimes it was not good and it's going to be uncomfortable and your reaction might be to kind of laugh about it just because you're uncomfortable I understand I kind of do the same thing too but we've got to be mature we've got to be respectful we've got to be able to talk about things that are uncomfortable so that we can learn from them and grow from them and if we don't have an atmosphere of respect among all of us all of your classmates and with me and if I'm not respecting you then that's going to be really hard to do so that's just something I kind of lay out there on the first day this next one raise your hand before leaving your seat or talking I also explained to them here like I know it always seems like your teachers just want to control every little thing you do like don't open your mouth until I tell you don't stand up until I tell you but I just tell them like look around right now we've got 36 kids in this little tiny room this is like not even a normal situation like normally this many people are not in this small of a room if we are all talking at the same time none of us can hear what's going on if you're all asking me a question at the same time I can't answer anyone's question if you all stand up at the same time and like or five people are trying to throw something away at once we all have to stop what we're doing and it just doesn't work so we have to take turns talking we have to take turns getting up and leaving our seats I just try to make it clear to them like I'm not trying to control every little movement of your life we've got stuff to do and this is just kind of the way that has to be a big big thing to me also is do not speak while I'm giving you directions this is part of that raise your hand before you speak and I let them know in my class you are going to have lots of time where you talk to each other and you talk to your group where you talk to a partner or you have a little downtime to work on a project and you can chat a little bit there's going to be a lot of that but when I need your attention and I need to give you instructions that you're going to need to follow that first time do not speak do not interrupt me with a question I don't answer questions while I'm still giving instruction so be quiet put your hand down we'll get to in a minute and this fourth one keep hands beat and objects to yourself another thing that I say to into the 6th graders and the eighth graders like this is not elementary school anymore sharing is not caring sharing is annoying I don't want you to share pencils I don't want you to share your research because then you know what happens people are throwing them across the room people are grabbing them there's a little fight over here because somebody took somebody else's pencil like oh I was just borrowing it so I'm like well guess what there's no borrowing there's no sharing we don't touch anyone else's stuff we don't touch anyone at all do not touch their backpack do not burrito their backpack do not hide things from them nothing we don't touch each other stuff we don't touch each other there's just no reason for it at all if you need something I've got extra stuff this just keeps it simple there's never any discussion we don't touch anything of anyone else's and the means make it nice because then I can have like a little reference point so I'm like at don't touch but don't be Nemo don't do it we're not touching each other we're not touching each other stuff don't do it okay so then if you cannot handle these things the first thing that I say is just we need to redo it so if you walked by and grab somebody's pencil off their desk the first thing is we're going to redo that back up try it again without grabbing somebody's pencil I mean this is basically a warning right so if I'm giving instructions and somebody's talking over me we're going to read you that I'm going to say this one more time and you are not going to interrupt me let's try that and if we still can't handle that then I have a behavior reflection sheet which I'll show in a minute if you're grabbing people stuff or touching people or interrupting or what out doing any of these things that we've already discussed and you can't handle being part of this group then you're going to need to remove yourself from the group and go think about why it is that you can't do this so then they fill out a behavior reflection sheet and maybe you can just fix your behavior on your own and that'll be the end of it if not we'll call your parents and maybe it'll help you to remember if they take away your phone for a week or don't let you go to the street fair on Friday or something like that so maybe your mom will have some ideas to help me out and they're like oh don't go my mom and then at my school they have snack and lunch detention that I can send the kids to and they always ask you're like why would you send me detention before calling my mom like wouldn't it make more sense to just give me detention first I'm like no I want to see if your mom has some ideas first before I take away your snack and lunch and by the way they still get to eat and everything's just that they don't get takeout they're friends they have to hang out in a certain room and be quiet and sit there for detention and this helps because sometimes kids can't stay after school for detention because they have to take the bus so we can't make them do that so we just take away their fun time at school and you're trying to do all their fun time during class and then lastly if you still cannot to get your stuff together then maybe you need to go talk to the vice principal or the principal or the counselor and maybe there's something that they can do for you so I'm going to send you on down there so that was my behavior reflection sheet I could link that below because this thing is pretty helpful so basically these have three questions that they have to answer so what is the behavior expectations that I did not meet and I have all of these on a poster in my room so they can look at the four like which of the four did you not follow so again let's say I have a kid that keeps grabbing some girl's binder off her desk okay the behavior expectation that you didn't meet was keep your feet hands objects everything to yourself you weren't doing that I should follow this expectation because and they need to think about this why do we have this rule what kind of problems does it cause when you're constantly grabbing people stuff they can't concentrate they're trying to get things done they can't find their things it's distracting taking away from everybody else being able to learn so this is why you should not do this and then what I could have done instead and here's where I kind of call them out like you could have just not grabbed somebody's stuff or if you had forgotten your things you could ask me for a backup or you could just bring your own stuff to begin with or if you were just kept taking this girl's binder because you like her and that's your way to try and get her attention maybe we should teach you some better moves and you should try complimenting her shoes instead of taking her stuff and then they get all really concerned that I just let their secret out that that's why they do that half the time and then I keep these behavior reflection sheets because if I need to call their parents or if we need to have a meeting or something like that I have it in their handwriting and in their writing their words what they did wrong why they did it how they were planning on fixing it and if the behavior continues and I've got proof that I addressed it that the kid has been given the chance to work on it and it doesn't take my extra time of me sitting there keeping a log of all the things that every kid did wrong every single period I know a lot of people do that but I've just I've never been able to make that work I don't know how people do that so I'm like alright if you're the one that's messing up you're the one who's going to write down what you did wrong not me let's waste some of your time and give you some time away from the class while we continue and since you are so charming to get out of doing work and not pay attention to this lesson all right you go do that on your own and the rest of us will continue see you probably thought I was a nice teacher I'm not a nice teacher this what happens when they come in to for some reason when they see me they think I would be this real nice t-shirt that just lets everything slide and gives everybody a hug but no we have work to do you are here to work I am here to work if you're getting in the way of that we're gonna need to find a way to help you figure out how to get work done that's why you're here not to mess around not to entertain this whole class to do work so work so those are the things I go over with them at the beginning of the year and you can't just say things once you're going to have to remind them about a lot of these things but it's just kind of strange I found it like with that little meme it really helps because it helps them remember that I already told them something they come in right after lunch and a big can go to the bathroom and I'm like what would Jackie Chan say about that like oh yeah oh yeah so yeah that's the best thing about the memes is that it just gives them an extra little reminder that we already went over this I already told you this and so you need to make sure you're following it my husband always says don't smile till Thanksgiving like he's super super strict at the beginning of the year like I can't even like get myself into that mode but I try to I try to be really firm and really strict and not like waver on the rules at the beginning just so that they they know they get used to it this is how it works in my classroom when you come in you need to be paying attention with your face you need to have your stuff ready to go you need to have already gone to the bathroom and not touching anybody else's stuff so I do give them lots of reminders in the beginning so now can you see why I was like oh should I share this I don't know this is kind of silly but I think it's a pretty good balance for me between like the strictness that I try to adhere to at the beginning of the year and then just like appealing to their middle school brain and how they actually process things and if they laughed at something they're much more likely to remember it later and I'll adjust this as I continue in teaching I'm sure in a few years means we'll be so out and that's not something that they would laugh at anymore whatever so of course I'm going to continue to tweak this and adjust but that's what I went with this year and let me know if you have any other brilliant ideas for how to teach behavior expectations at the beginning of the year this is only my fourth year teaching so I am by no means an expert but this is just what I've come up with so far to like make my life the easiest and to give the kids the best chance to be successful in my class and to actually be able to achieve those behavior expectations and for the most part they do I have such good kids they're doing such a good job I'm really proud of them actually we're off to a really good start so this is going to be a good year I can tell anyway thank you so much for watching let me know if this was helpful at all to you I don't know if it was but this is what I do I hope you have a great day and I'll see you in my next video bye

Channel: too cool for middle school

Views: 136,817

Rating: 4.8725824 out of 5

Keywords: Middle School (Degree), behavior expectations, behavior, classroom management, education, teaching, teacher, school, english, history, 6th grade, 8th grade, lesson, memes, funny, comedy, students, pedagogy, teachers, Classroom (Building Function), Lessons, Learn, Student, Free, Tutorial, how to, new teacher, Plans

Id: C41kxrn2oUE

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2015