How to Stop an Insurrection (controling your class)

One of my 'aha' moments during student teaching came after a particularly challenging class period, which of course happened to be observed by my university supervisor. The whole period had been a struggle to keep the class focused, on task, and engaged with the lesson I had so painstakingly prepared. I felt like I was on the losing side of a tuck of war. The end of class was in sight and I was trying to squeeze in just a little more instruction before the bell. With about three minutes to go in class a student decided he was done, stood up, and began packing up his stuff. Trying to get in the last little bit of instruction I just ignored him and kept teaching. That was a big mistake. Once some of the students saw him stand up, they also decided it was time to pack up. Any further instruction was not going to be effective.

Sitting down with my university supervisor afterwords to debrief the lesson he mentioned to me that I could have prevented this occurrence if I had simply stopped what he called the "ringleader" from doing it first. By letting the first guy stand up I was sending a subliminal message to the rest of the class that what he was doing was acceptable. If I dealt with the first person who was being disrespectful then I would be sending a message to the other students that the behavior was unacceptable.

A few days later I had a chance to put this technique into practice and it was successful. Lesson learned.