How do you empower your students to learn to cope better and to self-regulate? We're all dealing with different forms of stress and even trauma these days. Students often show their stress in their behavior at school, sabotaging themselves and disrupting others. So how do we move forward and help our students do the same?

We are imperfect teachers and we can't do everything by ourselves. I know that's not a shock. But, admitting there's a problem or even just asking for help is tough.  It is the first step though. As we all know, there's been a LOT of trauma for us and teachers and for our students [now more than ever]. 

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We've heard the term "mastery" for years. It's a lofty goal. We expect it from our students but is it really doable all the time? What if we expected progress over mastery? Remarkably imperfect progress. 

Meet Dr. Michael Gaskell, a middle school...

Classroom teachers have battled behavior issues as long as there have been schools. Whether you're like most of us and currently teaching online or preparing for next year in the classroom, teaching students your expectations is important. That doesn't change no matter where you teach.

Do you ever use picture books to help you teach?

I do. All the time! In fact, I don't think I know how to teach many things without picture books. It's just become part of my teaching style. Part of that is because I find lesson more fun and engaging with a picture book and so do students. The other benefit is picture books make learning more memorable. 

Teaching About Classroom Behavior

Teaching about desired classroom behavior is no different than other subjects in this regard. Picture books can play a vital role in helping students both understand and remember all the behaviors that make our classrooms run smoothly. In fact, they help build our classroom community, identity and culture. 

Behavior management or managing a class for the long-haul is much more difficult than anyone ever tells us in our teacher training.

Remember when you were getting ready to begin your student teaching and being informed what you're in for when you have no experience to tie that information into? You simply can't fathom what that means or what it looks like in reality. We need a lot of experience in order to make sense great classroom management. In addition, there's a lot of trial and error that goes with figuring it all out.

The more teaching experience we get under our belts, the easier it is to understand and evaluate the various behavior management options.

Here's a few ways that we can manage a class and each method's pros and cons. In addition, I have a few acton steps at the end of this post to get you on a great path to train your students toward self-regulation. 

Here goes...

Proximity

Management by proximity is when you move to stand near a student when they're...