On this episode of Music Teacher Dilemmas, we take a look at behavior issues, lack of respect, and constant arguing. Join us as Jeanette discusses some ideas on how to combat these issues, especially at the end of the school year.
The Questions:
- What do you do when students are trying to argue and negotiate? It’s a battle!
- What happens when students are constantly talking and wasting time. What if they have a total disregard for adult authority?
- How can you combat the constant blurting/interrupting, and getting out of their spots in grades K-3?
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What we talked about:
Outdoor Bouncy Ball Lesson Plan
How to Avoid the End-of-the-Year Crazies
Apparently I haven’t done a podcast episode or blog post on my Talent Show strategy. That podcast will come out on May 1st.
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Transcript
“Music Room Dilemmas from The Happy Music Teacher.
Are you an elementary music teacher who's frustrated and overwhelmed? I'm Jeanette Shorry, a happy music teacher who loves teaching every day. But it wasn't long ago, I was in your shoes.
Join me weekdays as I answer all the questions that elementary music teachers have surrounding what's going on in their classroom, what their students are doing, and the challenges they face every day. Do know that these are my thoughts, and they are my suggestions on what you might do better. If you disagree with me, that is totally your prerogative.
These are just my suggestions, and things that have kept me being a happy music teacher for over 25 years. If you do find something valuable, I'd be so thankful if you'd leave me a five star review. Now let's get into today's question.
Whoo, I actually asked the question, what is your biggest challenge in the music classroom right now? In my private Facebook group called the Music Teacher Group, if you are not a member yet, I will share a link in the show notes. And I got a ton of amazing questions, challenges, et cetera.
“I am not gonna be able to address all of them here because some of them are longer than this episode should be. But I am going to address some of them. So patients said behavior and lack of respect, like talk to you like you're on their level, argue and try to negotiate just a different kind of kids we're teaching now.
It's been a battle. So first of all, patients, I wanna tell you that everyone is dealing with the same kind of thing. Behaviors are definitely out of control.
So when you have students who are trying to engage you, I tell teachers this, and I also have told my own sister this, who has a teenager, and you know what they're like, who's 16. And what I'm gonna tell you is do not engage. Do not engage. Do not engage. And the reason you don't want to engage is because they are trying to get a rise out of you. And as soon as you engage, you are going to make them happy.
This is what they want. So what I try to do, and it's not always easy, what I try to do is I “try just not to engage. I try not to even address it.
When they try to argue and negotiate, I literally just ignore them. I don't address it at all. I do not, and many times that shuts them down.
Now, if they are going to continue to argue or they're going to say something to try to engage you, I usually try twice to just ignore, and then I literally put up my hand like a stop sign, and I say, I am not talking to you about this. I am the teacher, you are the student. You have choices in some things.
You do not have a choice in this. Now, I will also tell you that I try to give my students lots and lots of choices in their day, because they don't get a lot of choices. And a lot of times they're trying to argue with you because they're not getting choices.
So you may want to try easy things like, would you like to sing this song or this song? Would you like to play this instrument or this instrument? Things that are going to help them to feel like they have a little
