Don't Narrate the Negative

A classroom management tip

Here are two rules of classroom behavior:

All classroom behavior is contagious. All of it. Paying attention, playing with fidget toys, playing Slope on the Chromebook, whispering to your neighbor, asking questions. If lots of students are doing something, it’s more likely others will join in.

Negative behavior is more contagious than positive behavior. I wish it wasn't true but it is. If almost everyone is focused and working hard on a problem, it can help motivate the last few kids. But only a few kids working typically isn't enough for it to spread. On the flip side, one or two students passing notes can be enough to tip the balance and the behavior spreads.

One piece of advice I've been given more times than I can count is to narrate the positive. "Great start, Jimmy! Thanks for getting that pencil to paper, Jenny." As the teacher points out what other students are doing right, the logic goes, others join in. So if I see a few students not doing what I asked them to do, I point out students doing the right thing, and the others join in.

This never works quite as well as its advertised. I do think it can help, and I do this type of thing when I teach. It's just not some magical classroom management trick where I say "Great start from Jenny, I can see she's annotating the problem!" and the half-dozen students staring into space suddenly get diligently to work.

Better advice than narrate the positive is don't narrate the negative. This is a mistake I've made over and over again. I ask students to try a problem. Half the class just kindof sits there staring at me. I stop everyone and say something like, “Hey, half of you are staring at me like I’m going to tell you the answer. You have to do the thinking yourself! Sitting there without even trying isn’t how you’re going to learn!” Don’t do this! It highlights to everyone else that some students weren’t trying the problem, and that behavior is likely to spread.

There are lots of ways to narrate the negative. Pointing out that the class did badly on an assessment. Framing a change in the classroom routine around some negative behaviors I’m responding to. Telling kids that they need to do x because so many of them are behind grade level. Giving a speech about how distracting some behavior is. In general, narrating the negative gives more attention to those behaviors and also tends to create an us-versus-the-teacher mentality.

So what should teachers do instead? A good piece of advice I’ve gotten is “be quick, be quiet, be gone.” Let’s say a student is playing Slope while they’re supposed to be doing something else. I don’t say to the full class, “if you’re playing Slope right now, close that tab and get back to work on your assignment.” Instead, I find a quick moment, crouch beside them, and say, “hey, can you please close that and get back to work on DeltaMath?" Then I walk away and give them a moment — I don’t want to sit there and stare at them until they respond, that creates an opportunity for a power struggle. This doesn’t work every time! I often have to try something else. But the key is to avoid making a scene and making the situation worse.

This isn’t the type of classroom management tip that will cause some magical positive change in your classroom. It’s small, but it’s also incremental and cumulative. Narrating the negative doesn’t cause a class to spiral out of control, but it causes little things to build over time and become bigger and bigger. The basic rule I try to remember whenever I teach is that negative behavior is more contagious than positive behavior. I can narrate the positive all I want. Narrate the negative once or twice and it will undo any good I did.