The Secret to Good Behavior

Good behavior is something that everyone wants students to exhibit in the classroom, but there is inherently something that is always preventing it. Rowdiness, disrespect, apathy, anxiety, and a change in barometric pressure are just a few obstacles that come to mind. But with these challenges, the question still exists.

How Do We Get Good Behavior?

Behavior is not the goal. It should be the byproduct of the real target we are trying to hit, creating good habits that stick. So how to we create good habits that impact student learning? We can only create good habits when we take responsibility for establishing a consistent structure in our classroom that yields good habits every day.

How Do We Build These Habits?

Habits are not built with expectations. They are built with routine, but routines are not expected. They are built and improved upon everyday. In its most foundational definition, a routine is an activity that we perform everyday without even thinking about it. How you wake up and get going the same way every morning is the best example of a routine. How you eat your food is a routine. How you drive is a routine. You do routines without thinking.

In the classroom students need routines that are performed essentially the same way everyday. From how to enter the room, to how to leave the room and for every learning activity in between, students need routines that they are expected to perform everyday to such a degree without thinking.

(Our Level 2 - Routines & Procedures Course helps your school develop the details you need to build good routines that yield great behavior and highly engaged learning.)

How Do Routines Yield Good Behavior?

Before we discuss how routines yield good behavior, let's be clear on the idea of good behavior. Good behavior is not perfect behavior. You are not the best in your behavior everyday, but because you are organized, regimented in your life and work, you have a range of positive work and life behaviors that you exhibit. You still have bad days though.

Students are no different. They have a set range of behaviors that they will exhibit. Some are positive and some are not. To elevate their range of behavior to those of more productivity, they need daily predictable routines for learning that will increase competence and confidence. Without predictability, stress will increase along with unproductive or even toxic behaviors.

We are Creatures of Habit

The behavior will be there one way or another. You cannot change it overnight, but you can always improve it one day at a time, one routine at a time every single day.

Aristotle said it best. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” If you want the secret to good behavior, don't focus on good behavior but the habits that build good behavior.