The Secret to Effective Classroom Management and Discipline?
It's Teaching Skills, Motivation and Attitude
Here's the secret to classroom management that works. You need to switch your focus from searching for a magic classroom management or discipline formula to building the school skills, motivation and attitude your kids need to become students. This is a completely different, but tested way of implementing successful classroom management, but it works. It's important for you to note that teaching skills does not mean re-stating the rules. It means teaching school skills just like you teach math skills or science skills. When it comes to skills, motivation and attitude, skills may be the most important of the three. There are so many critical school skills to teach, here's just a few to start with:

Show Up You work no magic on an absent student. Attendance may be the single most important skill that most schools and agencies never teach. Worse, if a student doesn't show up, and is suspended, does that assist the child to improve his attendance? Not at all. What works infinitely better: Teach all students the attendance skills they need, then perhaps they will acquire the skills to improve. Without skills, suspension or other discipline can't overcome the fact that the child hasn't set her alarm, or doesn't know where her bus pass is.

Listen Up
If you can't communicate with the child, how can you provide your service? Teaching students to have "ears on teacher" is a basic concept that many schools have forgotten to teach. Discipline can't turn back the clock and compensate for the reality that the child never heard you in the first place.

Look Up If the eyes are elsewhere, you may find it hard to communicate. "Eyes on teacher" should be universally taught, but is not. If the eyes aren't tracking, sanctions won't remedy that on-going gap in skills, but skill-building can.

Other Key Initial Skills to Teach First

Remember to teach: Anger control, and properly managing fists, legs, arms, mouth, and actions. You also need to teach homework management, what to wear to school, what to bring to school, how to behave in a classroom discussion, how often to talk, when to talk, how to talk, and so on. Unless you teach these skills, you may never see the desired behavior in your classroom no matter what rules, consequences, management and discipline policies you set. Kids are not born instant students. Kids only become students when you teach them the skills they need to look, act, and sound like students.

The Most Powerful Classroom Management Weapon Most Teachers Neglect?
Motivation, Motivation, Motivation
No, students don't have to be negative, bored, absent, disinterested, and apathetic. We have the motivation-makers to prove that statement. Would you like some great, absolutely irresistible motivation-makers? Check out the attention-grabbing resources below that can transform even your most unmotivated students-- even students who don't need school because they will be a sports star, hip hop artist, model, or win the lottery. If you want to have better classroom management and discipline, you must first teach motivation, motivation, motivation.