For instance , a minute and a half into the first day , I gave one student a verbal warning for whispering to another student as he was searching for his seat . Assuming the best in this young man , I told him , “ I know you were probably talking about your seat , but you can ' t even talk about that , so that ' s your verbal warning . Go back to your seat and silently start your work ." By assuming that he was trying to do the right thing find his assigned seat , I affirmed that he wanted to meet the expectations . And yet I was firm with him that his choice to whisper after he had been told to silently begin his work was not OK . Similarly , at the end of class , I kept behind a student who was sighing to herself over the course of the period . By letting her know that I wouldn ’ t accept her subtle expressions of boredom or frustration , I also let her know that I thought she was great and her expressions of negativity wouldn ' t fly because they ' d hurt our collective learning environment and because they didn ’ t square with the wonderful person I knew her to be . Call attention to the things your students are doing that meet your expectations . The power of this is stunning for a number of reasons . Here are two :
It enables you to restate and reinforce the expectations for student behavior in a nonnegative way . By narrating on-task behavior , you enable students who may have misheard you the first time to hear exactly what you expect of them . It ' s easier for students to meet your expectations when it ' s amply clear what those expectations are .
It shows your students that you ' re with it , that you ' re very aware of what ' s happening in the classroom . When they see and hear that you see and hear pretty much everything , they know that you mean business and that even their smallest actions matter .
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