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When discipline problems do arise, they have to be dealt with effectively.

Create a friendly but purposeful learning environment.
Establish an appropriate classroom climate and atmosphere.

Manage time, especially the beginnings and endings of lessons.

Keep learners ‘on task’.

Create a pleasant space.

Ensure appropriate teacher behaviour.

Understand why learners misbehave:

When discipline problems do arise, they have to be dealt with effectively, in the ways outlined above. If we fail to respond, minor annoyances could lead to major disruptions.

Discipline problems are often much wider than the particular classroom situation. Current levels of criminal violence are very high in our country. School management are faced with serious problems such as drug, alcohol and substance abuse, gangsterism and violence.

These developments seriously threaten stability in schools. Classroom practice and school management have to find ways of dealing with this situation (DoE, 2001).

According to Waxler (2005:1-2), educators should be careful not to reward learners for behaviour that is expected from them. His point of departure is that all learners must be actively involved in all classroom activities. Keeping learners involved in the lesson is the most effective classroom management plan. He gives the following five classroom management tips, which educators could use regardless of the subject or content area:

All write: Instead of having learners raise their hand to respond to a question aloud, have all learners write down an answer to the educator’s question. Not only will the educator get much more class participation, but the quality of learner responses will also improve (small white or blackboards could be used).
Pair/share: Have learners pair up with a partner and share their answer before discussing it as a class. This gives learners a chance to respond without the anxiety of speaking in front of the entire class and also allows the educator to ‘monitor’ the room and talk to various learners about responses. The ‘pair/share’ strategy is a great teaching strategy to use right after the ‘all write’ strategy.
On the clock: Give learners specific time limits to complete tasks and make sure you stick to those time limits. By putting learners ‘on the clock’, the educator helps the learners to stay focused. I even use an egg timer to make the teaching strategy more effective.
Check for understanding: Not understanding the educator’s directions is a major cause of classroom issues and learner behaviour problems. Therefore, no matter what set of directions an educator gives, the educator should always ‘check for understanding’ by simply asking a couple of learners (at random) to repeat the directions back to the class.
Do now: Effective classroom management starts from the second learners walk into the classroom. Therefore, ‘do now’ is a short assignment that learners are to complete as soon as they enter the classroom. Personally, I put up one to four review questions on the board every day as the ‘do now’ assignment. The ‘do now’ gives the learners something to do right away and is a great opportunity for review.

Remember, effective classroom management is not about rewards and punishments. Effective classroom management is about the educator keeping learners actively involved in the entire lesson. By practising the teaching strategies above, educators will greatly reduce classroom management problems.