The most challenging job there is, and one of the most rewarding.
I wanna see a man in the store, there's my teacher right there, there she is.
There's my teacher.
That's a good feeling, that's a really good feeling, that's something that is irreplaceable.
To borrow a patch from a children's toy, when the days are good, they're very, very good.
But when they're bad, oh you feel horrible.
You feel like you haven't accomplished anything.
And there are days like that, oh my goodness, there are days.
In preschool, conflict comes with the territory.
Whether you work in a large center, or one that's home based.
Whether your students live in the inner city, or the suburbs.
Whether you're a novice, or a veteran.
As a preschool teacher, you will face disruptive behavior.
In all of my 22 years of teaching, I've never had a class like this.
This is 12 boys and 3 girls.
It's like a wrestling ring.
In the morning when we start, I almost want to hear a bell go ding.
It is exhausting because these children are relentless.
Dealing with a class that's out of control can make you feel frustrated, angry, alone.
It can make you want to quit your job.
It's not realistic to think you can eliminate conflict in a room full of 3, 4, and 5 year olds.
But it is possible to have a more positive and productive experience in your classroom.
Helping you achieve this goal is the purpose of Survival Guide for Preschool Teachers.
In the video, you'll meet teachers who face problems similar to yours.
As they share their frustrations and successes, you'll realize you're not alone.
The manual carries the discussion further, exploring the roots of disruptive behavior
and offering a wide variety of strategies for you to try with your preschool students.
People tend to think of discipline as a negative word. It's not.
It controls another word that people tend to think of as negative.
But a teacher has to have control of the class.
How do you think of discipline?
Hey guys, guys!
Is it when you're constantly correcting behavior?
Is it what you do to get children to behave properly right now?
Or do you see discipline as guidance?
You can wait for us. That way you can be polite and wait for your other friends.
Is it teaching children life skills that will help them control their own behavior?
Successful classroom discipline includes techniques to manage problem behavior
and also methods to help prevent it from occurring.
We're going to walk like this to the bathroom. You ready? Let's go!
Developing strategies for discipline is an ongoing challenge for a teacher.
Your methods will constantly evolve as you encounter new children and new situations.
Learn from people that are already there.
Ask questions. Use what works for you.
Okay, tell me what you did today.
So you build. It's like a portfolio. Just build on it. Build on it.
In the spirit of sharing, three teachers let us spend the morning in their classrooms
so we can see how they handle the ups and downs of a typical day at preschool.
Music
I have 15 different personalities that I'm dealing with.
All different.
As you learn a student as you go along, I'm still learning new stuff about my students
and we only have six days left of school.
Dada!
You'd be amazed. Some of these kids that are so young, even though they're four and five,
have a lot of things that I never knew until, of course, I did a home visit.
Come here, LaDarian.
What is the frown for?
What's wrong?
You don't want any?
You just look at some of their living conditions and all of that.
It's just amazing that these kids are so young, having to go through a lot at such an early age.
And I think that's why it's so important to give that extra love and that extra compassion and hug.
Dada! Dada!
There's no way to avoid conflict.
No way. I don't think so.
That's why it's important to have a routine in your classroom.
Establish your routine and stick with it.
If yesterday was Monday, today is Tuesday.
You have to be leaning on a lot of things. It's just when it's time for the structure,
like doing our circle time, because that's when we do majority of our learning,
I do have a tight rein on them because I want them to do what they need to do.
Good. Can you spell it?
I'm getting you ready for kindergarten. I'm preparing you.
So let's be serious on this part and another time we can play.
Good job.
They understand it. They know.
Look out, kindergarten. Here I come. Who's going to kindergarten next year?
Me!
Everybody! You guys are so smart and so ready to go.
Have a seat. Let's get ready to read.
And they can look at my facial expression and know,
uh-oh, Miss Angel, she wants us to sit down.
You know, those teachers, we have like 50 facial expressions we do.
Almost tied his shoe.
Miss Angel.
Have a seat over here beside me, Tristan.
Miss Angel.
I need you to come have a seat beside me.
Yeah, that's where we're going to go to have our graduation, yes.
Gosh, I don't know how to make our life easy as a teacher to be on,
but I think you have to be patient.
That's the biggest thing right there. If you don't have that, it's going to be tough.
And trial and error. If this doesn't work today, hey, let's try this again on tomorrow.
Okay, if it don't work Monday and Tuesday, let's just leave that alone altogether.
And let's go with this.
Trial and error.
Music
They're just sponges. They pick up the negatives and the positives.
So it's my responsibility. I won't say it's my job.
It's my responsibility to provide as many positives throughout the day.
I got a basket.
Amber, you did it so gently. Amber didn't even feel it.
Sing the song for her.
Makes my life a lot easier. Makes everyone's life a lot easier.
A green and yellow basket.
Building a child's self-esteem plays a big difference in discipline.
They feel confident. They feel happy. They feel valued.
Okay, I choose Amber. You were waiting so patiently.
Amber, what happens on your car?
I think there are ways that you can phrase things rather than saying,
get out of that chair, you know, or don't stand in that chair.
You can say things like, when we are sitting at the table, we sit down in our chairs.
Chairs are for sitting in, not standing in.
And that's still getting the same point across, but you're using a friendlier tone of voice.
You're using friendlier words. You're using words that you want the child to emulate.
It's okay, baby.
Cole. Cole. Look at me. Are you an animal?
What do you have?
You have talking words, right? You can use your talking words with animals.
If you've always got somebody telling you what to do, you can only imagine.
I can't imagine what it would be like for somebody to tell me when I had to eat,
when it was my bathroom turn, when it was my turn to wash my hands.
Okay, let's look at a, oh, I'm sorry, I just assumed that.
Wayne, you can pick a friend.
I hate to tell them you did it wrong.
It's like seeing a child with their shoes. Left shoe on the right foot, right foot in the left shoe, that kind of thing.
Because they accomplish so many goals getting that shoe on the foot.
And I'll say things like, if your shoes begin to bother you,
or we'll put their toes together and go, oh, look, your shoes are going in opposite directions.
But that sounds so much more positive than saying, no, you did it wrong.
Can I show you something? When we write, we start on the left-hand corner.
Let's put our picture on the left-hand side, the first picture.
It doesn't make it sound like I'm always trying to be in control.
In all reality, the teacher is in control. And they have to be that way.
We are the adults. We've got more common sense. We've had more life experiences.
But at the same time, you don't want to take that away from the children.
Do you remember what happened to me when I was a little girl and I had my hands back like this?
Yeah, you got ran over.
And what happened to baby Pinky?
It got hurt.
So what's a good idea? Where should we put our hands?
Put them in your little pocket.
Especially if you've got a child that is a little more defiant, strong-willed,
they definitely don't want you telling them what to do.
But if you can say things in a friendly tone of voice and you can offer other suggestions,
they're a little more apt to follow along.
You don't feel like you've left your program every day saying something negative.
You don't feel like you spent your whole day correcting children.
MUSIC
I just feel like you have to have a strong bond with children so that they can feel like they can come to you
and tell you things and be open and communicate.
And Ms. Judy's going to choose five friends that are sitting on their bottoms,
crisscross applesauce, hands in your lap, bubbles in your mouth, blow them out.
I say friends a lot so they can know that all of us in here are friends.
We have a relationship with each other. We take care of each other.
You'll get the duck. You'll get called when we do the ducks, okay?
You're not going to like every child that you come in contact with,
but set the tone that you're going to be fair to all the children.
Okay, sit down right here.
There's not one that you're going to treat better.
I know all three of you did not have this. Who had it first?
Me.
Who had it first, Kalen? So what should I do with it?
We try to stay calm all the time. I don't get upset about a lot of things
because if children see you upset about things all the time, they're going to be upset.
How about we let India play with it for a little while?
If you're showing positive behavior when you're disciplining them,
then they'll show positive behavior back, and it eliminates some of the outbursts and tantrums.
Julian, come here. I need to talk to you. Let's go.
I need you to have a seat right here, and I need you to think about what you're doing.
We call it think time. Instead of us saying, just go to the time out.
You're saying think about those things that you were doing, and then when I come back to you
tell me about those things. You're making them work through a process
to where they're always going to be thinking about the things that they do,
and they're going to know the results of it, what's going to happen if I do this.
How many times did Ms. Judy ask you not to do that?
I'm going to sit here.
Put on your what kind of ears?
I'm going to sit here.
Okay, I'm going to let you sit here for a minute, and then Ms. Judy will call you when it's time for you to get back up,
okay? When I think you've thought about it, okay? Okay.
Like any type of disciplinary, it's the way that you use it that makes it effective or makes it work for you.
You really have to be creative with preschools.
All right, friends.
You use a lot of different types of transitions. We use a lot of different songs and stuff.
We came up with, well, let's be invisible, and the kids liked it so much, we use it all the time.
Remember when we come in the hallway, we're what?
Invisible.
Invisible. Nobody can hear us, and nobody can see us.
All right, you guys ready?
You ready? All right, let's go.
What we want to happen is that we're not making a whole lot of noise when we're going down the hallway.
The kids are like, we're invisible. Nobody can see us, Ms. Judy, and I'm like, nobody can see us, so nobody can hear us.
Nobody knows we're coming.
We want to make it fun, make it a loving environment, make it calm so that they know I'm here and I can be who I want to be when I'm here at school.
They just put a big old pride, a big chest that sticks out when they accomplish so much.
No two teachers are alike.
Each of us brings our own personality, experience, and attitudes to our preschool classroom.
A technique that's useful to one teacher may not help another.
A strategy that succeeds with this child may fail with that one.
And the method that worked today may not work tomorrow.
No two days are alike. You know, one day can be just incredible.
We had an incredible day today. You couldn't have asked for a happier day.
And that's not saying tomorrow is not going to be the day when everybody cries and everybody argues with their words and things like that.
When it comes to handling disruptive behavior, there's no magic solution.
But the Survival Guide Manual offers a number of carefully researched strategies for classroom management.
Check it out.
We're confident you'll find some ideas you can add to your portfolio to help you reduce the stress in your job and increase the joy.
The Survival Guide Manual