I highly recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques for anyone who is struggling with their classroom management or is looking for more tools. When I first started teaching, I was very rigid when it came to correcting behavior, primarily because I didn’t have enough tools. I was overly dependent on the consequences. I was very consistent because the rules said that the behavior warranted the consequences. I believed that the consequences would be the deterrent. Unfortunately, that was not the case. For some students, I cared more about their education than they did. I looked around and I wondered how some of my students made it to high school and how was it that I seem to be the only teacher having this problem?
My passion for helping students learn and grow was undeniable, but I didn’t have enough skills to correct behavior while growing closer to my students after consequences. I had to reach out to mentors to help me learn and grow in this area. Years later, after I left the classroom, I came across Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and I wish I would’ve been introduced to it early in my teaching career.
The beauty of CBT is that it allows the student the opportunity to reflect on the poor decision they made and see how negative emotions caused them to act poorly. Going through this process is definitely restorative in nature. Your relationships with your students grows even stronger once the student realizes that they are not going to be judged for their poor decision. Please listen to the podcast I recorded a podcast with Courtney Kampwerth in which she broke down the benefits of CBT. Lastly, during the episode, she mentions free CBT resources from this site.
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