Classroom Discipline and The Smile/No Smile Debate

The old ‘Don’t smile until Christmas’ rule has been ostracized a lot the last twenty or thirty years–you know, the same years during which American Education has gone spiraling downward.  

I’m not here to tell you not to smile–just that it helps if you have a very disruptive class.

All of these ideas need a little context.  If you smile because you want the class to like you, or are afraid to hurt someone’s feelings, then it is often perceived as weakness consciously or unconsciously by the students and won’t help your classroom management.  If you don’t smile it is perceived as stronger because you are not anxious to get the students’ approval.  So keep in mind that there is a difference between smiling because you choose to and smiling because you feel compelled to.  The latter is weak.

If you have no discipline problems, smile away–why not?

I’m just going to recommend here that if you judge that a class is going to be rowdy, then a serious demeanor is going to be your ally–what is the rush to show what a good guy or gal you are?  Many educators act as if not smiling will somehow create serious damage to the learning process.  That’s why I say all must be in the context of what we are in schools to do:  Teach.  Remember that one?

Therefore, any issues which interfere with that should first be filtered through that lens–what helps create an atmosphere where learning best takes place?  Your students can learn just fine if you don’t smile, but it may interfere with your control if you do–too soon.

In fact, for teachers with serious classroom disruption going on, the first thing I recommend is entering with a VERY serious demeanor–it sends a message of your being a solid person and not prone to reacting to others, and will calm disruptive students down.  

Students suffer when they don’t learn year after year in disruptive classes, not because Ms. Meany didn’t smile until Christmas.

Not smiling won’t single-handedly get you a perfectly-behaved class–you’ll probably want to read my whole book Classroom Discipline 101 to do that (www.classroomdiscipline101.com), but it’s one more technique you can try–if not ’til Christmas, give it a couple of days.

Until then, here’s to enjoying your teaching–

Craig Seganti