By Maureen Purcell

"Hey Ms. Purcell! I drew something for you!" I’d been rushing into the office in December when “Clint,” a student from last year, stopped me. I looked around, startled at this rare exclamation from a middle schooler. Clint, now an 8th grader, was rummaging through his binder for a piece of looseleaf paper.

"You did? It's not even my birthday – thank you!" I was surprised by the drawing, especially since it was from Clint, one of a growing number of former students whom I dubbed my "new favorites." You know, the students who, the year after you have them, act like you were their favorite teacher: saying excited "Hi!" greetings to you every chance they get, and saying, "I wish I was in your class. Ms. P is my favorite!" when you sub in another class.

To say the gift from Clint surprised me was an understatement. He was one of my most challenging students last year. He didn't know that, and he also didn't know that he was sort of my guinea pig for a new approach to discipline I was working to implement (or rather, stealing from one of the special education teachers).

At a district-level new teachers meeting last year Michelle Donahue, an 8th-grade special education teacher, gave a presentation on a proactive way to stop behavior issues before they start. When a student starts to have problems anywhere at school, I need to realize that everything I have done before that moment comes into play. In other words, I build relationships with my students in the good times, so that when they are having problems, they trust me to help them solve it.

In practice, it meant being "on" as soon as I walked into the building: making eye contact with every student and acknowledging them, truly having positive expectations about all students, showing interest in their lives, attending extracurricular events, and incorporating some of their interests into lesson planning if possible. It's all those high ideals I had when I first started, that somehow were lost in the shuffle of daily teaching.

I tried out the theory and saw students responding to it. If a student came into my room, obviously upset, I made a point of asking the student about something else, such as a basketball game or a current movie. Once we had talked about a neutral subject, then I asked them about what was bothering them, discussed that issue, then requested that they join us in the classroom activity. The idea is to show students that I value them as people, let them know that whatever is bothering them is important to me as well, and make it possible to move on.

Another important part of the proactive approach is giving students space to make a positive decision. Once I’ve made a request of students to join in class activities, I don’t hover over them to ensure that they comply. I let them know exactly when I will check back with them, and give them time to make their own decisions.

Equally important is how I make the request. I make sure my voice is calm and I use language that is respectful – making sure that my request is just that, a request, and not a command.

With Clint, I experimented with this new idea of handling classroom behavior. The constant greeting in the hallway seemed to be working: Clint was all sunshine and light out there. Yet when he came into my classroom, he refused to do any work. Instead of playing into the power struggle he wanted, I treated it like "baby steps" from the movie "What About Bob?"

The main character, Bob, is seeing a psychiatrist for a million different worries and neuroses. The psychiatrist's solution is to treat one small problem at a time, as "baby steps." In one instance, in order for Bob to get on an elevator he has to chant, "Baby steps onto the elevator, baby steps to the door…" just to do something we consider a mindless task.

With Clint, I focused on one step at a time, and was relentlessly positive that he was going to make the right choice – all the while in my head saying, "baby steps to get your notebook out, baby steps to have a sharpened pencil.”

It didn’t work overnight – in fact some days if Clint just had his pencil out and an assignment on his desk, I considered that an achievement. But eventually, if Clint was having a bad day, he trusted me enough to talk to him about his bad day, brainstorm behavior for next time, and then move on to that day’s task. It may sound like cliché, but finding success in the baby steps – which for some students can seem more like adult steps – makes me able to go back with hope every day. And it makes students like Clint one of my "new favorites."

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Posted May 2, 2006