The Classroom Behavior Manual: How to Build Relationships with Students, Share Control, and Teach Positive Behaviors

by Scott Ervin

Positive student behaviors are desired outcomes, but this manual concentrates on inputs. How do you respond to difficult behavior in the moment when you know that punitive, compliance-based behavior management is so often ineffectual? What's the best way to prevent students from acting out in the first place? The path to success requires behavioral leadership , in which teachers strategically model and affirm the behaviors they want to see in students. Behavior expert Scott Ervin calls on his two decades of experience to share the most effective procedures and strategies to foster positive, prosocial student behavior that supports learning, including ways to
* Organize your physical classroom to support positive classroom management.
* Build positive teacher-student relationships.
* Share control with students in a way that best fosters their autonomy. The Classroom Behavior Manual is a resource you can return to again and again, packed with more than 100 strategies and dozens of procedures and tools. Learn how to respond to negative behaviors in nonpunitive ways so that you can ensure all students' school days are as calm, engaging, and educational as they possibly can be.

Genres: Teaching, Education, Nonfiction

276 pages, Paperback

Published February 11, 2022

Reviews

[Annie Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really solid strategies that I’ve already started using- pulls a lot from Love and Logic but has some really unique ideas too.

[Tala]

I’ll be coming back to this book a lot. Praying it helps fix a lot of my issues

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be a bit biased because even before reading this book I was completely on board and have been for years. Full disclosure, I’ve attended multiple professional development trainings by Scott. I was also trained by him to be a behavioral leadership coach in my school. Scott has been working with my school for 3 years now and I’m not exaggerating when I say he has transformed the way our staff approaches behavior management.

This is a must read for people who work in schools or with children. I’ve heard from other teachers that students coming back from online learning have been off the charts in terms of behaviors and I’ve definitely seen that in my own school as well. This is the missing piece. Behavioral Leadership gives students consequences for their actions and holds them accountable while also treating them with the respect they deserve and giving them the control they need.

I could write forever about how great this book is or how Scott’s philosophy has changed my life as a teacher and how its made me a better teacher and saved what little was left of my sanity, but i’m just going to promise you this works. It’s hard but it’s not nearly as hard as the classroom management I was doing before which was a mix of yelling, bribery, crying, and full on mental breakdowns.

Thank you Scott for writing this book! Now I have something to recommend to people when they ask me classroom management questions. The alternative was re-creating your three day training it never quite hit the same when I did it.

[Tracy Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent source of practical tips for classroom management.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there were some good tips in here - a lot of it was weird (don’t touch students or their things to get their attention), outdated (it isn’t an old book but discussing passing notes as a concern and not cell phones is just silly), and unrealistic (some things would require teachers/staff to supervise students without being paid and for parents to just drop them off at the school to practice sitting? lol ok). Ironically, the author said multiple times that you should never repeat anything related to expectations to students multiple times. This doesn’t account for how many times the class roster changes throughout the year or students with processing needs etc.

Positives: strategic noticing, some of the classroom jobs/ lock it in procedure, some of the suggestions for “laters” for students to do after they’re done their work. Calm signals and mindfulness activities could be helpful.

I read this for a book study through my school district. A lot of its contents go against policies and practices in our district so I’m not sure what they wanted us to take away from it.

[Kerri-Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a « long game » method of behaviour management. The first few weeks (even couple months?) I was ready to go back to my consistent behaviour chart and stop pulling my hair out. But now I know I won’t go back. I like how he thinks of (almost) every scenario to help you feel empowered and gives exact suggestions of wording you can use. I feel more connected with my students and that our relationships are more based on love and trust than discipline. All the strategies are super basic, instinctual things but it gives such lovely justification and reasoning behind everything to paint a picture of a highly functional and well thought out management plan.

The mentality really values and respects students as people and still holds a high behaviour standard. It makes me feel more confident about my discipline decisions like keeping a student in at recess. It is American so some things really don’t apply at all to me as an educator in Canada (such as keeping students on weekends for detention or including physical touch in a greeting or to get a student to pay attention). Overall very helpful and as I become more confident I think it will help me grow as an educator. The nickname ceremony is an absolute game changer and my students LOVE it.

The layout/organization of the book was awful- I had to make detailed notes throughout and type them all up after to get a full picture summary. Because he consistently refers to XYZ in early chapters that you don’t learn about until much farther along, and there are so many acronyms. I wish he had made the summary at the end instead of me having to do all the work. Also I desperately wish I could get a hard copy of this book. Finally, the author is quite wordy in his suggested explanations and my admin/SERT has suggested really simplifying some of the scripts (request to take mindfulness break becomes a symbol instead of a lengthy script each time for example) for students with various (suspected) processing exceptionalities. They also think some of the wordy responses and all the one-on-one recess time with me inadvertently give too much attention and may be reinforcing some behaviours. So although he suggests the teacher being the one to administer all DLOs (recess «detention») in the case of one child we have made a new plan for an EA to take over. And I am working on being kind and to the point but not doing too much talking or making the DLOs be too much of a warm experience for my students.

[Jennifer Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of practical and detailed advice about instituting positive and influential classroom procedures, especially for students who will test boundaries. Mr. Ervin's advice is steeped in psychology and acknowledges that we can influence behavior, but not force it. So, he focuses on how we build positive relationships (Strategic Noticing, Calm Signal, Nicknames, Preventative Movement, etc.) and teach and reinforce the behaviors we want (Student Jobs, Morning Meeting, Gentle Guidance Interventions, Mindfulness Breaks, Delayed Learning Opportunities, etc.). The only hiccup I see comes when trying to find time for Delayed Learning Opportunities. From my vantage point, school/teacher schedules are packed so full, there is little downtime in the school day to find time for these DLO's.

While his plans are very detailed for a classroom teacher, as a school librarian, I am eager to try out some of his suggestions.

[Colleen Scarpella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A teacher at my school recommended this book and I'm so glad I picked it up! I've done Love & Logic (Family and Classroom) training, Kagan training, Capturing Kids' Hearts training, and RULER training. As I read the book, I could see pieces of all of these, but the way he puts the pieces together makes so much more sense to me. I'm doing most of the things mentioned in the book, but I'm not doing them correctly and I'm not doing them consistently.

I was hooked. The same teacher sent me info that there was a 3-day training happening close and I went. Seeing all these systems and procedures in person was priceless. I'm happy I've got a week to Ctrl + Alt +Delete my classroom and find a way to make my life and my students' lives better this year.

[Gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version because I find these books boring to read. But find the content to be helpful.

If you want to implement what is shared, I recommend grabbing the book to be able to refer back to ideas. Highlight. Flag. Etc.

I enjoyed the methods shared and the ideology behind them that make it work. I think I already employ some strategies in my classes, but could pump it up to the next level.

[Laine Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 like the concepts and can definitely see where it can help in the classroom. My favorite part is that kids have control of the now, whereas teachers have control of the later. Maybe after a year of trying some of these strategies my rating will change!

[Elana Frasier · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there’s one book I wish I would’ve read before I started teaching 5 years ago it would be this. I’ve implemented his strategies in my classroom and they really do work. Highly recommend to any teachers!

[Danith · Rating 1 out of 5]

The strategies in this book are not based on any research or evidence whatsoever. Only antidotal for what worked for one man with prior anger management issues turned power hungry who should never have been a teacher.

[Diane Mattmueller- Tilford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book just before I retired. It was so interesting that I felt it was worth the read. The author gives excellent strategies for classroom management that work. So glad he took the effort to put them into a book. Definitely a must read for any classroom teacher.

[Nina Dutta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bible, the best out there, actionable and life changing!!!

[Candy]

I read the first 23 pages and will pick this up again if I feel the need for the information.

[Whitney George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Scott speak two different times and love his ideas! I’ve implemented some and plan to again this year.

[Kristine Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had alot of helpful strategies, but some of them seem a little too complicated or time consuming to follow through on.