Student Behavior

How can I anticipate my students' behavior and deal with factors that promote misbehavior? 

I learned in my Educational Psychology class that most behaviors emerge in predictable time frames during a person's life.  Specifically, that as students age and experience the world around them they change how they see the world and start to understand how they fit in with it.  Therefore, behavior in a very broad sense is predictable, and teachers can anticipate the types of difficulties they'll face depending on the age and development of the students.  As I plan on teaching at a higher level, preferably high school, I'll focus on that throughout this blog.

With such a strong background in anthropology, I tend to agree a lot with Vygotsky's theory of development.  I believe that culture plays a huge role in development, and that a child's immediate surroundings from birth to the present influence almost every aspect of his perception of the world around him.  Our text indicates that one of the three main factors influencing behavior is "experience with people, conditions, opportunities, customs, and values that exist within the groups of which we are members" (read, culture).  By the time a students reaches his teen years he has already been influenced by countless different interactions that he has either seen or been party to.  Teens have developed enough to begin thinking abstractly and can theorize about why things are the way they are, specifically, why rules and laws exist and why they have to follow them.  Gone are the days when "because I'm the teacher and I told you to" actually work as a reason to do something.  Much of their behavior, then, is a result of trying to match up with the social norms of the group to which they belong, rather than "because it's the rule".  Depending on what type of moral and ethical behaviors were modeled for them in the home and throughout childhood, the teen will either embrace good behavior, or purposely shun it.

A teen's interests and habits will also dictate how they will behave in a group.  If he belongs to groups that promote good behavior and following rules, such as sports teams and music clubs, then he will probably better understand that rules are a part of life.  On the other hand, if he has become part of a group that promotes bad behavior, such as a gang, then he will develop an attitude of indifference to rules and regulations. 

All that being said, the original question still exists; How can I anticipate bad behavior and how do I deal with it?  On a case by case basis, once I'm a teacher in a classroom of my own I'll be able to develop a better sense of the students I'll be working with, and will be better equipped to deal with individual problems.  For now, I'll have to rely on what the text tells me.  From the chapter, I think the list of needs proposed by Glasser and Charles sums up what every student will need in order to help promote good behavior.  Security, association, belonging, dignity, hope, power, enjoyment and competence.  If these needs are not being met, the students will "become anxious or frustrated and unable to devote themselves fully to the instructional activities" (p.25).  Of course, several other things impact behavior, such as SES, psychosocial development, cultural bias, language barriers and others, most of which I explained (loosely) above.  The teacher's role in the classroom is not only to teach, but also to model behaviors that he expects to see in his students.  Maintaining composure in the face of difficulties will go a long way towards maintaining order in a classroom.