If you are a teacher that is having trouble managing behavior, there is likely more than one reason. You have probably asked yourself a number of questions related to what you are doing in the classroom:

Should I switch seats around?

Am I giving enough positive praise?

Do I need to call home?

But here is an important question that teachers almost never ask themselves about classroom behavior:

Am I following the rules, too?

This question could be the difference maker in your classroom culture. If you study childhood development, then you know that modeling and fairness are important to children. Both of those areas come into play when following your own classroom rules.

Modeling is one act we all know we should do around kids. Most teachers already model the BIG things. However, anyone who has been in a classroom will tell you it’s the little things that drive you crazy.

Do your students often yell out and talk over one-another? Well … do you talk over them?

Do your students leave their desks a mess? Well … is your desk a mess?

Modeling the behavior you want to see is best practice. Research says that children imitate almost innately.

When you were a child did an adult ever tell you, “Do as I say, not as I do?”

Was that an effective lever for you? Didn’t think so. Children today are no different. Realistically, as the classroom teacher there are actions you are going to do that they can’t, and they know that. However, it is much easier to get them to buy in when you are bought in yourself.

It is going to be a hard sell to keep them off their cell phones if they see you in the back scrolling through Instagram on your personal device. Schools where teachers dress appropriately to school have a much easier time enforcing the dress code for students.

Following the rules is even more important when the rationale you have given for the rule also applies to you as a teacher.

For example: One time during an observation, I saw a teacher tell students to be quiet during independent work with the rationale being that students need a quiet environment to work and think. Yet, she preceded to chat up her co-teacher in the back about weekend plans. The message this sends is that it really isn’t important to be quiet for classmates. Predictably as students finished their own work a gradual murmur of talking filled the room. At one point, it got loud enough for the teacher in the back to interrupt her unrelated conversation with a co-worker to tell the students to be quiet. She was allowed to do that; however, the optics look bad and optics are important to a classroom culture. Yes, they heard her say be quiet, but they also heard her talking, and actions speak louder than words. (Yes, I understand the irony of using that quote in this context.)

When I was a new teacher, I never looked at myself as a member of the class. I felt like they should just do what I say and not worry about what I’m doing. And some of them did. But my classroom culture got a lot better when I realized my behavior mattered, too.