Your 'There's More To Control Than You Think' Comment 

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Some past comments

Isabella Fawcett
I aim to have that authentic control in my classroom, I think that would prove best for my students and myself with the content and vibes. However I am the teacher who tries to be relaxed and cool but the students take advantage and then I turn into the big bad wolf. This is one of my big goals for my teaching.
I also like to reflect on my day or class a lot or vent with other teachers and come up with solutions for myslef to use the next time however I have a plan ready to go and as we have gone through before the behaviour of the kids puts me off and I lose what I was going to do because I am managing again.
I definitely find myself rolling with the punches or more pick your battles with these students who like to get on your nerves.
Richard​
Isabella - I had to laugh at 'However I am the teacher who tries to be relaxed and cool but the students take advantage and then I turn into the big bad wolf.' You will work out the balance eventually!

Lachlan Davies
Yes I definitely agree with Isabella. As a new teacher i have tried to roll with the punches but instead of do that what I think I end up doing sometimes and with particular classes is miss the sparks. As i mentioned in another comment. I think I am being relaxed and then reacting to the fires. Where as I need to respond to the sparks so i don't have to deal with the fires. Luckily I don't think I am a control freak by personality.
Richard​
Lachlan, re this: I end up doing sometimes and with particular classes is miss the sparks. As I mentioned in another comment. I think I am being relaxed and then reacting to the fires. Whereas I need to respond to the sparks so I don't have to deal with the fires ... that is an insightful summary and one that brings back memories for me!!

Rob Sibley
I definitely discovered the power of relaxing more in my lessons this year. I started the year with a very difficult class and just hated turning up to teach them some days. I really felt like a failure until I decided to stop reacting and start aiming to prevent the behaviours. I found this only happens with the authentic control you have mentioned. I will admit that sometimes it doesn't work the way I planned but that is just part of finding myself. I really love the idea Of walking into a room and its just classroom not management. I hope I can one day enjoy walking into a room full of students who are hungry to learn.
Richard​
Rob, what a brilliantly honest post, and one showing a lot of growth form you. Re 'I hope I can one day enjoy walking into a room full of students who are hungry to learn ... you absolutely will!

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More past comments

Ed Carrigan
My first takeaway from the videos is to re-image the dichotomy of the control freaks / relaxed teacher and the react / respond to teachers believing they have either an internal or external locus of control. If you have an internal locus of control you believe that you always have control over your own actions and that you get to decide how you will respond to any situation or provocation. If you have an external locus of control you believe that your actions are controlled by the circumstances that you find yourself in - you have to react a certain way to a certain situation. This then creates a fear of finding yourself in a situation where you have to react in a way that you don't want to or feel embarrassed about rather than just waiting for the situation and then deciding what you are going to do, informed by - extending this from first party to third party - if you have an internal locus of control, you don't think that you can control anybody but you believe that you always have the ability to do something that will influence the students decision on what they will do - you don't have control but you do have influence. Responding to an incident by pointing out that it is inappropriate and telling the student that there will be a consequence the next time it happens then makes giving the consequence when they push it to test you still a response rather than a reaction. Richard's story about the student deliberately falling of his desk and making a loud noise is a perfect example of internal locus of control - he decided how he would react rather than believing the student's actions dictated how he would react. Most of the students are going to have external loci of control but talking about turning that around is too long a post. I often find myself telling the class at the beginning of the year that the class culture is going to depend more on them than me and that if they think that I can't make them do what I want then they are 100 % correct but that would also be true if they were in kindergarten rather than year 9 - all I can do is my best to teach them and hand out consequences for their actions - they are driving the bus. This seems to set them back a bit but so far, they have accepted it in the spirit it was given.

The second takeaway is that I absolutely agree (again) with what was said in the second video - the key to authentic control is to know your content, plan your lessons, chunk the content to lower maths classes and control (plan) the transitions between teaching chunks and student work. The super coach advice also fall in line with this - establish some sort of routine to start the class that calms the kids - I can't bring myself to line them up outside the classroom but the whole class standing behind their seats until they all come in and I say good morning / good afternoon seems to work really well for me.
Richard​
Your first point is quite an observation, Ed. Internal vs external locus of control. I hadn't thought about control in those terms. Thanks for the detailed share!