I really appreciate the concrete guidance on addressing unwanted behaviors- teachers can't take student disruptions personally and it can be really hard to learn this in the beginning. Getting to the root cause of the unwanted behavior is a crucial first step to resolving conflicts with students. Pulling a student aside to discretely check in and find out what's going on can be an easy way to interrupt problematic behaviors. Often the answer is simple- the student is having a bad day or is hungry and the teacher can offer a quick solution (take a quick break, have a granola bar), but if the problem is deeper and requires further intervention, then the teacher has the opportunity to seek out more help for the students. This type of response helps to eliminate unnecessary punitive discipline (which often does more harm to students than good).
