Whole Brain Teaching and Classroom Management

Classroom management is an important component in a successful classroom.  This can be an area that can be very stressful if it isn't handled well. I am not an expert by any means, but I have had some success with difficult situations and many times students have been "earmarked" for my class.
Once, a boy was told by his brother that he needed to be in my class because "Mrs. Sequeira gets us!" The funny thing about it is, he was correct. I did get them. Even though they had very different needs, I was able to help them to have a successful year.
This was not always the case, and I had a lot of lessons to learn along the way. Parenting helped and I used many strategies from home in my classroom. Watching and learning from master teachers also helped.

Here are some things I learned:

I discovered that if I spent the first few weeks focusing on self-esteem and how valuable each of us is, that sets the tone for the rest of the year. I also found that focusing on the positive instead of the negative and beginning each day as a fresh start worked well. These are some of the posters that I used as a focus in my room.

I began using some of the material from Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom a couple of years ago. I didn't do as much as I would have liked, but that which I did do was very effective.

Some of the rules were modified a bit to better fit my class. Rule 1 has the words "and correctly" added. Rule 3 is completely different because I didn't require hands raised to leave seats. I have included the original versions as well.

Another thing that worked really well is removing the audience for negative behaviors. This was something I was already doing, but it was reaffirmed when I started using the Whole Brain Teaching. It is very powerful when the class helps to create the positive environment.
If you are interested in learning more about it, I would highly recommend it. You can find out more here.