Classroom Management Lessons for Teachers from the Detroit Lions’ Shocking Playoff Loss
[The Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive podcast, hosted by popular AI Educators Angela Jones and Davey Johnson, provides an engaging and enlightening synopsis and analysis of this Blog on Spotify... CLICK HERE]
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[CLICK HERE to read this Blog
on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]
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Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
I am not from Detroit, nor do I live there.
Heck. . . I’m not even from Michigan, much less the Mid-West.
But. . . I am a Dan Campbell fan. . . the four-season Head Coach of the National Football League’s (NFL) Detroit Lions!
And. . . even if you are not a
football fan, every educator in the country should know about Dan Campbell, his
success, and—most importantly—why he has been successful.
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This year, Dan led the Lions to a 15 Win – 2 Loss record. . . which made his Team the Number 1 playoff seed in one of the NFL’s two Conferences.
Critically, as the Lions’ Coach, Campbell’s record over the past four years has progressively improved from 3 wins in 2021, to 9 wins in 2022, to 12 wins in 2023, to 15 wins this year (all out of 17 regular season games played each season).
Can you spell: I-M-P-R-O-V-E-M-E-N-T ?!
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In the Playoffs this year, given their talent and regular season play, the Lions were favored to go to the Superbowl.
But in their first playoff game, they lost 45-31 to the Washington Commanders in a game that was not really even that close.
But I respect and admire Dan Campbell because of how he stood up and publicly handled the loss.
Just moments after walking off the field, he faced the “harsh glare of the lights” and the “unforgiving scrutiny of the Media” in a televised press conference geared to dissecting the minutiae of a game that will trigger a deluge of nightmares-to-come.
And under these lights, Campbell taught us a lesson in candor, humility, perspective, strength, realism, and vulnerability.
But the Lions’ remarkable improvement over the past four years, their loss in the Playoffs, and Coach Campbell’s contribution to both provides many other extraordinary lessons for all educators, and especially classroom teachers, relative to their leadership, their students’ success, and how to handle the times when things “don’t go as planned.”
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Students’ Classroom Behavior is Not Improving
Critically, now three years after our “full return” (Fall, 2021) from the pandemic, students’ classroom behavior is not getting better.
Indeed, a January 8, 2025 Education Week article reported on a mid-December 2024 survey of 990 educators (134 district leaders, 97 school leaders, and 759 teachers)—chosen as a nationally-representative sample by the EdWeek Research Center.
The results of this survey indicated:
· 72% of educators said that the students in their classroom, school, or district have been misbehaving either “a little” (24%) or “a lot” (48%) more than in the fall of 2019, the last semester before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
In contrast:
· A year ago (early 2023), 70% of educators said that their students were misbehaving either “a little” (36%) or “a lot” (33%) more than in the fall of 2019; and
·
In 2021, 66% of educators said that their
students were misbehaving a little or a lot more than in the fall of 2019.
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The Education Week article went on:
Student misbehavior has routinely topped teachers’
lists of concerns and most pressing challenges in recent years. There’s been a
pronounced spike in behavior problems, ranging from minor classroom disruptions
to more serious student fights broadcast on social media, since students
returned to school buildings. Teachers have also reported a drop in
students’ motivation in that time period.
Student misbehavior is hurting staff morale, some
survey respondents said.
Indeed, past surveys have documented this overall dip
in teacher morale. An annual report released in August by the EdWeek Research
Center showed that just 18 percent of public school teachers said they are
very satisfied with their jobs, a much lower percentage than decades ago, and a
slight drop from the year prior when 20 percent of teachers said the same.
In that same report, many elementary and middle school
teachers said they need more support in dealing with student discipline, and
that the additional help would improve their mental health. Eighty percent of
teachers reported they have to address students’ behavioral problems “at least
a few times a week,” with 58 percent saying this happens every day, according
to a Pew Research Center report from April 2024.
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Students are Not Going to “Fix” Themselves: School Staff Need to Function as a Team
While it is easier to “just blame the students, the parents, residual pandemic trauma, and social media” for students’ persistent behavioral challenges, this externalization is not going to solve the problem.
The students are not going to fix themselves.
Moreover, there are no quick fixes (otherwise, this problem would have been solved long ago).
Instead, let’s look at schools. . . and solutions. . . from a “team” perspective.
And while the students are certainly part of “the team roster,” school teams consist of administrators, related service professionals, teachers and instructional specialists, and support staff—like secretaries, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and paraprofessionals.
All of them should be contributing members of “the team.”
Comparatively, an NFL football team typically has 12 coaches, 53 men on its “game-day” roster, and another 16 players on the practice (or taxi) squad... in addition to staff who, for example, include advanced scouts, athletic trainers, game videographers, data analysts, and others.
The essential team questions—whether we are talking about a school or the Detroit Lions—are:
Does your Team have:
· The interdependent talent with the skills, experience, motivation, and commitment to succeed?
For schools, this ultimately involves the Teachers in the classrooms.
For an NFL Team, this ultimately involves
the Players on the field.
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· The evidence-based blueprints to facilitate success?
For schools, this involves the academic curricula with their scope and sequences, as well as the social, emotional, and behavioral components that focus on student self-management.
For an NFL Team, this involves the
playbooks for the offense, defense, and special teams, respectively, and how
they are applied to specific opponents.
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· The leadership to guide player development?
For schools, this involves the Administrators, Supervisors, Instructional Coaches, and Related Service Consultants.
For an NFL Team, this involves the
Head Coach and the different Position Coaches.
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· The culture, belief, dedication, persistence, and resilience to consistently act as a Team for “the greater good”?
For schools and NFL teams, this
involves everyone. . . but for schools, it also necessarily involves the
students, their voices and needs, and their active commitment and involvement.
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Significantly, success for an NFL team is measured in wins and championships.
Success for a school
is measured in students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral
learning, progress, proficiency, and graduation with the skills needed for
post-graduation success.
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Classroom Behavior and Teachers
As noted above, everyone on a successful team needs to have (a) the skills, experience, motivation, and commitment to succeed (b) in an organizational culture that (c) nurtures and reinforces everyone’s “team-first” beliefs, dedication, persistence, and resilience to consistently act for “the greater good.”
Thus, to truly address the student behavior and classroom management challenges also noted above, schools need to strategically apply their organization’s culture and team talent to (a) analyzing and understanding their present social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in order to (b) address, diminish, or resolve them.
In most cases, this necessarily starts in every classroom, and involves every teacher—individually, within their grade-level team and/or academic department, and as a member of the entire school community.
Individually, teachers must recognize that—as an extension of their grade-level, department, and school teams—they are responsible for:
· Creating and sustaining positive, safe, and productive classroom learning environments;
· Identifying, teaching, prompting, and reinforcing students’ expected social, emotional, and behavioral skills; and
· Analyzing and strategically addressing—once again, individually, within their grade-level teams or departments, or through their administrative and/or related service supports—the students who are not conforming or responding to classroom norms.
While even veteran teachers periodically struggle with classroom management (needing coaching and other supports), it is important that schools with the student, peer, classroom, and schoolwide challenges especially analyze the classroom management skills and student interactions of teachers who are (a) new to the profession, and/or (b) new to the school.
There are at least three reasons for this recommendation:
· Teacher Training. Decades of published studies analyzing colleges of education across the country have consistently found that the instruction and supervision of graduates’ classroom management knowledge and skill is sorely lacking.
These knowledge and skill gaps are
even more pronounced for many teachers certified through alternative education
programs.
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· Teacher Research. As but one example, a methodologically well-done study in Educational Researcher (“Troublemakers? The Role of Frequent Teacher Referrers in Expanding Racial Disciplinary Disproportionalities;” June 14, 2023) analyzed the characteristics of the referring teachers and the “misbehaving” students from over 75,000 office discipline referrals (ODRs) in a large, racially-diverse urban school district in California during the 2016-2017 through 2019-2020 school years.
Analyzing the teachers responsible for
the top 5% of the district’s ODRs, the study determined that (a) this involved
only 1.7% of all teachers; (b) Black and Hispanic students were overrepresented
among the students referred by these “top referrers”; (c) teachers who were
White, early career, and serving in middle schools did the most referring; and
(d) after 3 years of classroom experience, the likelihood of being a top
referrer quickly dropped—except in Middle schools where the top referrers’ ODRs
did not decrease until they had at least 11 years of experience.
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· Teacher Supervision and Evaluation. As but one example here, another well-done study in Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis (“’Refining’ Our Understanding of Early Career Teacher Skill Development: Evidence from Classroom Observations;” January 10, 2025) analyzed the instructional progress of 25,000 novice teachers in Tennessee, based on their principals’ observational data from Tennessee’s teacher-evaluation system.
In this system, principals’ classroom observations had to identify one focus area for improvement from among 19 instructional skills—including, for example, teacher questioning, presenting content, behavior management, and problem-solving.
Critically, the researchers found, among the 25% of new teachers who received the lowest overall evaluation scores, administrators were most likely to identify weak behavior management skills.
By contrast, the highest-performing
new teachers looked more like veteran teachers when it came to these skills.
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Taken altogether, once again, schools whose staff report continuing student behavior and classroom management challenges should first analyze where these challenges are occurring and with whom.
Without blaming these teachers, these analyses should especially look at new or novice (less than three years of experience) teachers.
Critically: Why should anyone be surprised that new teachers sometimes have the most classroom management problems?
While most schools. . . and NFL teams. . . have teachers and players, respectively, who are emerging or seasoned veterans with five or more years of successful team experience, they also have new teachers or new players (“rookies”), respectively.
To be successful, new teachers and rookie NFL players, respectively, need to embrace the organization’s positive, “team-first” culture while learning (a) the “plays” and how to execute them; (b) how to be good teammates; and (c) how to contribute—in the classroom or on the field—to student (for schools) or championship (for NFL teams) outcomes.
For teachers, part of this contribution is classroom management.
Moreover: Just as NFL rookies get more instruction, coaching, evaluation, and feedback before they participate in actual games, new and novice teachers need the same opportunities.
The problem is: Many times, they don’t.
In fact, new and novice teachers are almost always immediately put “into the game.”
That is, these teachers are independently placed in charge of their classrooms on the first day of school. . . with little “pre-season” training, coaching, evaluation, and feedback.
Kind of scary. . .
isn’t it?
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Classroom Behavior and the Evidence-based Blueprint that Facilitates Success
Successful NFL teams have well-designed and proven offensive, defensive, and special teams’ playbooks.
Relative to student behavior and classroom management, many schools. . . not so much.
The ultimate goal of a “student behavior and classroom management playbook” is to motivate, teach, prompt, and reinforce or correct students’ social, emotional, and behavioral self-management skills.
Just as an NFL team’s best defense is a good offense, a school’s Tier 1 prevention system helps minimize students’ behavioral challenges and the need for more intensive Tier 2 and 3 services, supports, and interventions.
Across ten years of Blogs (and many publications), we have discussed the five proven, evidence-based, and interdependent components that schools need in their playbook.
Let’s listen to AI Educators Angela Jones and Davey Johnson on their Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive podcast of this Blog as they integrate our discussion thus far and expand on the school blueprint more specifically.
When you “FOLLOW” this podcast, you are automatically notified when each bi-monthly podcast is posted.
Briefly, the evidence-based blueprint for school discipline success has the following five interdependent components:
· Positive School and Classroom Climate, and Staff and Peer Relationships;
· Explicit Prosocial Behavioral Expectations in classrooms and common school areas, and Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill Instruction;
· Student Motivation and Accountability;
· Consistency and Fidelity—relative to the implementation of all the above components; and
· Special Situations—the application of the components above to all school settings, all peer interactions, and those students who need more strategic or intensive services and supports.
Critically, these same components are present in a sound and successful NFL football team. They are introduced and taught especially during the preseason and reinforced and extended during every practice before a regular season or playoff game.
More specifically, sound and successful NFL teams ensure that their offensive, defensive, and special team units:
· Develop positive relationships in the midst of a supportive, but competitive climate;
· Learn and master their playbooks to automaticity;
· Are motivated and self-accountable;
· Demonstrate consistent play during each game, as well as those across the entire season; and
·
Apply their skills in different weather
conditions, at both home and away games, when different players are injured and
are unable to play, and after disappointing losses.
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To expand the school blueprint more specifically:
·
Positive
School and Classroom Climates, and Staff and Peer Relationships
This component focuses on building strong, positive
relationships across same-grade and cross-grade students, across teachers and
other staff and administrators in the school, across students and staff, and
across students and staff and parents and others in the community. It also
includes activities and expectations that build and sustain support for
students from different backgrounds (relative, for example, to gender, race,
culture, religion, sexual orientation).
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· Explicit
Prosocial Behavioral Expectations in the Classrooms and Common School areas,
and Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill Instruction
This component is anchored by an evidence-based social
skills program that is taught by classroom teachers at every grade level, and
that focuses on teaching, modeling, practicing, and applying social and
behavioral skills (e.g., Listening, Following Direction, Asking for Help,
Ignoring Distractions, Dealing with Teasing, Accepting Consequences). It also
includes student training in emotional awareness, control, communication, and
coping so that students can demonstrate or perform their social skills even under
conditions of emotionality.
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·
Student
Motivation and Accountability
This component focuses on the
developmentally-appropriate incentives and consequences, respectfully, that
motivate appropriate, prosocial student behavior, and the differential
responses needed to hold students accountable for inappropriate, anti-social
behavior. This area includes the development (if needed) of a progressive,
tiered school Behavioral Code of Conduct, and how to implement it in equitable
ways, eliminating disproportionality—especially for students of color and with
disabilities.
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·
Consistency
and Fidelity
This component focuses on how to train and reinforce
staff and students in the consistent implementation of the activities and
processes in the three component areas above. . . so that they are used and
applied as empirically designed and with fidelity. Clearly, if evidence-based
processes are not implemented with the consistency (across, for example, time,
people, settings, and situations), integrity, and intensity needed to
facilitate or change behavior, then they will not work or will take longer to
work. This can create a resistance or distrust of the change process that
potentially undermines current and future change efforts.
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·
Special
Situations
This component addresses the more complex,
multi-dimensional behaviors related to (a) the school’s Common Areas; (b)
peer-driven psychosocial interactions (including teasing, taunting, bullying,
harassment, hazing, and physical aggression); and (c) the multi-tiered services,
supports, and interventions needed by students who are not responding to
effective school discipline and classroom management approaches.
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Classroom Behavior and Administrators
Finally, leadership skills are essential whether you are the Head Coach of an NFL football team or a School Principal. Critically, neither leader simply “talked” their way into the position.
Many head coaches played in the NFL themselves. And they spent many years coaching different parts of a football team. . . often under the tutelage of a Head Coach who saw their potential and mentored them.
Many school principals were classroom teachers. And they spent many years in different school leadership positions. . . again, under the tutelage of Principals and others who saw their leadership potential.
But as reinforced above, both Head Coaches and School Principals need to have a great support staff, a sound playbook, and players or teachers, respectively, who are skilled, experienced, motivated, and committed.
One leader does not
a team make.
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Relative to the continuing student discipline and classroom management challenges noted by many schools across the country, school principals need to actively and consistently do the following:
· Be Present—at staff problem analysis and intervention planning meetings, at professional development and coaching and feedback sessions, interacting in the classrooms and the common areas of the school, and working side-by-side with staff who are working with students to make things better.
· Be Knowledgeable—about the school’s discipline and classroom model, and the components and activities being implemented by staff with or on behalf of students. Here, principals need to have the knowledge and skills such that they could walk into a classroom or situation and implement the model fluidly and with integrity.
· Be Respectful and Empathetic—when interacting with classroom teachers, students, other instructional and support staff, and other administrative colleagues. High levels of emotionality or disregard only increase the chances of the same reactions in others.
· Be Humble—by knowing when to take the lead and when to delegate, when to make a decision and when to defer to others, when to give encouragement and when to express disappointment, and when to press ahead and when to back off and regroup.
· Be Aware of and Comfortable with—the difference between a student’s discipline problem, and the problem that reflects a social, emotional, or behavioral student challenge. Discipline problems usually change when strategically-chosen disciplinary actions are implemented. Social, emotional, or behavioral challenges are only responsive to strategically-chosen services, supports, and/or interventions.
Once again—as
embodied by Lions’ Head Coach Dan Campbell—these characteristics explain how
his team went from 3 to 9 to 12 to 15 wins over the past four years. . . but
also why he reacted to his team’s 45-31 loss last week.
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A Final Lesson
There’s one more lesson to learn from Coach Campbell.
If you watch the video of his press conference again, you see him say:
· “We fell short;”
· “It just hurts to lose;”
· “It was just one of those odd days;”
· “Things were just off” right from the beginning of the football game;
· “It was a ripple effect;”
· “We just didn’t play great;”
· “We couldn’t get over the hump;”
· “I wish I had a better answer;”
· “I’ve got to spend some time to look at it and figure it out;” and
·
“It’s my fault—I didn’t have them ready.”
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Whether we are talking about classroom teachers, school administrators, or any staff group in between. . . there are times—even with the best players, playbook, past, and potential—that things just don’t go as planned.
Sometimes, the students are just “off”. . . it’s just an “odd day”. . . teachers can’t “get over the hump.”
For these days, tomorrow is another day.
But if there are too many of “these days,” the school needs to analyze (a) the talent; (b) evidence-based blueprints; (c) leadership; and (d) the culture, beliefs, dedication, persistence, and resilience of the school and its teams.
Remember: Students rarely fix their own social, emotional, or behavioral problems, and they rarely “mature” out of these challenging patterns.
While they need to be part of the solution, educators (and parents) need to take the lead.
A school may not have a “winning record” right now relative to student behavior and classroom management.
But—like the
Detroit Lions—we can turn things around. . . if we just “listen” to Dan
Campbell.
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Summary
This Blog described a recent nationally-representative Education Week Research Center survey of educators across the country that found that student discipline and classroom management continues to get worse post-pandemic.
We then asserted that students are not going to fix themselves (and that there are no quick fixes), and that everyone in an affected school—especially teachers and administrators—needs to be part of the problem analysis and strategic solutions.
The remainder of the Blog used Dan Campbell, the Head Coach of the National Football League’s (NFL) Detroit Lions, and how he handled his recent press conference after his team lost a playoff game that they were overwhelming favorites to win.
We used his reaction to the loss—even in the face of his team’s significant improvements under his leadership the past four years—to compare the characteristics of a successful football team specifically to what schools need to do to solve their current student behavior and classroom management problems.
In short, we discussed school leadership and “player development,” the talent and training needed, the “playbook” toward effective school and classroom discipline, and the importance of school culture and commitment.
We closed by encouraging
schools to start now on this road to improvement. . . again emphasizing that
there are no quick fixes. . . you’ve got to put in the work to earn the rewards.
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A New Podcast and Professional Development Resource for You
At the beginning of this month, we announced a new partnership and resource for you.
The partnership is with popular AI Educators, Davey Johnson and Angela Jones. . . and the resource is their Podcast:
Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive
For each bimonthly Blog message that I publish, Davey and Angela will summarize and analyze the Blog in their free-wheeling and “no-holds-barred” Podcast. . . addressing its importance to “education today,” and discussing their recommendations on how to apply the information so that all students, staff, and schools benefit to “the next level of excellence.”
You can find the Podcast at the following link:
Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive | Podcast on Spotify
Davey and Angela have already created a Podcast Archive of more than 35 additional and separate podcasts reflecting involving all of our 2024 Blogs (Volume 2), and 14 of our most-popular Blogs from 2023 (Volume 1).
The Podcasts are posted on Spotify, and you can “Follow” the Podcast Series so that you will be automatically notified whenever a new Podcast is posted.
Many districts and schools are using the Podcasts in their Leadership Teams and/or PLCs to keep everyone abreast of new issues and research in education, and to stimulate important discussions and decisions regarding the best ways to enhance student, staff, and school outcomes.
If you would like to follow a Podcast up with a free one-hour consultation with me, just contact me and we will get it on our schedules.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Best,
Howie
[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]
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[To listen to a synopsis and analysis of this Blog on the “Improving
Education Today: The Deep Dive” podcast hosted by popular AI
Educators, Angela Jones and Davey Johnson on Spotify: CLICK
HERE for Angela and Davey’s Enlightening Discussion]
