One of the most important tools you'll ever retrieve from your classroom-management toolkit is the skill of effective, compassionate discipline. The great Tibetan-American Buddhist monk Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says in his book How to Solve Our Human Problems: “Discipline is like a great earth that supports and nurtures the crops…”

In other words, if you never discipline your students, if you never give them the terra firma of solid values and firm moral precepts they're secretly yearning for, they'll never develop into good, honest, responsible citizens.

But maybe you're a kind-hearted soul, and you believe that children should be free to dance in the sun, leap with joy, and follow their natural instincts. Well, there's some truth to that — kids should have the freedom to play, explore, and test some of the limits of their environment.

But there's a time and place for everything, and you and your students must have enough training and discipline to know what to do, what not to do, when to do certain things, and when not to do certain things. You can teach as beautifully as you please, but if most of the class is yakking and gossiping, your efforts are wasted.

Do you need more convincing that discipline is crucial to effectively manage your classroom? Then refer to the writings of the respected American businesswoman and counselor Phyllis York, as she discusses heartbreaking cases of rebellious, pathetic youngsters who wind up in juvenile court because of the unwillingness of parents and teachers to impose discipline. York concludes that what's needed is “a tough but loving solution for our tragic contemporary problem.”

That “tough love” solution includes consistently pointing out students' misbehavior when it interferes with the good order of the classroom, correcting the misbehavior, and modeling courteous behavior yourself as much as possible.

You'll learn how disciplining is actually a form of love — because people who don't care about kids never bother to discipline them. But if you genuinely care, you'll correct misbehavior, for the kids' sake.