Welcome to Edutopia Radio. This is School of Practice, where we share what works inside real classrooms. I'm Kristin Leong, an editor at Edutopia, and I'm also a former middle school teacher. Today, we're talking about the look. You know, the silent stare that can stop a student mid-sentence. The look, I think I picked it up by osmosis, perhaps one nudge another, and said she's doing the look
And I realized like, oh, I have it. I found my Capital L, Look. We asked Edutopia's community to share their experiences with the look, and we got so many good responses. The look can be a powerful nonverbal tool for classroom management. When done right, it's quick and versatile, but not punitive. I have many different versions of the look.
I don't use it to instill fear or to intimidate. It's quick, and students know you're serious. The science backs this up. A 2025 study confirms nonverbal tools, like a quick look or moving closer to a chatty student, can curb distracting behaviors without disrupting a lesson. That same study found that expert teachers often rely on these kinds of subtle corrections that
Overlap with the flow of instruction. It's a quick way to send a clear message, and it avoids the kind of direct reprimand that can lead to confrontation with a student. But when we asked if the look is still a useful tool, the responses from our community really varied. The look doesn't always work. Uh, the look always works for me.
I think the look is great. But it's not a day one thing, and it really has to be earned. They have to respect you, and they have to know that you care. Once that is established, then the look is killer. Crystal Frommert has been using the look for 20 years across grade levels. She's here today to discuss the skill that she says unites educators.
We were at a restaurant out to eat and a lot of teachers were sitting together and we started talking about the look. We were teachers from two years of experience to 25 years of experience, so it runs across all range of experiences for educators. Crystal teaches middle school and high school math in New York City, and she's also a co-host of the Learner-Centered Spaces podcast.
She'll tell us how she uses the look and how she adapts it for students who may not pick up on nonverbal cues. Plus, we'll settle the age-old question of whether the look really works on teenagers. Okay. Let's get into it. Crystal, I'd like to start by asking you, how would you describe your look? If I were a student getting into a little mischief in your classroom, what would I see?
If you were a student who looked like you were off task, or if you were talking with somebody at your table when you're supposed to be listening to the speaker, you would see me glance at you pretty expressionless, which is what the students usually are most afraid of to see. Just no expression on my face and maybe just a little cock of the eyebrow, of, you know, "I'm waiting."
And that typically works quite well with my students over the years. So your smile fades away and your eyebrow is raised. What other kinds of body language cues are you using to send a subtle message to students? I'm not a loud person, and I've never had that kind of booming voice, so I have to rely on these subtle cues and looks and proximity to get my point across to students, especially when it's very noisy.
So if your table is talking. Or you're being disruptive in some way. I might just walk over and stand near you, and if I need to look you in the eye and give that, you know, expressionless, little cock of the eyebrow look like I'm waiting. And that usually works quite effectively if I'm standing really close to the student.
And how do you translate the look for students who may not be as fluent in nonverbal communication? You know, I have had students who might struggle with something like that or receive the look in a threatening way, and I have to be careful with that, too. It doesn't work for a hundred percent of our students.
So for those students, maybe they do need a little verbal reminder. One thing I do, I'll give you an example, is if a student is not even looking up the front of the room while I'm talking, I might incorporate his or her name into the lesson. So I'm, you know, talking about perpendicular lines and "Here are the slopes, Kristin, right?"
And all of a sudden, Kristin looks up like, "Oh, is she talking to me?" It's not punitive, I'm not shaming her. I just happen to throw in Kristen's name as I'm talking about perpendicular lines, and that brings her back to the conversation. Okay, so proximity and some neutral voice cues can help students who aren't picking up on the look.
I'm curious to flip this around for a moment and ask: Do you ever remember a teacher using the look on you when you were a student? I was one of those students in school who wanted the teacher to like me. I did everything I needed to do. I was very much a teacher pleaser. But I do remember very specifically that I was probably chatting with a friend in third grade in Mrs.
Allen's class, and she gave our whole table the look. And I think it crushed me for the rest of the day because all I wanted to do was impress Mrs. Allen. Do you remember how you were feeling in that moment when you were on the receiving end of the look? Yes. I think at the time I felt devastated, and I felt like I was really letting her down.
It's nothing about Mrs. Allen. It was all about me. I was that kind of student who was a teacher-pleaser, and that experience has really made me think about my students who are like little Crystal, and I have to be really careful to be gentle around students who just really, really feel shame around any kind of disapproval whatsoever.
Let's stay there for a moment and explore shame a little bit more. How do you navigate the power dynamics between you and your students when you're using the look? Well, you know, you certainly don't wanna embarrass anybody. You wanna know what kind of look would be more effective for a student. For example, some students might need kind of the furrowed brow of, "I'm not pleased with your behavior right now."
That might be a little bit more of a punitive look that a student might need depending on who they are and what they respond to. Or maybe proximity alone might work for that student, and it really does take knowing your kids and knowing how they're gonna respond. It's time for a short break. When we come back, we'll talk about how well the look works across different age groups.
Plus we'll hear from a teacher in Edutopia's community who uses her ears, not her eyes, to manage her high school class. Be right back.
Now I wanna pivot a bit and talk about using the look across different grade levels. You teach middle school and high school right now, but in the past, you've taught at the elementary level. Does the look work differently depending on the age of your students? Yes. I teach mostly middle school for most of my years of teaching, and so that's where I have the most practice with the look, and I've used it
A lot, and it seems to work with almost all middle schoolers. Also, upper elementary seems to work well. High school, though, I'm finding not so much. They just keep doing what they think they need to be doing and sometimes ignore the look or they think it doesn't pertain to them. So I have to be actually a little bit more explicit with my high school students and tell them, "I am waiting for your attention."
The subtle look doesn't always work well with them. Let's stay with older students for a moment. I wanna share a strategy for classroom management that comes from a teacher in our community. I'll play her comment, and then I'd love to get your take on it. This is from Cheryl. She's a high school teacher in Los Angeles.
When I hear the F word in my classroom, I do teach high schoolers and I say, "Please don't use the F word. In my classroom, there are a thousand better adjectives." And invariably when I say that phrase, because I say it to the whole classroom and not just one-on-one, they know through this simple procedure that I'm listening to them, I care about them as they're growing up as young adults, about how they talk, how they present themselves.
It's not the look that I have that quiets down in the classroom. It's my ear. Crystal, what do you think? I also have an ear for inappropriate words. They just seem to jump out in a noisy room, and actually, I do respond with a look. I will look in that direction of where I heard the word and make my eyes really big as I'm shocked and appalled that they would use that word, and I may not even know who said it.
I just look in that direction. And I also do get a collection of, "I'm sorry." Crystal, you have a lot of experience teaching older kids. Before we wrap up, I'm curious to ask: Have you ever had the look backfire on you? This is a pretty extreme situation, but if I'm giving a look, it could provoke a student to be like, "What?"
"What are you looking at me like that for?" And I back off. I don't want to provoke the student any further, and then I'll follow up when the situation has calmed down, but that has happened. So this actually leads directly into my next question, and it's a big one: Is the look still effective with kids?
We asked our community and their responses were very mixed. But I'm curious, what are you hearing from other teachers? Do you think the look still works? I think it's still effective and I think it's something we need to keep using. Again, you know, with just care and caution and making sure we know how our students will respond to it.
And what would you say to teachers who say things like, "kids these days, the look just doesn't work with our students that we have now"? Teachers for centuries have been saying kids these days, I think every generation has their complaints about the younger generation. Of course, you know, we could have various reasons: technology, video games, the internet, but I think that's something we as educators need to be careful about because kids are kids, and I wouldn't
Give up on the look. I think it is still gonna work on this generation.
Here are three things I'm taking away from this conversation. One, the look is probably not a day one classroom management strategy. Before you use it, you need to build trust and respect with your students, and that takes time. But according to the educators we spoke with, the look isn't a gimmick either.
It's a tool that can help you keep your class on track, and the research backs that up. If you're just getting started with it, there are some great tips in an Edutopia article by Rebecca Alber. She teaches at UCLA's Graduate School of Education, and in the article, she describes how she learned to do the look.
Two, don't forget about other nonverbal strategies for connecting with students. When I was a teacher, proximity was my go-to. I became pretty smooth at delivering instruction while quietly resting my hand on the desk of a student who needed a little reminder to pay attention. And three, I wanna leave you with one idea from Rebecca Alber's article that really resonated with me.
She writes that the look is "an expression that conveys this idea. 'I see you. I am on your side, but you know what the task at hand is.'" Special thanks to our guest, Crystal Frommert. She's a middle and high school math teacher in New York City. She also co-hosts the Learner-Centered Spaces podcast. And if you wanna check out Rebecca Alber's Edutopia article about the look, just click the link in our episode notes.
It's well worth a read. Thanks also to the members of our community who contributed their experiences with the look to this episode. You heard Cheryl Nesbitt in Los Angeles in the conversation, and you also heard some of our hotline callers at the very top. Ashley, Kathleen, Darren, Grace, Catherine, Lori, Michelle, Peg, and Sarah.
We love hearing from our community. Send us your stories, ideas, and questions and let us know what you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Our email is podcasts@edutopia.org. If you like this episode, follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode.
And please tell a colleague about the show. This episode was produced by Anne Noyes Saini and edited by me. Our engineer is Doug Keely, and our supervising editors are Sarah Gonser and Steve Merrill. Special thanks to Youki Terada, Kenie Richards, Samar Rabadi, and Madison Shumway. I'm Kristin Leong. We'll see you again soon.