Abstract
This qualitative research aims to describe the challenges and strategies applied by primary school teachers in Mataram in conducting classroom management. This study was designed with a narrative approach to express the teacher's experience in conducting the classroom management. Data were collected through interviews, observation, and documentation namely lesson plan and teacher's notes dealing with the implementation of classroom teaching and learning. The research found that the main challenges of teachers in managing classrooms are the teachers' understanding of classroom management and their assumptions about good students. For teachers, good students are students who obey the teacher's orders and have high motivation in learning, while the class is considered as physical environment that is entirely under the teacher's responsibility to be arranged. Regarding classroom management strategies, teachers tend to be reactive with a primary focus on the physical aspects and less attention on the social-emotional aspects of the class. When dealing with students' behavior problems, the teacher prefers a behavioristic approach. Thus, this study recommends that teachers should be given a wider access to the development of classroom management theory and practice so that they are able to develop integrative class management by involving students as the learning subjects. The future researches need to be directed to measure the effects of classroom management strategies on other variables such as learning motivation, attitudes toward teachers and learning material, student learning involvement, and the learning outcomes.