I just returned from my last class of the day in which we had a guest speaker come in and discuss her experiences relating to classroom management in the Catholic School Board. With all the information that I took from the lecture, there are a few messages that stood out the most for me:
- Don't just manage the class, you should also teach the class how to behave when you are not around;
- The best teachers are those that you most often find attending seminars and workshops on how to improve their practice and grow as professionals;
- There is a difference between being equal in the classroom and being fair and it is up to you as a teacher to ensure that your class understands why one student's learning experiences may differ form their own (differentiated learning);
- Having IF...THEN... rules set the stage to allow children to do bad things and break the rules, becuase it is expected, due to a discipline already set in place. Schools should adopt a philosophy of "At our school, we are kind to one another, etc." Use the At this school, or at our school phrases to better reach the students;
- Tell students what to do, instead of constantly telling them what not to do;
- Practice your recess with the class, practice going to a service of any kind. Don't just assume that your class will listen and behave appropriately the day of with no prior learning (i.e. need to practice math before they are tested on the subject);
- Role play hurtful situations with your students to teach respect among peers;
- Finally, the last message I took from the lecture was that children do well when they can, if they cannot do well, then we need to find a way to help them.
I found that I learned quite a bit from our guest speaker and as you see, these are only a few of the points discussed in our lecture. The main idea of the day was to allow for your class to practice being behaved and respecting one another, don't just assume it will occur naturally. Guide them to where you want them to be as a teacher and stay aware of the individual needs of your students and be willing to grow as a professional to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to benefit from your lessons and teaching.
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I accidentally pressed "Publish Your Comment"....
What I meant to say, was that I find the "IF...THEN..." idea very interesting. It seems that no matter how hard schools try to implement the ideas of helping one another, being kind, etc., some students will always force an "if...then.." set of rules.
Take for example the grade 7's and 8's at my school. Generally they are a phenomenal group of kids. Compared to other schools in the area they really are little angels. But there are still a few trouble-makers, and the teachers did not want to go the entire year letting situations slide, and ultimately allowing every student to participate in their year-end trip, no matter how well (or not well) they had behaved during the year.
As a result, they began a system of points. Each student began with 3 points. If they were great and caused no problems, at the end of each month, they could earn another point. They needed at least 1 or 2 points to go on the trip, and 10 to earn an award at the end of the year; however, there were students already within one week who had misbehaved and lost one or two points. The students could never go below zero and could earn back their points through helping around the school community for a length of time, but honestly, I don't quite see that happening.....
There really is a fine line between hoping/expecting students to behave and relying on a system of checks and balances. There will always be kids who cause trouble, whether or not you "expect" them to misbehave.
I wish we could all live in the ideal world where students think for themselves and don't run around being little hell-raisers. But then, from where would the excitement come in our day? ;)
Another thought - part of this has to do with how well the teachers are stressing the "at our school, we are kind to one another" philosophies. I saw very little of that...especially in the intermediate grades. Who knows what would happen if teachers stuck to their beliefs and discussed them mover often with the students?
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