It’s Spring Break, and I’m desperately trying to get back to regular blogging. You know you’ve been gone too long when the only people who want to comment on your blog are those selling flyxmiglpluff and other helpful remedies and vague services.
Anyway, if you haven’t noticed the recent debates/commentaries on classroom management, you don’t get out into the blogosphere enough, so I’ll bring it to you.
dy/dan posted about classroom management, Dangerously Irrelevant then one-upped with some youtube videos of teachers gone wild (and not in the high-spirited Spring Break fashion, but perhaps with a similar after-thought of “Oh, man, I hope my parents don’t see this.”). Then Mr. K at Math Stories chimed in with what was a complete “aha!” comment for me:
“What the “good” teachers do:So, at this school at least, discipline is a huge part of being able to teach at all, much less well. Many of the teachers are successful. They have well run organized classrooms, their students are engaged and learning, and succeeding at it. In talking with one of them, we came to the realization that there are a lot of different styles, but they all have at least one thing in common:
The classroom is culturally isolated from the rest of the school.
Teachers stand at the doors, and do a brain check on each kid as they come into the classroom. Every kid is given some sort of reminder that that door is a threshold, that when they cross it, the rules change, the expectations change, and their behavior better change. Those classrooms are little individual fortresses, and the successful teachers bring in the kids, but have set up barriers to keep the bad behavior out.”
I do, in fact, stand at the door between each period, but what is so illuminating about what Mr. K says is that I do often feel as if I’m establishing a contract with students in which certain behaviors will not be indulged in my classroom, and I know the other effective teachers out there do the same. Over at Joanne Jacobs, I commented about the gray areas between “show ‘em who’s boss” management styles and the fallacy that its only alternative is some sort of “let’s all gather and hold hands” soft approach.
It’s a social contract, with the heavier responsibilities and behavior restrictions actually lying (rightfully so) on the teacher’s shoulders. In return for the students’ agreement to behave civilly and responsibly, to communicate their needs and dissatisfaction in an appropriate manner, and to reject inappropriate behavior within the classroom walls, the teacher’s portion of my personal, internal contract (the one I relay to them through my actions throughout the year) reads something like this:
1. I promise to make my directions, daily agendas, and expectations clear. I promise to clarify them when you are confused without expressing frustration or impatience with you.
2. I promise to be consistent with any disciplinary consequences I may have to enact. I promise to give adequate warning and opportunities to change your behavior before enacting disciplinary consequences. I promise to notice and express gratitude for changes in behavior, especially if they occur spontaneously.
3. I promise to keep your working environment clean and organized. (This is one I hold especially dear, which I know a lot of people don’t. It’s one of my personal notions of professionalism, which extends to the classroom where students are required to be.)
4. I promise never to enact group punishment for individual behavior, nor to threaten it in order to gain your attention/compliance.
5. I promise to communicate my dissatisfaction with inappropriate behavior in a calm and responsible way, not to let it build up until I explode.
In the end, though, I’ve realized over the years this contract isn’t solely for the benefit of students - it’s also for my own, and often benefits me more than them. This is the contract I make with myself, for the students of today, tomorrow, 2009, 2010, and etc. I make this contract with myself every year before I make it with the students, because I know that in holding myself to these expectations I am consciously establishing the behavior with which I will approach adverse situations, the parameters within which I will create an atmosphere of high expectations and rigorous learning for students, and the behavioral model for myself that I will consistently strive to achieve.
Now, I realize I may have lost a few readers with the paucity of my posting of late, but if you do go and peruse the blogs and muse over the issue, I hope you’ll leave some thoughts here to add to the conversation. What’s in your contract? What events have tested that contract? How do you approach classroom management? Etc.