Classroom Management Philosophy

Classroom Management: Philosophy

My ideal of classroom management is should be almost "invisible" unless you're specifically looking for it. I strive for management techniques to be as unobtrusive as feasible toward the end of creating a safe, interesting and challenging space for students.

While strategies for specific behavioral issues are important, the first step is to attempt to reduce incidences of such problems by ensuring students a safe environment, appropriate and interesting curriculum, and some voice in classroom matters. I agree with Kounin that teaching and discipline are not separate but interrelated and must be developed in conjunction (Charles, 1999). Rules should be based on mutual respect and safety, and the consequences should fit the cause.

My own teaching style tends to be laidback. However, I am good at initiating one-on-one contact with students and I make it a point to treat them with respect (I expect the same in return). I also wish to develop a varied curriculum that elicits student interest and involvement and that is flexible with respect to multiple learning styles. Students should have the opportunity to learn in depth no matter what their ability or communication style.

I am under no illusions that this will be easy, but I can reach toward this goal by offering lessons with multiple and meaningful entry points, giving students some flexibility in how they carry out projects or homework assignments, and building cooperative learning norms in which students are accountable for each other's ability to understand.

Classroom Management: Rules

The trinity of ideas behind any rules should be mutual respect, practicality, and safety: many "rules," I think, will be some specific encapsulation of one or more of these principles. To this end, I will work at establishing certain classroom norms at the beginning of the year and reinforcing them throughout the year. Be polite, be constructive and the implicit be relevant.

I am not a stickler for specific rules and strict discipline unless privileges are abused, in which case they need to be discussed and action taken. For example, if students can eat and drink small amounts of food and beverages without leaving a mess behind, I have no problem with it. Likewise, a bathroom pass will be available to one student at a time, though the privilege may have to be renegotiated if one or several students abuse(s) it. I do plan to insist on a few specific norms. Students should be polite to me and to each other, and I will in turn be polite to them. This doesn't preclude friendly banter; after all, respect can manifest itself informally.

For the sake of consistency, I believe it is necessary to adhere to school-wide rules. A discussion of these rules and the reasons behind them may help students understand the value of social norms even if they do not necessarily agree with those particular norms. I am not, however, averse to helping students attempt to change or mitigate school-wide rules in a dialogue with the administration if this is something they can justify and are motivated to carry out.

Classroom Management: Procedures

There are some specific norms I would insist on. Students should be prepared by the time the bell rings. To that end, I would start class with a warm-up exercise related to the previous day's material or a brainteaser, and have the day's agenda easily visible on the board, with a copy of the year's agendas-so-far kept in a binder in the room.

I would also like to have a prearranged signal that lets students know that "the teacher has something to say, listen up!" such as a rainstick or an "attention spot" where I (or someone else) could stand. Finally, the bell is a signal to the teacher, not to the students; I expect students to work until the end-of-class summary, and only to leave when dismissed.Classroom

Management: Techniques

Bill Rogers' positive correction focuses on prevention of undesired behavior through an "establishment phase" for norms (and thus, addressing problems at the source) while offering specific and targeted suggestions for dealing with the disruptions that do occur. This, and the acknowledgement that "8.5 out of 10" means you're doing what can be done (i.e. there's no easy fix-it-all solution) are strengths of his system that I would like to take advantage of.

First, Rogers advocates the "principle of least intrusion" in intervention, which helps prevent escalating problems. A good deal of his advice hinges on ways to avoid confrontation: partial agreement, open (as opposed to closed) questions, offering students choices, and tactical ignoring (choose your battles wisely). This results in responses that are proportionate to the actual issue and helps prevent small incidents or reactions to "secondary behavior," such as talking back or demeanor, from turning the entire class topsy-turvy; it also affords students a chance to save face before their peers. These are all techniques that I hope to incorporate, both because they seem effective most of the time and because they are fair to the students as well as the teacher.

Another strength is Rogers' consistency in even seemingly trivial things, such as body language. While Rogers' particular gestures and signals provoke laughter easily, he notes that gestural systems are individual to the teacher. The idea (if not his execution) is attractive in that gestures and posture are less overt than words and can often convey a lot in a short period of time. A related aspect of this is that he emphasizes "certainty, not severity" since the fact of a sure consequence is more important than its possible severity.

Finally, he focuses on the relationship between students and teachers, which is an easily neglected aspect of behavior management. I find his notion of "repairing and rebuilding" after a consequence is meted out quite useful: after all (if things go well), the teacher will be seeing the same student (and vice versa) during the next class, and the next after that. This is one example of the "four R's": rights, responsibilities, routines, and rules. The first two focus on such relationships while the last two are more concerned with ways to maintain positive relationships. Not only does Rogers provide an ideal to strive toward, he gives concrete, specific advice on how to do so.My own observation in this area is that if a student is lashing out there's a reason for it. People make decisions and take actions because, from some internal cost-benefit calculation (even if they don't frame it as such), they find those decisions and actions less compelling than the alternatives. Students do not walk into classrooms and say to themselves, "Today I'm going to make the teacher's life hell." They might, however, walk into the classroom and say to themselves, "My parents are getting divorced, I'm bored since I don't understand anything we've done for the last week, and being a jerk always gets me a laugh from my friends." The difficult part for me as a teacher is in developing enough of a relationship with students to find out what internal lens is making their actions seem reasonable.

I am reluctant to use Rogers as my only model of classroom management since, as mentioned above, he deals specifically with tackling behavior issues at a surface rather than root level. Rogers, alas, can't tell me how I might make my curriculum more engaging, challenging and relevant to students while supporting real learning. However, positive correction is flexible enough that it can be combined with other approaches.

Classroom Management: Bibliography

Charles, C. (1999). Building Classroom Discipline, 6th ed. New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2000). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.