Controlling all the children in your class is not
something that one teacher can do easily, instead a teacher needs to coach the
students to control their own behavior inside of the classroom. This is
something that I feel Metzger stresses in her letter. In my own experiences I
have learned that solid rules and clear consequences for not following rules
are the best combatant for undesirable behavior. And of course the consequences
need to be followed through upon. If anyone working with children gives clear
rules and regularly goes over the rules, the children will be able to recite
them and will police themselves.
With
solid rules and consequences, I have noticed that it is a lot easier to deal
with those that may not follow the rules and need be redirected. The vice
principal at District C told us that he never says he is mad but rather that he
is disappointed. The children I work with do not ever want to upset the staff
members and often act on emotion without thinking through their actions. When
this happens I find the best method is to isolate students and explain why
their behavior is less than acceptable. The first question I start with is
“why?”. Often this is met with an answer that they don’t know so I break down
everything that happened and we figure out where bad decisions were made, why,
and the correct approach. Then I normally express how their behavior makes me
feel, and when they understand that the behavior effects everyone negatively,
they think a little bit more before acting.
The
most important thing I feel is that you should not get into a power struggle
with a student. The most important thing to remember is that you are the
teacher and have the ultimate power. Children will try to drag you down to
their level. A teacher needs to diffuse situations instead of heightening them,
and that is something that Metzger mentions in her letter. But the most
important thing to control classrooms, or any groups of children, is to have a
plan and solid rules and consequences. A cool site for classroom management
ideas is this one: https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos?landing_page=Classroom+Culture+Behavior+Landing+Page&gclid=COy0qaDotboCFU9o7AodI0cAfg
I believe discipline starts at home. I never had any disciplinary problems because I was raised to respect people and be courteous. Now, if that's not the case, then I agree that discipline should be handled in such a way that it is tailored to each student. If a teacher in high school had told me that they were disappointed in me, I probably would have cried, but there are other students who laugh in the face of being expelled or suspended, so for these students, the discipline should be different. Of course, this requires that the teacher know their students well, if as a teacher I know that one particularly hard headed student is deathly afraid of their mother, well.....guess who I'm calling when they act up.
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