Classroom management

The first day back from holidays and we had a three-day seminar on classroom management. We looked at different types of power and then looked at four different types of students.

Legitimate power refers to that granted through a position, for example, police have conferred power, and to some extent teachers do too. Reward power is granted when one uses a carrot to convince someone to do something. e.g. when you finish your work we’ll play a game. Coercive power is that gained through the threat of punishment. Expert power occurs when one person has knowledge that another wants to receive. Finally, Referent power comes from the respect acquired through meaningful relationships. Supposedly, with all students, legitimate and coercive power usage is the least effective, and referent power the most.

Ray, the guy giving the seminar, went on to talk about four types of students:
A students are those who are self-managing. They will organise themselves to learn the curriculum.
B students are occasionally disruptive in class, but do not have to be isolated or referred to others.
C students need to be isolated or referred to others for behaviour management; and
D students generally seem unmanageable no matter what is attempted.

He said that when you first set up a classroom, the teacher needs to elicit a set of rights and responsibilities that come from, and are agreed to by all students. Rules are really bad, because by definition they come from outside the students and are thus disempowering. The rights and responsibilities should cover two areas: that students have the right to do as much work as possible in the classroom and that everyone has the right to feel safe. Just about all discipline problems will fall into one of these areas. The next step is to encourage responsibility rather than obedience. Individual and group responsibility. The latter involves students encouraging peers to behave appropriately as well as themselves.

A students should only need hints to get them back on track. This involves low intrusion responses such as pausing, walking closer, or glancing at a student casually. A verbal intrusion should be non-specific such as describing the general situation in the class or restating expectations. They shouldn’t need rewards or recognition because the behaviour itself, and knowledge of their own maturity should be enough of a reward. This set up huge disagreement within the class as many people felt that everyone appreciates rewards and recognition.

B students respond well to praise and recognition. When they out of line the inappropriate behaviour should be identified, why it is inappropriate clarified, and the corresponding appropriate behaviour pointed out.

C students are a little more difficult and often need to be dealt with out of class. Ray talked a lot about the difference between being in your “adult” and “child” space. This isn’t about age. When we get emotional, we all revert to our child (me especially), which has a tendency to be self-absorbed and petulant. The trick is, when reprimanding a student, to get them into their adult space where they can be reasoned with. This involves always staying calm as a teacher and a manipulated conversation that doesn’t ask why questions, but gets the student to acknowledge their behaviour was unreasonable.

D students supposedly, don’t believe they are liked, and their behaviour stems from a whole host of other stuff. The trick is to separate the student and their behaviour and make them feel important and liked.

With all this stuff, building relationships was the most important factor in classroom management, which makes sense. One odd thing that came up half way through the last day though, was a discussion about the difference between first and second born children. Ray believes that all first borns carry the weight of their parents’ expectations on their shoulders and are doomed perfectionists. Thus, they shouldn’t be teachers as nothing will ever be god enough in their quest to save the world. Second borns, on the other hand, are carefree and happy go lucky, whilst third borns don’t count! Me as a 15yr gap accident supposedly falls into the trap of a born-again first-born. Lucky me! However, Ray turned out to be a born-again behviourist, which lost him a lot of credibility in my book.

Another interesting side-not which came up was an understanding of how Ritalin works. I had never understood how giving a hyperactive kid speed could possibly calm them down. Supposedly their hyperactivity comes from not being able to process all the stimuli received, but the Ritalin helps them process said stimuli faster and thus not go crazy. Intersting.