Teens are impulsive. That spontaneity is part of their charm. And it’s part of the problem, too.
Picture this: Nick sees a cute girl downstairs by the lockers. He thinks that he can impress her if he jumps over the stair rail from the upstairs landing to the commons below.
Not impressive, Nick, when the paramedics have to haul you to the clinic for a cast.
This teaching tip is courtesy of the junk mail that piles up on my kitchen table. When the pile gets too large to ignore, I sort through it and toss uninteresting junk mail in the trash.
My husband asks me why I don’t just throw it all away.
Well, some catalogs I might be able to cut up to use as conversation starters or metaphors in class. Some flyers I might be able to use in my mass media class to teach a persuasive print advertising technique.
And let’s face it: I like the pieces that call me by name.
Life in summer English 11 was pretty peaceful until I allowed the class to divide themselves into teams for a review game. My students were completely engaged in the game. They enjoyed any opportunity to compete and began to trash talk. You can imagine how the trash talk escalated from good-natured ribbing to real insults. The original lesson plan had called for a friendly game with vocabulary words and a go-to-the-bathroom-free pass at stake, but it escalated to an event that was about honor, justice, pride, and revenge. They began to shout, stand up, and scatter desks.
Studies like the one from graduate students at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University affirm what you already know: praise works.
Students like to feel good about themselves, they gravitate towards teachers and classes where they feel good, and they like subjects that reinforce the notion that they’re good at something.
It’s nice, though, to see what we all accept as good classroom management and good teaching backed by research. It’s also good to be reminded of some simple truths that surround the simple concept of praising students for good behavior and good work. However, we all know that implementing these simple truths isn’t always so simple.
Yes, the unpredictable happens, but we can at least predict which types of events might occur. Fire drills, lock downs, drug dogs, power failures, tornado drills, bomb threats, hallway incidents, and an out-of-control student all unpredictable disruptions to your class. Even predictable disruptions like Homecoming events, assemblies, and club photo days can cause classroom chaos. How are you expected to teach when the power is out or half the class is in the yearbook room mugging for the camera?
Do you ever reach a point where you’ve just had it with your students – they still aren’t following directions you’ve repeatedly delivered, they’re still talking not so quietly in the back of the room, and too many of them are still turning in work that has been dashed off at the last minute? So what do you do? March into class and more or less let them have it? Well, if you do, you certainly are not alone. In a study of teacher anger, researchers asked students to think of a specific teacher who had become angry in class and then describe that angry episode. Only five of the 301 students asked could not think of an angry-teacher event.
Sometimes a poor role model can be as instructive as a good one. That was the case for me when I was in my formative years of teaching. I couldn’t believe some of the things I witnessed in other people’s classes and, looking back, I can’t believe some of the mistakes I made myself.
So, in the spirit of the New Year and resolutions, here’s a list of What Not to Do to manage a classroom. If you see yourself in any of these examples, resolve to change. And, let’s face it: looking at other people’s mistakes can be interesting and entertaining.
College teacher preparation classes and years of classroom experience still haven’t taught me how to cope with the unexpected things that might crop up in the classroom. However, when a student has a seizure, when a visitor comes to the door, or when we have extra time, I always have a spare emergency sponge activity to soak up the unplanned time and use it toward learning.
Have these activities prepared in advance, complete with instructions. I put mine on the overhead projector, but you can store them on your computer to project or pass out in a handout, too. If you have a guest or substitute teacher, include a few of these in your substitute teacher binder. He’ll appreciate the help.
Beginning of the year. Before making the parent phone call, I always smoothed the way. In the beginning of the year, I selected one student from every class to watch for a class period. I was looking for good things. If a student misbehaved, I’d let her in on my secret: I planned to call parents that night and I wanted to say good things about her.
A few years ago, I invited our local daily newspaper’s popular columnist to my high school journalism class. When I let my principal know, I invited her to sit in on the class, too. After all, she was a big fan.
I had asked the columnist to talk about the difference between writing for the city desk and writing his column. He did, but the talk bordered on R-rated material and language (example: inappropriate Halloween costumes). He also put my principal on the spot and asked her about policies and controversies.
I squirmed the entire 84-minute block period.
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