Classroom Mangement

Classroom Mangement: Your System?

Daniel, who teachers second grade in a rough Sacramento school that’s in year 5 of program improvement under NCLB, asks, “Do you use any certain classroom management system that you could share?”

I’ve written about classroom management before but in answer to the question about whether I have a classroom management system, the answer is no…if by system you mean do I use color coded cards or some program you buy to make the students act well.

I do use table points at the beginning of the year because nothing gets students to sit up straighter faster than the awarding of points.  If that seems silly, notice how many times we as adults collect points for things like shopping at the supermarket, flying on a particular airline, using a particular credit card, buying a certain amount of yogurt or getting our hair cut at a particular location.  Extrinsic though it may be, as humans we do seem to be hard wired to collect points.  I have sometimes used individual points when I’ve had students who were not yet motivated by the success of a group and needed individual encouragement (I call those students first graders).

However, two important things about this system are:

1. There are no rewards for winning.  Okay, sometimes I give a sticker but by and large there is no prize.  When you win the game, you’ve won the game.  That’s what the Lakers get when they win…the satisfaction that they’ve won.  So even though this is an extrinsic system, it’s not about getting a reward, it’s about doing well.  I also don’t spend my money buying stuff or contribute to a consumer gimme, gimme culture.

2.  I phase this out by about Christmas.  I don’t have a date set when I stop using the points.  It’s just that over time students start sitting up and looking forward because I’ve trained them to do so when I speak.  They know that if they don’t put the manipulatives down when I say to then I take them away.  As soon as students are quickly doing what they’re supposed to, I just start forgetting to use the table points.  Why take the class time to use something that you don’t need.  Occassionally a student will remind me in March or April that I haven’t given any points lately.  Then I have to give one to a team that’s doing a good job but then I don’t use the points again after that.

My student teacher told me I was the least strict of all her teaching student assignments.  I say this so you don’t think I’m a big meanie.  But at the same time I was always accused of having my class stacked with all the good kids (this wasn’t true) because when we walked across the yard, my students walked in a line.  I had higher expectations for my students.  I’m quite honest about this, “Now, when we go out there, you may see other classrooms running and jumping around screaming but we’re not going to that.  It’s important that you walk in a line and wait quietly to be called into the cafeteria.”  Maybe what my student teacher meant when she said I wasn’t strict is that I don’t yell.

5 thoughts on “Classroom Mangement: Your System?”

  1. We had an out of the ordinary firedrill the other day. All the teachers knew about it. It was the one where we went over every single step of waht we would do if there were a fire, which meant 400 kids between the ages of 4 and 11 were expected to stand quietly on the…playground, could there have been a worse place? Well, I told my class what was going to happen and that their following the rules was important and they better they did the sooner we’d get to come in. I didn’t talk about being a role-model or what might happen in the principal came over. I told them what and why. They were the quietest class on the playground, not perfect, but as close as one my classes may ever get.

    We here a lot about how we need to state the objective (in my district)for our students before a lesson, but nothing about our expectations for behavior.

  2. Mathew,
    It’s all about expectations even in my grade 12 class. Students will live up to your expectations- well, most will.

    I think that when a teacher has high expectations, realistically high expectations, it empowers kids because they feel that the teacher cares about them. I’ve had lots of the students I support tell me that they aren’t going to do any work in a specific teacher’s class because the teacher doesn’t care if the student works or not. No amount of discussion can get these kids to see that they need to care about themselves, that they can do well even if the teacher doesn’t care. Some students need teachers to care. They can’t succeed if the teacher doesn’t care. They’ve even asked me why I care. Setting realistically high expectations tells kids the teacher cares.

  3. Yes, students don’t always rise to high expectations but they rarely surpass low expectations.

    Perhaps the ideal is high expectations and consistent follow-through with appropriate consequences and a teacher who cares. Once students know I care about them, the best “punishment” for bad behavior is for me to say calmly and privately to them that I’m disappointed in them.

  4. I would expect that when the Lakers win, they also get more money from increases in endorsements, team logo products, ticket sales, ad revenue, etc. 😉

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