SED 407 -- Classroom Management

This week we discussed classroom management, followed by a teacher panel on the same topic. Classroom management is probably one of the things that I am the most nervous about; it all seems so unpredictable. There are so many factors that go into managing a classroom: the number and personalities of the students, their strengths and weaknesses, their dynamics with each other, the time of day and time of year, and your own personality, strengths and weaknesses. It is simple to watch someone else’s class and decide what you like or don’t like about their management, and easy to plainly state what you’d do differently. In practice, however, it is never that black and white.

The teacher panel on classroom management was very interesting and a little controversial. There was some questionable language used to describe teaching at CF, but overall it seemed like all of the teachers cared about their students. There were some good stories and advice about classroom management, and there was emphasis on building respectful relationships with parents and students. One of the teachers mentioned how important it was to separate your attitude towards the negative behavior from your feelings about the student; the student shouldn’t feel rejected as a person for their behavior. I think that this is an important point to remember for all of us going forward.

It’s unfortunate that the great advice from the teachers was interspersed with negative comments about their own classrooms and experiences, contradicting many of the positive things that they said. There was definitely a sense of “othering” from the language used by some of the teachers, including frequent discussion of “these kids” or “those kids” and comments about how much worse one teacher had it over another, because of the number or kinds of students in their classes. It was offensive to hear the students spoken of in such a way, but it also made me feel a little sympathetic for some of the teachers. They obviously didn’t realize how they sounded, and in spite of their negativity and ignorance they did seem to genuinely care about their classrooms. It seemed to me that they were skating around their own issues of feeling unappreciated and overwhelmed. It reminded me of how important it is to maintain a reflective practice; if we aren’t questioning ourselves and our own behavior, it becomes easy to ignore our own failings and blame them on everyone else. In addition to the importance of reflective practice, I also learned from the panel that it’s important to be flexible, to keep your cool, to think on your feet, and to make decisions based in respect, both for your students and yourself.

I know that when I’m actually in my own classroom I’m going to have management issues that I can’t anticipate or plan for. Having a strong professional network seems like one of the most important things to keep from feeling overwhelmed. As we’ve discussed in class, we might not always find colleagues who have similar values and beliefs about classroom management or teaching in general at our schools. I did a bit of research and found a classroom management section on the National Education Association website. Some of the articles seem more geared towards elementary or middle school teachers, but there is a forum with classroom management questions that seems like it might be really useful in the future. There is a specific forum where teachers can post classroom management questions that are answered by an “expert” within 24 hours of posting. There are also other forums where any teacher can post tips. I’m sure there are some other good forums out there as well. One of the advantages of having an online network is that you can take or leave advice, and not have to worry about offending colleagues that you disagree with in face-to-face interactions.