Before my practicum experience began a week ago, I was quite content to read along in the professional books I’ve studied and read that good, solid, well-planned lessons are the best way to avoid classroom misbehavior. Having never faced a classroom full of adolescents, this seemed to make sense to me and that was all I really spent on the subject. Life, you could say, was spent in ignorant bliss.
Now, in my second week of practicum, I feel I am more intellectually and pedagogically challenged by classroom management than any other aspect of English Education that I’ve studied. This wouldn’t bother me so much if the credo I mentioned earlier held true, but it would appear that I am now paying in full what I had let my textbooks avoid for so long. My question, then, is, “Why didn’t anybody warn me about this?” My answer so far is muddy and generally confused, but I’ll roll with it in hopes that your responses will lead me somewhere more sound. From what I can gather, it is much easier and cleaner looking to avoid the issue of management when presenting pedagogical directives, particularly in the somewhat-removed-from-practice world of Graduate school, than to basically confront the one issue that stands to dismantle even the most pristine piece of theory. I’ve observed my mentor teacher give lessons that on paper looked to be sound but later crumbled at the hands of an angry adolescent. I don’t mean to sound so puritanical, but it truly seems as if the issue of classroom management is one that drives book writers and theorists to omit potential pitfalls in order to present a more academically credible argument. Even my textbook, “But will it work with REAL students?” Scenarios for Teaching Secondary English Language Arts by Alsup and Bush, skirts the issue. A book for teachers about making theory work that doesn’t at least spend 20 pages on classroom management is a troubling indicator that people don’t want to deal with it. And in the meantime, I feel stuck between what I’d love to see work and what I know will require some major classroom behavior improvement before I’d try it with a room full of 6th graders. Perhaps searching within writings on teaching is misguided, and I’m better off checking The Art of War out from the library, but it would be nice if book writers would give us another alternative and spend that extra time addressing how kids could slant their lesson plans or theories to create trouble.
After all, you can only wrangle so many 6th graders before a few slip through, and what becomes of them? Aren’t we toying with children’s futures by ignoring such a vital part of classroom life?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Floyd Geasland // Nov 9, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Congratulations on the most important step in learning to be a teacher. Putting theory into practice can be very difficult, I’ve done it for 28 years and still labor with it every day. I have three tips for you that might help, but just like theory how you use it must fit what you are comfortable with.
1. The best classroom management is your lesson plan. Keep them occupied with 15 to 20 minute activities with “brain breaks” (30 second to 120 second physical activities to energize them.) [Kagan] Remember no one system is going to work for all kids all the time. Plan out everything you do with alternates prepared if something goes wrong. Plan out what could go wrong (a “diaster file” that is pre thought out with alternate quick activities that would work any time is a life saver)
2. Remember to rotate learning style activities, not on an automatic system but where appropriate. Especially quiet with communicative, active with sedate.
3. Marzano has some good tips and thoughts and has published workbooks on how to make those thoughts work in the classroom. If you having seen his stuff on reading, make sure you do.
Remember the stuff that works for me won’t always work for you. Everything must be tailored to both you and your kids. Doing that combined with your curriculum is what teaching is all about. Good luck.
2 chris // Nov 10, 2006 at 8:26 pm
After 37 years teaching English in Scottish secondary schools, I have to say that the main ingredient in the successful lesson is your relationship with the pupils. Get that right and you can do anything. You can have an off-day and they’ll still behave like reasonable people - because that’s how you’ve taught them to be. How? Partly through your attitude to them. They have to know that you have chosen to be there; that you have stuff that they are better off knowing than not knowing; that life is more fun if you are enjoying their company. How you establish that relationship is up to you - and I have to admit it gets easier the longer you are in teaching. But as long as it’s an “me and them” situation, you’re on a hiding to nothing and your best lessons will fail.
And never, never be a bore!