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TAKING CONTROL OF THE CLASSROOM: OBSERVING CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
On the basis of these observations, what would you say about the students’ perception of their teacher’s authority in the classroom? What evidence do you have to make that assumption?
- I believe that the students know they can ignore the teacher until she starts getting upset; they quiet down for up to five minutes if she yells at them. Fortunately, her relationship with them is warm enough that they do not seem to be baiting her deliberately, but this might become a possibility as the term wears on and their frustration grows. One girl who felt she was being unjustly treated told me that she would just talk more and louder because of the referral to the principal's office that she had received. "Who are you going to be hurting if you are talking loudly in class?" I asked her. "Her," she huffed. "What about you? What about your own education?" I prodded. "No," the student insisted, "I'll be hurting her. I'll give her real bad headaches.
What would you say is the students’ general self-esteem? How does that relate to the perceived teacher’s authority in the classroom? What evidence do you have to make that assumption?
Most of the students believe they are not particularly intelligent. In a discussion that came up because of a writing prompt about education budget cuts and how some districts are making "pay to play" rules for sports programs, one outspoken girl stood up and said, "They can't cut sports. You know, not everyone is smart. Sports are our only chance to get to college." This girl exhibits her intelligence, as well as her lack of self-control, by improvising hip-hop refrains quite loudly in the classroom at inappropriate moments, up to four occasions during the course of a lesson. I have no doubt that she could do well academically if she used her considerable talent, verbal intelligence and leadership skills to her own educational benefit. Ironically, sports are unlikely to provide her a route to college because she is overweight.
The general perception that the students at this high school are not intelligent severely undermines the teacher's authority. They believe that they are doomed to intellectual failure in any case, so why pay attention? But I would not say that the students in general have low self-esteem. They seem to be forming a tight-knit community that looks out for each other, except when it comes to following school or classroom rules.
Are there any generic “rules of conduct/behavior” in the classroom? How do students seem to observe them (if the case)? How does the teacher seem to reinforce them (if the case)?
The classroom rules are posted: "Be respectful, do your best work, be considerate of others." One problem is that these rules are not culturally sensitive. "Be respectful" means one thing in a European American community and it can mean something else in the African American community. Imaginative, colorful insults among peers are not necessarily considered disrespectful among African Americans, but the European American teacher is continually shocked by such displays. This lack of cultural consonance makes it easy for the students to ignore the rules as irrelevant to their lives and identities. They do understand what the teacher is talking about when she argues with them about "ragging on" each other, but they seem not to possess an effective conceptual framework to communicate their own side of the story, or even to formulate it for themselves. Thus the classroom rules are pretty much completely ignored by everyone, until the teacher becomes too frustrated and raises her voice.
School rules are unnecessarily restrictive. There is a dress code imposed by the district, including no "hoodie" sweaters, no jeans, no patterned fabrics, no strong colors and no t-shirts. The dress code is regularly broken by at least a few students each day, and much class time and teacher capital is wasted in confrontations over hoodies ("You know you're not supposed to be wearing that." "But I'm cold!"). The worst of it is that teachers are supposed to be the "front line" in enforcing the dress code even if they don't believe in it, which most of them do not. And they are not backed up at all by the administration. Usually a student will take off the offending item as long as the teacher is standing there and watching. But within a few minutes it is back on, and the teacher often gives up after a few requests.
There is no restriction on having cell phones in school, but they are not allowed to be used in class (another rule that is almost completely ignored). The bathroom break is only five minutes long, and armed security guards with piercing whistles patrol the hallways to pick up any students outside of their classrooms after the bell rings. This leads to the general perception that school is like jail. If the teacher fulfills her obligations and locks the classroom door as soon as the bell has rung, she knows the students will think of her as a prison guard. Resentment travels upward, from the students to the teacher, and from the teacher to the administration.
Finally, what would you do differently to ensure a degree of classroom control that you think would allow you to teach your lessons this semester?
I admit to being extremely apprehensive about my prospects for success in the lessons I will be teaching. I have formulated two sets of strategies, one content-related that I have already begun to implement, and one behavior-related that I am still considering.
Content-related strategies
Students have been told that they will be allowed to choose whether they would like their writing workshop partner's name pulled out of a hat, or chosen by the teacher. This is the most responsibility they have been given to determine a course of action since I have been observing the classroom.
Students have been told that there is a chance to win a prize at the end of the creative writing project we will be working on.
The project has two real-world aspects:
The students will be working on a short story for a contest sponsored by the website fanstory.com. They will be competing against high school students from all over the country for a $100 gift card from Visa for the best submission. The deadline for submissions is Dec. 31, 2011. The prompt is to begin a short story, at least 700 words long, with the phrase: Hell found me.
I will be posting all final drafts on a password-protected area of figment.com, another student writing website, so that everyone in the class with Internet access can read and comment on the stories. I will also set up a public area that will be accessible by anyone in the world, but only students with parental permission will be able to post their work there.
The daily writing prompts will be creative for the entire week prior to the start of my lessons. These students have already reacted positively to creative writing prompts.
The final writing prompt for the week will involve looking over the results of earlier prompts and revising earlier writing. This will be another first for the students, at least since they have been in this class.
Behavioral strategies under consideration:
A contract, signed by each student, obliging me to submit their stories to the contest if they so request and to be available for consultation about their submissions until the deadline, as well as to notify them about whether they have won a prize or an honorable mention; and obliging them to focus on helping each other's writing become more effective in order to have a better chance at winning the prize, as well as to work hard on improving their own writing.
Placing conditions on my obligation to submit their writing based on my opinion about whether sufficient effort was expended to make it their best possible work.
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