Reflection: Classroom Management

One aspect (out of many) of my teacher’s practice I really appreciate is the value she places on reflection. In my biography for the College of Education, I wrote that reflection is one of the most valuable tools a teacher possesses. This was among one of the first topics she brought up the first time she met me. This is also why I have started this blog (Hi, Mrs. Ramsay!).

A benefit of having my teacher value reflection is the fact that she constantly asks me to reflect upon my instruction with her. If I was in a classroom where I felt insecure or unwelcome, I would not feel the freedom to be quite so frank about my performance.

I am gradually transitioning from being an observer/participant in the classroom to almost (maybe) being a real teacher. This week, I have taught second, third, and fifth periods, and starting tomorrow, I will be teaching the whole day for the remainder of the week.

Over the course of the past few days, something has become very clear to me: I need help developing my classroom management skills.

My first/second period class is a general class, meaning that many of them have abilities below the sixth grade level. This also means that there are several kids in the class who typically have behavioral issues. While I knew this going into the week, Mrs. Ramsay’s classroom management is so awesome that there are few incidents of misbehavior in the classroom.

Thinking more about what type of activity would be best for their learning styles and less about how my students would manage their behaviors, I decided to teach my first/second period class prepositions through a song and dance set to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”.

It has been interesting, to say the least.

The first day was really fun for me, but I was not very effective when it came to getting the entire class to participate. I had students wandering around the room, students refusing to dance and/or sing, and students actively trying to distract their classmates who actually did want to learn the song. Despite these glaring issues, I was completely oblivious to this behavior. It was not until I sat down and reflected with my teacher that I realized why kids had been knocking over desks, chairs, and even the class laptop. I was discouraged, but I knew that I couldn’t just give up.

Tuesday was definitely more exhausting, but I believe it was more successful. If you’ve never taught sixth graders before, the simile “It’s like herding cats,” is pretty accurate. I started to use classroom management techniques, such as saying in a soft voice “Look at me if you can hear me,” and explicitly telling students that they were to perform the song behind their desks. Additionally, I was very aware of the position and participation of each student in the classroom and tried to address issues as they arose.

Today was a little less tiring, but because of the choices I made prior to teaching the students the rest of the song, I never had full control over them. This lack of control lead to me having to constantly correct/redirect behaviors today. Two students in particular were moving all around the classroom. One student refused to participate, insisted on playing with the pencils in his pencil pouch, and was incredibly disrespectful to me when I attempted to correct his behavior (full disclosure: this is a recurring theme with this student). However, the fact that this behavior is frequent for this student does not excuse the fact that I did not impact him in such a way that allowed him to learn the song as well.

In the future, to counteract negative behaviors, I intend to establish a tone from the beginning of the period. The best way that I have seen to do so for this particular class is to play calm music and keep the lights low when they first enter the classroom. Another way that I plan to establish tone is via giving explicit instructions. Mrs. Ramsay has had me work on breaking my instructions down this week, and I have seen that this has made a huge difference in the number of confused looks and disruptions that occur during class. 

If anyone has classroom management techniques that have worked, please feel free to share your knowledge with me in a comment!