After reading and interviewing my
sister, I found many similarities between the both on classroom management.
This gives some props to her because she is working with the book and it has
been shown to be successful. One question that I really wanted the answer to
was the difference in managing the classroom at different age levels. This
really interests me became at this point, I am not sure if I would want to
teach the younger grades or if I want to lean more towards the older ages of
elementary. In the book (pg. 490), it comments on how gaining cooperation is an
important aspect of classroom management and it will obviously differ when
working with kindergarteners and high school seniors. I had the thought that
the older grades would be easier to manage because they are more mature, but as
the book also states, some students begin to testify and defy authority in
their later years of elementary. In middle elementary years, school has become
a routine and being able to flow through class and keep interest is usually
maintained. This is very interesting to me because I felt the opposite way. As
my sister stated in her interview, there are different kinds of activities she
used for first grade that wouldn’t work as well for third graders because of
their maturity level and their interest in it, but there were some things she
carried over to the older grades.
Another
question that sparked my interest was how do students manage themselves. I
never thought about this before I was reading on other people’s interview
question ideas, and this one stood out to me. When I asked my sister this
question, she said that other student will motivate their peers to listen and
to stay on task when an award was at hand. This is also a kind of positive
reinforcement she used, table points. Management for self-management (pg. 492)
relates to this topic because it explains how self-control and self-regulation
is a fundamental shift in classroom management today. When a student misbehaves,
my sister uses “Success Sheets” to monitor how well they do each week. Getting
a letter scratched off will be their consequence, but she mentioned how she
turned this into a positive thing at the end. Instead of asking how many
letters they lost, she would turn it around and ask how many they had left. I
think that is important to turn a bad into a good, so they learn from their
mistakes. This is a great way to have students participate in self-management
because they are in control of losing their letter or not. This teaches
students how to take responsibility and work a little bit harder to become
successful. As the book states (pg. 493), “if you teach your students to manage
their own behavior and learning, you should have fewer management problems.”
This has been seen to be true in my sister’s classroom. I asked her what behavioral
problems she was dealing with in class, and she said there weren’t any major
consistent ones. This means that the tasks she is using to manage the class are
working in the correct way. Every now and then things happen, but it isn’t a
problem she is dealing with in her classroom today. It is important to stop
problems quickly so they don’t have to lead to involving administration (pg.
506). This was something that I also asked my sister about. She said she hadn’t
had major behavioral problems that she couldn’t handle on her own, she just had
to have others involved when it dealt with educational problems where they may
need extra help that she couldn’t provide on her own.
No class is
ever perfect and no student is going to be happy and participate every day. Therefore,
I was interested in how she dealt with students who were having a bad day and
don’t want to cooperate. The answer my sister gave to this question related to
personal territories that was discussed in the book (pg. 498). Seating
arrangements, whether it be the front or back, clusters, or circles, all can
affect how student learns. My sister talked about one of her students who likes
to get up and walk round and will sit in the back at his own table. She said
this is the way he learns best and if he stays in arm’s length of the desk, she
will allow him to stand. Everyone works and learns differently and being able
to notice that early on is important. Going back to students having bad days,
this is something that also is best to figure out early in the day. My sister
said there are many signs that she will notice if her kids are acting off, and
she will pull them aside and talk about the issue as soon as she can. This is
important to her because she doesn’t want it to ruin that students chance to
learn. Catching negative behavior early on before things get worse is important
because then they can talk about it and move on from it quickly. Some student
may want to sit by themselves for a while and be left alone, and that is okay.
Once you get a better relationship with your students, it will be easier to
notice their signs and figure out their best solution to fix the problem.
For
students who aren’t having a bad day, but don’t usually participate also need
some sort of motivation. My question based off this topic was what was the best
kind of positive reinforcement for your students. Encouraging engagement is a
huge topic talked about in the book (pg. 501), and my sister had many kinds she
uses. She said the best kind is one the whole school is participating in. For
her school, they had “Ram Dollars” that can be used to buy things from their
dean. These are given out by any teacher to any student for good behavior, but
also can be taken away for bad behavior. This works well because they can
receive them anywhere at any time. They get very excited to get them,
especially in large quantities, as my sister said. She also does little things
in the classroom, like “Fun Fridays”, table points, and extra computer or free
time. She said it is important to switch up the rewards so they don’t get sick
of them. This answered my other question of giving too much away, if it comes
routine and not exciting. She said she will move on with other rewards and may
even bring back some old ones, but the main one she uses and that seems to work
best is the school-wide “Ram Dollars.” Having a school-wide reward system also
relates to building a better relationship and connection throughout the school.
Students who have a strong connection with their school tend to be happier and
more engaged (pg. 504). Having all the teachers work together to build a better
school community can really make a difference in their student’s education.
Overall, I
feel like I have learned a lot from this interview process. The main thing that
my sister stressed is that in teaching you are always learning and you may not
always have the answer. It is a trial and error process, but it does get easier
as years go on. I think classroom management is very important because if you
don’t have control of your class, you won’t be able to get much done. You want
to make it through each day with as little stress as possible, and you want to
build strong relationships with your students as soon as possible. As of right
now, I am not sure what grade I am interested the most in teaching, but I am
excited to learn more from shadowing and student teaching in my future.
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