Domain 2: Classroom Management and Motivating Students

I've always had nightmares about classrooms that were out of control and my first experience soloing in a room did nothing to help that. In my teacher prep program at Morehead, one of our first classes allowed us to teach a lesson, solo, to see if teaching was *really* what we wanted to do.... I almost backed away there. Kids were going crazy, crawling on the floor, glue was flying through the air and I was standing in the middle of the room at a loss. It was then that I realized that students weren't going to automatically listen and be perfect angels in a true "Stepford" fashion.

Thoughout the rest of my teacher prep I began to think that classroom management took structure, routines, and hard work. It took whatever means necessary to get your point across to the students. To scream if you have to, withhold recess, or turn the classroom into 'old fashioned school' where the students are just busy doing paperwork. And looking back, that's how I treated my students during my first year of teaching. Did I get any response out of them? Not at all. I considered myself to be a mean old hag and I actually came home crying and begging to find another job (There is a song by Barry Louis Polisar called "I Don't Wanna Go To School" from his album Songs for Well Behaved Children.... check it out. It describes my entire first year and, in addition, it will make you laugh.).

As a teacher, I feel that I've grown since that first year and I wish I could go back and apologize to those students. Mostly because, I didn't treat them positively... and to be honest, I was just trying to float that year. In retrospect, I knew a slew of management techniques and strategies which I should have used in a more positive manner... I just wasn't sure how to implement them.

While reading through various blogs and articles, and watching various videos today, one common thread kept creeping it's way back into the forefront of my mind- do I care for the whole child and not just the negative behaviors? Do I react positively instead of just flying off of the handle when I see a child doing something negative? Another aspect that I'm wondering is that there are so incredibly many different styles of classroom management- how can you determine what works best for each classroom, each year? After all, what works one year may fall on it's face the next. General guidelines that were in the article "How to Develop Positive Classroom Management" (http://www.edutopia.org/classroom-management-relationships-strategies-tips) seem to be something to key into and follow year after year.

In my classroom, I feel as if I'm always trying to find someway to create a community of independent learners.... am I doing that? Do my students feel safe enough to take risks? Are my classroom management and procedures set in a way that students can learn to their highest potential? I really believe that this may be an area that I would want to focus on within my inquiry plan.

The Classroom Environment: Chaos at it's finest.

First off, I must mention that I chose management because I don't feel comfortable with it. Continuously, I feel like an old hag when at school because I expect them to listen, to be responsible, and care for their classmates as well as the items in the classroom. Maybe I expect too much in expecting them to care...?

However, as I read the section on the classroom environment, I couldn't help but constantly compare it to my classroom. Does my classroom sound at all like this model? How do I actually treat my students? Do I convey my expectations to my students? For me, I feel most comfortable managing class procedures. Sherri, my kindergarten para-educator, and I spent the first month of school in "boot camp" mode (we joke). We set the bar high and refused to lower it.... but I'm comfortable with that because now 32 days into the school year, we no longer are working on carpet or hallway procedures and we can switch literacy and math centers in two point five seconds flat. It helped to set the tone for the rest of the year- one in which we expect the students to work hard, persevere, and do their personal best. Does it always work? No. However, in the words of Sherri, "They're first graders in training. They need to know how to be responsible for their learning and their actions and if we don't teach them, who will?"
Personally, I feel as if I need to zero in on creating an environment of respect and rapport, but more in the area of creating learning community. I know that I care about my students and their lives in and out of school, however, how do I get the students to care about each other in this way? How do I get my students to treat each other with respect? Many of you may say modeling, modeling, and more modeling because all skills are learned (p. 65, Danielson). However, how can we attempt to say that a learned behavior is not okay if the behavior is something that they are witnessing as okay at home? (For example, this week in one of my literacy centers one little boy looks at me and says "Miss Kennett, this learning center is a piece of f****** s***. When can I move to the next one?" And when I called Mom she acted like it was no big deal and asked me "Well, what in the h*** should I do about it?").