Classroom Management and Discipline

I like to start the first class with introductions and play one ice breaking game.

There are many good icebreakers and I use couple based on who are the students in the class.

If most of students are new and do not know each other I like to ask them to meet their peers and fill a chart: Name, how many siblings, favorite color, favorite sport to play or watch, hobby, favorite food, one funny thing about yourself, etc. The list can be longer or shorter. If there are many students in a class the list should be shorter so students can meet as many possible colleagues.

But this semester since most of the students know each other (some are in their last semester in the program completing their teaching practicum; others complete this course before their teaching practicum), I used 2-true + 1-lie.

Each student had to tell two true things about self and one lie. The listener was to guess which is the lie and tally how many colleagues has met and how many lies were guessed.

After any ice breaker game students should present shortly themselves, as well as the teacher.

Our textbook authors James Levin & James F. Nolan state that "A discipline problem exists whenever a behavior interferes with the teaching act, interferes with the rights of others to learn, is psychologically or physically unsafe, or destroys property."

We all agreed to these criteria for discipline problems, and groups of students presented by role play several examples of discipline problems, either invented or experienced in the classroom.

As we discussed the examples we agreed that is very important to think about the person who commits the discipline problem. At times the behavior can or will not be a discipline problem as the teacher evaluates it thinking about who the student is.

Say a student misbehaves by being obnoxious in the class, but that student previous classes was always a good student. Might be the most appropriate would be to talk personally and in private with that student, instead of making it a classroom public issue.

There is a fine line between what books teach us to do and what we should do in a particular situation. The most important in classroom management is for the teacher to create a rapport with the students in the class. And never generalize. Students are unique individuals and such they are (just like the teacher) beings that are a physical being, a cognitive, and emotional being, and they behave according to what they feel, think, or react at. The teacher should never generalize first before thinking who is the person who misbehaves, and why might misbehave?

We also learned that we should avoid giving good students as example. No one likes to be on the spot and especially for being good. Later bullying and mocking might follow as a consequence.

Being human and being calm is the most important when we have rebels in the classroom. Not giving in to power struggles, and treating everyone with dignity and trust.