Good advice. The basic problem is teachers are now "forced" to start teaching the curriculum starting the first day rather than focus on routines. I of course ignored that rule and spent the first week practicing how to walk into the room, hang your coats, take out your homework for checking and start the "Do Now". We also practiced many days of lining up, walking the halls and fire drill procedures. I also focused on basic reviews before starting new concepts. Guess what...It works.
But my biggest rule when it comes to discipline is follow up with any sanctions. There's an old saying--first time you lose, second time they lose. If you don't follow up, you lose. So first a warning, then a follow through. I cringe when I hear teachers saying to their class, "If you do it again, I will...", and then don't follow through. For instance..."If you continue talking on line, we will return to the classroom." But they just keep saying it and keep walking. When I said it, we returned to the classroom.
PS:
Miracles do happen....
Senate Democrats shoot down mayoral control of schools
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/...ixzz0Jyi7P1Nr&
C
PS:
Miracles do happen....
Senate Democrats shoot down mayoral control of schools
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/...ixzz0Jyi7P1Nr&
C
It's nice to keep the room clean, but not always possible. If, for example, you're in a trailer ten or twenty years past its expiration date, it's unlikely your best efforts at tidying up would make much of a dent.
Kids are not likely to make me run screaming. Indifferent, myopic educrats, though--the ones who vilify teachers while defending plainly destructive practices--I don't much care for them.
I'm very glad the NY Senate let them know what to do with their dictatorship last night, and I hope they're forced to reconsider it.
Wow, I never thought I'd see the day. It will be very interesting to see where we go from here.
Schoolgal's point is a good one, too: Never make a threat that you can't or won't follow through on.
Schoolgal is right about threats. That is why teachers must choose their battles. You can't fight and enforce every single rule. Sometimes admins come up with rules and they are selectively enforcced throughout the school. Then you are fighting against the grain. On issues like wearing coats in class. Some kids I found were ashamed with their clothes and didn't want others to see. There is often an underlying reason for most of the actions kids take. Figuring those out or at least acknowledging there is an issue goes a long way.
This September add one other rule. When entering the classroom take a squirt of hand sanitizer.
That's a very good idea. We should have started that last September, if you ask me.
I always kept baby wipes by the "sign-out" desk by the door. When kids returned from the bathroom, they had to use it even if they already washed their hands. We also used them before and after eating and cleaning the desks. The children would donate baby wipes, tissues and paper towels. When CVS has a sale on their big size baby wipes, I would buy a few.
Norm,
I was speaking about the class rules that we and the class discussed together.
Years ago you could take away Gym and class trips if a child really misbehaved. Today it's considered corporal punishment. Yet I am sure the charters enforce rules NYC teachers can't.
NYCED,
Elementary teachers find ways to fix up a trailer--hanging colorful charts or holiday decorations. But the bottom line is that no child should be taught in horrible conditions. That is why I think parents who have "charters" within their school building where the rooms and bathrooms are renovated should sue for discrimination.
Thanks Miss Eyre- I will be utilizing some of your suggestions, especially the modeling of appropriate behavior. Its one thing to say it, but actually sitting there and acting it out, (while doing the inner monologue of said good student) I think, will be a great strategy.
I made the mistake last year of being too cool, too fast- I paid for that by being cool, but losing respect. Good mgmt is about 85% of this job.
Good classroom management is the hardest part of the job and takes years, so don't be too hard on yourself, trashman.
As for corporal punishment regs, it varies form school to school, norm.
Parents move their children to charter schools because they are sick unto death of the outrageous behavior of a few pint-sized bullies and their full-sized parents.
Which leads me again point out the lack of competency of the admin. which allows a teacher to flounder and blame himself, the implementation of goofy c.p. regs, and low enrollment numbers. The fish stinks from the head.
Overall, good ideas for a new teacher to try to focus on in the first days/weeks. And one I appreciate since I am moving to a new school and need to re-establish myself there with the students as much as with the staff. One thing struck me in your recommendations as being blatantly false, however. Never, never FAKE IT. If you don't know, you say you don't know. You praise the student's question and encourage the class to find out. That is how you learn and they learn. You are teaching through your behavior as much as anything else. Believe me, if you think your students don't know, they do. They are testing you every day especially in your first year in a new school when you don't have any reputation established yet. Smarter students test you to see if you are good enough to teach them. And if you fail, then they may behave to get good grades, but they won't respect you. Oh, and if they land in my class in high school and you filled them with misinformation, they will write you a long letter explaining all of this to you.
Good point, renewbie. I agree with you on issues of content: Many a time I have said "I don't know" on a question and encouraged students to research and questions that issie on their own, and it's inspired more reading and action in a student than the issue would have otherwise.
What I'm advising newbies to "fake it" on are the unwritten mundanities that your average newbie simply won't know until they do it a few times. Where and when do you line up for an assembly, say? If you don't know, and it's time to line up for that assembly, that can be faked without too much harm. You'll learn the right thing to do in those situations eventually, but under those circumstances, it's best to issue directions quickly, calmly, and without hesitation rather than dither.
Thanks for the feedback, though. I should have clarified what I meant by that.
You can't really fake it in terms of knowing subject matter. If that's your problem, it's a major one and you better work like hell to fix it.
I remember, though, a very good supervisor telling me, "Fake it till you make it," and I think he was trying to tell me a shortcut toward controlling classes--through attitude if you will. It wasn't entirely successful, but it was better than nothing.
I was an English teacher then, teaching guitar and survey of music classes. I was able to teach the guitar classes fairly easily, but the survey classes had no particular curriculum, so I found some books about music history and basically used them as a framework. Actually I taught mostly about American music, mostly jazz and blues, rather than focusing on classical, about which I knew very little.
No one really knows what they're doing until they garner some experience. I agree with Miss Eyre that it's good to say, "I don't know," if indeed you don't.
Sometimes, as a native speaker, I found it hard to answer grammar questions in advanced college classes. I knew the right answers easily, but it wasn't always easy to say why, as these are things I never gave much thought till I began teaching. I'd say, "I'm not sure what the explanation is, but I'll look it up." After the break, or by the next day, I'd find the answer and be prepared for the next time that question came up. By the time I started teaching college, though, I'd found my voice, and authority came a little easier to me. Also, college kids don't spend nearly as much time testing you, and many, probably most, teenagers who test you test not your knowledge of subject matter, but your ability to maintain order.
Of course, sometimes students fixated on grammar wouldn't accept the explanations, and sometimes, as in prepositions, the explanation is, "That's just convention--how this work works." Like us, language doesn't always have underlying logic. That's very tough for some students to accept.
Even tougher for these students is the concept that the best speakers never actually think about grammar--their words fall correctly with no conscious effort. It's odd they don't grasp it because that, pretty much without exception, is how they speak their first languages.
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