New Teachers Get Tips on Classroom Control

Reprinted from the Rockland Journal News
• September 8, 2008
by Randi Weiner

THIELLS, NY - Only about a third of the brand new teachers standing in front of a classroom have any training in handling student behavior. They may be experts in their subjects and able to handle computerized attendance and bookkeeping, but they are unprepared for the first child who challenges their authority or pokes another child to make them squeal, longtime educator James Gilbert told a dozen new North Rockland teachers in preparation for last week's school opening.

A veteran educator himself with 34 years' experience as a North Rockland middle school and high school teacher, plus time teaching graduate education courses, Gilbert's spending his retirement these days passing on the basics to newcomers. His formal title is staff developer with the Rockland Teachers' Center Institute, and one of his specialities is classroom management.

Classroom management is the formal name for the human art of teaching a roomful of kids to pay attention, stop fidgeting, stop whispering, stop texting, keep their feet under their own desk, answer when called on, do the assignment and learn something. It's a teachable skill, but one that usually isn't part of a teacher's own education until graduate school.
Gilbert asks his graduate classes how many of them had had a classroom management course; about one out of three teachers had them in undergraduate school, he said. That means that two out of three new teachers face their first classroom with no idea how to handle their first defiant, bored or disengaged student.

Too many teachers plan everything for their first week of school, from the clothing they'll wear to the essays they'll assign, and never think that the kids won't be riveted to their every word until they face a disruptive class and see it isn't so, he said.
Gilbert recalled his first experience with classroom management: "I was blindsided," he said frankly. "The kids give you a honeymoon and then the third day comes ... actually, it's more usually a week or two."

He outlined the three characteristics of effective teachers - good classroom managers, those who know how to deliver instruction and the need to have positive expectations - and told them the most important element in their classrooms, after themselves, was consistency.
He said humans require some very specific things: both certainty and uncertainty, to feel significant or capable, to feel connected, to feel they are contributing and have value, and to see growth.

Then he spoke specifically about problem students: how to recognize them, the reactions they evoke and possible ways of dealing with them.
"Students misbehave to achieve one of four immediate goals: for attention, for power, for revenge and a fear of failure," he said.

The attention-seeker will irritate and annoy a teacher because he or she must be reminded over and over again to behave. The power player makes the teacher angry and gives the teacher two choices: to confront them or to give in to them. The vengeful child makes the teacher angry and hurt and makes retaliation seem like a good idea. The child afraid of failure frustrates the teacher.

Gilbert outlined strategies to deal with these children, from moving a child to another desk to sending them to a time-out room.

Much of his advice is distilled from his own experience, but much comes from authors he recommended, [Linda Albert,] Harry and Rosemary Wong and Jane Nelson.

"I love teaching new teachers," Gilbert said. "They need to know how to regulate a classroom. A lot of these people spend a lot of time learning their craft. They should be experts in their field. But if you can't control the classroom, you can't teach the material."

Peggy Porrovecchio, 29, was one of the dozen teachers in Gilbert's class. She's been hired as a North Rockland High School math teacher and has two years' experience in a Bronx classroom.
"It definitely brings back a lot of memories," she said.

Reach Randi Weiner at rcweiner@lohud.com or 845-578-2468.

Education shouldn't hurt . . .

. . .Your brain!
. . .Your self-esteem!
. . .Your family!

. . .Your body!

. . .Your future!

The other night I was lying in bed, wide awake and my mind was going a mile a minute. So, I got up, for the first time in my life and started to make notes -- I did so for several hours. The notes I wrote down were all about the things I've been talking about for years in my graduate courses and in-services as it pertains to school. So for the next several (many?) entries, I think I'll embellish those ideas on this page.

As I was thinking about how education hurts, I thought of five categories - I'm sure there are more - in which education does hurt.

It hurts one's brain. Kids are forced to prep for tests at alarming rates. In fact for many educators, schools and student - it's all about the tests. When I think back on my education, I don't remember it being all about the tests. It was all about the learning! What new, cool, interesting, crazy, amazing thing did I learn today? I looked forward to school (now I'm sure there were many who did not) and wanted to be there. Please note that it was not a perfect world for me, because I was -- overweight! I those days that meant that phys. ed., lunch time, etc. was painful!

I guess that logically brings me to: It hurts one's self-esteem. School should be a place where we get energized and recharged (or charged). So often, it's the place where kids get deflated and beaten down. In a course I teach, Cooperative Discipline, we talk about helping kids feel capable, connected and contributing. Gangs certainly do that for kids, but I'm not so sure that school does that all the time. Teachers who understand these 3 C's can make an amazing difference in the lives of the students they interact with each day.

It sometimes hurts one's family: It 's often said, "If Mama ain't happy: ain't nobody happy." Well if kids are not happy at school, there are repercussions at home. I've sen parents at their wits end trying to figure our how to make their child succeed. An unhappy kid can be the product of an unhappy home or the cause of it.

I can hurt one's body. Think about the last time you sat in a school desk. The word ergonomic probably does not come to mind! Schools are uncomfortable places. We buy "Postur-pedic beds" for our kids and send them to school to sit all day in chairs and desks little changed since the pioneer days. We're proud of our seven foot tall basketball stars, but make them sit in the same desks as the petite cheerleaders. We also think that it's a good thing to SIT for 5 or six hours a day with few breaks, bad food and little water. Then, just for good measure , we shorten recess (or take it away). The research on nutrition, movement and hydration as it relates to learning is strong and getting stronger. If we want our kids to learn, we need to get them up and moving (more on this another time) and for goodness sake, let them have some water!

Finally, It can hurt one's future. Even the kids who are getting high grades on the standardized tests are not necessarily ready for the outside world. Which job, exactly, requires their employees to take practice tests all day? Obviously, there need to be standards, but as Susan Ohanian states in her little orange book, One Size Fits Few, so many kids in this standards-crazed education system in America are "falling through the cracks."

So I have a list of courses I wish I had taken:

• How to make/save money
• How be a good father/husband
• How to be healthy - and live to be 100
• How to make a difference in the world
• How to be a nice person
• How to stay out of gangs
• How to care for the environment
• How to help create a peaceful world

I'll bet you can add your own.

I guess that's enough for today, but I love the motto in Rafe (Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire) Esquith's classes, "Be nice - Work hard!" If that could be accomplished in America's classrooms, what a wonderful place they would be.

Some thoughts on classroom management from Harry Wong

The following thoughts are from notes I took at a workshop given at the “Celebration of Teaching and Learning” New York City, March 24, 25, 2006. You can find out more about what Harry Wong has to say in his classic book: The First Days of School

Want to improve student achievement? Spend money on training teachers – sustained opportunities to improve skills!

The schools we want – successful students.
The schools we need – successful, effective teachers!

“Single greatest effect on student achievement is the effectiveness of the teacher!”
Harry Wong

Three Characteristics of Effective Teachers
(Good and Brophy, Looking in Classrooms):
· They are good Classroom Managers
· They know how to deliver instruction
· They have positive expectations that students WILL be successful

Most important element: Consistency – Have a plan, Day 1, Minute 1
· Students always know what to do
· The Teacher has a script - not to read, but a plan for what to say
· There are rocedures for everything – “Broke a pencil, here’s what I do!”
· Assignment on board – same place, everyday (Bellwork or “Do Now!”)

Student achievement is maximized with management (procedures and routines) NOT programs.

5 Ways to manage your classroom:

1. Clearly define classroom procedures and routines. Taking roll, collecting papers, etc.Teach students classroom procedures and routines.
   Take time daily – yes – daily!
2. Monitor student behavior.
   Pay attention to what’s going on.
3. Stand, scan, be aware and make sure students know you are doing it.
4. Handle inappropriate behavior promptly and consistently
   Use an appropriate intervention.
5. Plan ahead.
   Plans, procedures, essential questions, et al.

All procedures must be practiced!

· Explain
· Rehearse
· Reinforce

90 % of classroom problems are related to: Transition, movement and noise

Students need to know where they are going:
· Tell them where they are going -- ESSENTIAL CONTENT
· Tell them what they are going to do to get there. (“Chapter 7” is not enough)
· Tell them what they will need to know.
· Tell them why they need to know it.
· Tell them how they will be assessed.
· Tell them there is no way they can fail – positive expectations

“You are the difference in the lives of the kids you teach. Harry Wong

Gandhi’s Nine Steps for Decreasing Violence

1
Define the Conflict:
When you clarify, you can deal.
2
It’s not you against me;
it’s you and me against the problem.
3
List the relationship’s many shared concerns –
not the one unshared separation.
4
When people have fought, don’t ask what happened:
Instead ask, “What did you do?”
5
Active listening is better than passive hearing:
Don’t be a know-it-all gasbage
6
Choose a neutral place to resolve the conflict –
Not on the “battlefield” itself (a peace room?).
7
Start with what’s doable.
8
Increase forgiveness skills, decrease vengeance urges.
Leave the garbage of the last fight behind!
9
Purify our hearts.
Get my own messy life in order before I tell others how to live!

*From Colman McCarthy’s book, I’d Rather Teach Peace (Orbis Books, 2002, pp 39-44), as interpreted by Dudley Weeks