Management Monday – Creating Community I

I read several teacher blogs a day and subscribe to some listservs as well. Teachers talk about today’s students as being less respectful of authority and harder to discipline. I have found this to be true to a certain extent in my own years of teaching. Kids say, “Who cares?” Well, I say, “I care” to that. Most of the time I would get an argument or a kid stomping off to their desk or a corner, but I really do care. Most educators have developed approaches to behavior management that do work with today’s kids and they are practical, everyday strategies that any teacher can use. Your colleagues are finding that in classrooms, rewards for excellent work and consequences for poor work are not great motivators. Behavior management is more effective if students set their own goals, rules and procedures, have opportunities to share concerns, and use open discussions to solve problems in the classroom. We need to be looking toward creating mutual respect, and sharing a vision for success and dignity for everyone in order to promote better behavior in the classroom.

I will take this opportunity to post every Monday about classroom management strategies I have found that work. I’ll try to find ones that are positive ways to inspire good behavior by students.

The first thing you must do with a group of students is to build community in your classroom. “Getting Along” needs to be a class goal. You must be intentional about this. You should announce to your class on the first day of class that you want the class to be good at getting along, helping one another and supportive of one another. Tell them you want them to work together as a happy, cooperative community of learners. Also, tell them that they should enjoy being in class each day. If YOU expect this kind of behavior the students may come to expect that they will behave in this manner.

Icebreakers during the first few days of school will help your students get to know one another. You will also participate in these activities so the students will obtain information about you as well! If you need ideas for icebreakers, just Google “school icebreakers” for a voluminous list of them. Always take into consideration the age and abilities of the students for which you will be using these engaging activities. If you have any students with special needs, be sure they are able to participate. I particularly like games that have the students “against” the teacher in some way – this unites the class and is a great bonding activity.

I hope you will enjoy receiving a new behavior management tip every Monday. Check back tomorrow for Tuesday “Truths”!

Two Exceedingly Helpful Websites for New Teachers

When I started teaching 20 years ago or so, we didn't have the internet. I believe the web has become the most influential tool used by educators that I know. As for myself, I have come to rely on a great number of websites the last few years. For newer teachers, these two are probably the most supportive: Education World and Scholastic. Both of them offer voluminous amounts of free teaching ideas, lesson plans, and other resources across the curriculum. Education World has free newsletters that you can elect to have sent to your email on a weekly basis. The one I most used when I discovered EdWorld was the Lesson Planning Newsletter. It includes lesson plans, thematic units, bulletin board ideas, blogs and articles written by teachers and administrators and other specialists in the field, as well as advice on classroom management and discipline. They both have ideas on technology integration and book and website reviews.

Scholastic has a class homepage builder and video center that are user-friendly. They even have a separate page just for new teachers' survival! Newer teachers, please go and check out these websites and come back to let me know what you found most useful. Enjoy!

KNOW your students

I came across this fantastic blog entry and I just can't think of a way to say it better than the author. Please read this entry and remember how VERY important it is to know your students and from whence they come:
http://bit.ly/fB4HLx

I've attended birthday and holiday celebrations from other cultures, attended ballgames, recitals, etc. All of these helped me to get to know my students better. I hope you will follow the advice in the linked blog entry - it will help you so much!

By the way, use common sense. Making home visits may not be the best advice, but the one about breaking bread together is a great one!