Philosophy of Classroom Management

About a month ago, I was pulled from my classroom to attend a full day department meeting. Behavior problems in my room are almost non-existent (or at least as non-existent as possible for middle school), so I’m never too worried about having a substitute cover for me when I have to be out. But when I returned, I found a note on my desk explaining that all of my classes were excellent, with the exception of one student who was disruptive and disrespectful.

This particular boy has a good relationship with me and has never been a problem in my room, although is occasionally trouble for other teachers. The next day when I saw him, I pulled him in the hall, read him the sub’s note, and promptly assigned him a week of lunch detentions.

Here’s my philosophy on classroom management:
I’m pretty loose with what students can and cannot do in class. I don’t have lists of rules posted around the room, and I certainly know the importance of choosing my battles. But my kids know that there is a very clear line drawn in the sand. They quickly learn to stay behind that line. If it is crossed, there is consistent and immediate consequence.

Yesterday I called in to work to help my wife take care of our brood of sick children. It was an unplanned absence but I emailed lesson plans and work in for the sub so I was not anticipating problems. This morning, I arrived to find a familiar note on my desk. It was a different sub, but the same boy, and same defiant, disruptive behavior.

When I pulled him in the hall, he said he knew why he was in trouble and he was aware of the consequence for his actions. He’ll again be enjoying my company as lunch partner for the next week.

But this got me thinking. I always assume that clear and consistent consequence is the way to deal with behavior problems. But if that’s the case, then why did he act up again when he saw a substitute sitting in my chair? Is punitive consequence ineffective, or is he just a little too impulsive and thick-skulled for it to work after only one instance?

What is your philosophy for effective classroom management?

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Professional Development VS. Personal Development

Last year I made the New Year's resolution to learn how to play piano. I found a quaint music shop that offers lessons, and every Wednesday I wait along with the other students (most being about half my age) in the lobby with lesson books in hand. I don't teach music, but the experience has reminded me what it's like to be the one whose job it is to learn, not to teach.

It's important to always be learning something new. If we forget what it's like to learn, then how can we expect others to learn from us? We hear all the time about professional development, but I'd hope that we are aware of personal development as well.

Can the personal and professional merge? They better, or else you may be in the wrong profession. Take, for example, my most current New Year's resolution. I've always wanted to learn how to create Flash applications, and with the help of my Instructional Technology department I now have a fresh copy of Adobe Flash CS4 Professional installed on my teacher workstation. While – and I'm aware that this is an awfully nerdy thing to admit – learning this is mostly grounded in recreational purposes, I can see Flash-based web apps, games, quizzes, and even iPod Touch apps to be something that could be integrated into my daily class activities. How cool would it be to create my own iPhone app and then host it as a free download to students through iTunes?!

I'm not there yet, but I'm learning. Here is my first Flash project - It's a pickle navigating through a maze. Okay, maybe it's lacking in educational value.

But hey, we all have to start somewhere.

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Justin Bieber Penny Drive Winner

Back in mid December, I mentioned that my school was participating in a local radio station penny drive to raise money for Women and Children’s Hospital. The school who collected the most would win a private concert by teen heartthrob Justin Bieber.


Wouldn’t you know it – we actually won.

57 local schools participated in the contest, raising more than $150,000 (or 15,000,000 pennies) for an important and worthy cause. Almost $17,000 of that came from our students. The fact that we won is near incomprehensible, but even moreso is the thought that in the past month and a half 1.7 million pennies have passed through our hallways.

Yesterday, our building (along with the support of Kiss 98.5) held a celebratory pep rally for the kids, and while the kids’ excitement over Justin Bieber was clear, something even more important was obvious. All the work they had done was for charity, and they knew it.

The feeling that nearly 1000 screaming preteens crammed into an auditorium evokes can be contagious. Even the boys who had previously cursed the name Justin Bieber sang along to his song as it played from the stage speakers. They realized that the pep rally wasn’t to celebrate Bieber, but to celebrate our ability to come together as a school and do something truly amazing.
 

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My Online Footprint

My first efforts at consistent blogging were not here, but at a blog that preceded it called 100 Days with the Eee PC. I received an Asus Eee PC for my birthday in November of 2008, just before the term netbook became a household word. Since they were still a fledgling technology, I decided to try a little experiment – to only use the Eee PC as my primary computer. I figured it would be a pretty clear case study to show the potential of the tiny machine.

My experiment was a success, but it came with a residual effect – I realized the excitement (and importance) to blogging. The blog you’re reading right now is a direct result of my netbook experiment.

The 100 Days blog has sat dormant for almost a year now, and I haven’t had too much need to go back to it – until yesterday. I was looking some source code I used about this time last year to create a online quiz for my students. I couldn’t remember where I had downloaded it from, but I did remember that I had blogged about it. I Googled my old blog to see if I could find the link.

What I found instead was sobering.

On the first page of results was a message board posting that someone had started about my blog. In it, they explained who I was, the purpose of my writing, and what subject area and grade level I taught. He then went on to question the legality of something I had written about. All of this information was easily obtainable through my blog or in my Blogger profile, but it was vexing to see it written by a stranger.

I once wrote that blogging is an open journal, but this Google search made me realize how true that is. There's a valuable message to share about your online footprint - If it's online, someone will find it. If it's something even remotely questionable, someone will question it. And unlike a footprint in the sand, what is said online is never washed away by the inevitable rising tide.

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