Friday, November 17, 2006

Management Part II: Sticking to it

I seem to begin all of my assigned posts by describing how, well actually, I didn't really do the assignment exactly as it was intended, really. This one's no different. The assignment: enforce every rule and consequence all the time, every time, for two weeks. A tough one, to be sure, which is why Ben said we only had to do it with one class. If the assignment has taught me anything, it's that I'm truly horrible at consistent enforcement. What I ended up doing was more like consistently enforcing rules and consequences for one class for a couple days, then switching to a different class for another two days, then having a bad day and falling apart for every period, then coming back strong at the beginning of every single period but easing up midway through.

That's not to say I didn't try. I started every day of the past two weeks (and most periods, even) mentally resolving to be the drill sergeant I need to be. But the flesh is weak. Often, I'd start the period draconian and consistent about students talking, not getting to work on time, etc. but find myself needing to send a student to the office. Dealing with that, I'd either miss a few infractions or just be so relieved to get the problem student out that I'd ease up on everyone else for a while. From there it was a slippery slope toward chaos.

Not that I'm completely inept or a total pushover, though (despite what my students may say/think about me). I did find that the weeks of being more hardcore, if not completely so, have helped diminish the constant talking and especially the verbal disrespect. Whether through example or some change in my tone/posture/whatever, my warnings and directions seem to carry a little more weight than they did previously. And on my better days (or rather, better periods, of which I've had maybe 3), when I'm catching every infraction and still moving the class forward at a good clip, things just seem to get better and better, with negative consequences becoming more effective and the class points and verbal praise piling up (at least until a kid swipes another kid's pencil and I'm suddenly trying to prevent World War III).

So, to sum up: I'm still no paragon of consistency, but I know that I can be better about enforcement and I've seen enough to know how much easier my life could be if I was. As I said in my last management post, I don't think my rules need to be changed. My negative consequences haven't changed officially, except that I now move from one writing assignment to detention and that I've gone back to holding my own d-hall after sending weeks' worth of lists to the office and never seeing my students in the school-wide one. My positive consequences do seem a little sparse, Student of the Week having fallen by the wayside temporarily, but I'm confident they could work if I stick to SoW and the weekly class rewards.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

high expectations

I was afraid that reading e.e. cummings with my 7th graders would be an instance of setting my expectations a little too high. After all, I don't think I was ready for him at their age and I also don't want to give them any more bad-grammar role models than they already have. The poem we were reading ("anyone lived in a pretty how town," for a pronouns unit) has some especially knotty lines. But once I coaxed them past their initial frustration and knee-jerk dismissal ("This guy writes like a sped kid!"), they proved those fears wonderfully unfounded. After only one reading, a girl picked up that it was a story about a couple, something I thought I'd have to drill into them. The concept of pronouns becoming characters clicked as soon as I showed it to them. My favorite, though, had to be the K-Train's revelation to me at the end of class:

"Mr. Wayland, he writes funny."
"What do you mean?"
"He says things backwards."

It deserved a pound, but my hands were occupied, so I had to resort to a "fantastic." Which of course it was.

I'm trying to give my 8th-graders the same treatment, but they seem more likely to get frustrated or indignant when I ask them to think. Still, I got to write the ladder of moral obligations, "Obey God, Obey King, Obey Father," on the board and hint at the consequences of a character's breaking the bottom one. At least one girl seemed to be getting it. It's not so far to "Paradise Lost" from here.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Classroom Management Revisited

Looking back at my classroom management plan from the summer, I'm not sure I could give a fair assessment of its success. My biggest problem has been and continues to be consistency in enforcing my rules and consequences. So I can't really say whether or not the plan's worked because I haven't yet implemented it properly. I'm much better about enforcement at the beginning of class, but I still get lax partway through a class or midway through the week. The solution is simple enough, but this consistency and assertiveness business seems to be my personal weakness--not something I'm proud to admit, as it's the foundation of being able to teach at all.

I've considered the possiblity that my rules are simply out of sync with what I can reasonably expect of my students. A while ago, Austin and I talked about this in terms of his classes. He'd decided that his rule prohibiting any talking in class was unreasonable and that he had to loosen up on that front. I was a little skeptical, but I understood where he was coming from. But as for doing something like that myself--I don't have two years of teaching under my belt and I think I have a signficantly different teacher personality than him. My rules are unreasonable given how little my students respect me, but I know enough not to compromise on my rules for that.

So what do I see in my classroom management plan now, three and half months wiser? Naivete mostly. I knew that I should want my classroom a certain way and that I needed to require certain behavior of my students to get it and keep it that way, but I didn't have the conviction, bred of experience, to back that up with action. The procedures, rules, and consequences that I wrote then are still what I want now; having tried to teach a class in which those things aren't followed, it's clear to me now why I want them.