Anybody remember the brilliant movie ‘Amadeus’?
There’s a terrific scene where after a symphony concert one of Mozart’s rivals is trying to make him look bad, and tells the Emperor that the piece played had ‘too many notes’. Here is a link to the scene to get the full impact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU
Of course the suggestion is ridiculous, and at the end of the scene Mozart says, knowing full well the Emperor has no idea what he is talking about and is simply repeating what sounds good from his ‘authorities’: ”Which notes should I cut, your majesty?”
Which brings me to emails I get once in awhile, where a teacher employs Classroom Discipline 101 techniques, and things are going well and wild classrooms are finally coming to order, but a disgruntled student who can no longer disrupt the education going on complains to the administration.
You guessed it–admin tells the teacher the rules are ‘too tough’. Admin backs the student, parents back the student, disaster ensues.
Well, I have never had this problem personally, because there is nothing wrong with my rules, they are within the ed. code and my administrators have been very content knowing by some miracle students behave in my classes and they rarely have to deal with a student sent from my room. But, if this did happen, my first question to the parent and/or administrator would be:
“Which rules should I cut, your Majesty?” (Your Majesty is optional, not recommended actually).
You see, my experience is that when people stand on weak logical grounds they tend to keep things vague and general, and when forced to specify in this instance it will become clear that every rule has a solid rationale that facilitates learning, and none are ‘too tough.’
Unless, of course, you have low expectations for behavior. So if someone did pick out a specific rule, say, ‘students are to be on task at all times’, and say it was too ‘tough’, I would say, ‘Yes, if you have low expectations for student behavior’. Then point out the logical alternative: ”So, students should not be on task at all times. Okay, what should they be doing in class then exactly? How much time should I allow for goofing off, cell phone calls, computer games and desk throwing? After all, I don’t want to give the impression that we should be learning at all times.” Of course you don’t have to adopt my sarcasm, that’s just my style ’cause I find it fun. But you can get the point across firmly.
I have high expectations for students’behavior; no, I don’t babble about high expectations, I have them– and you should too–it’s good for you and for the students. It is not good for disruptive complainers and people that interfere with the educational process, so of course they will complain. Who comes first here, the disruptor or the disrupted?
Now, armed with this information, if it happens to you in the future, tell me specifically what rule is objected to, and we’ll take from there how exactly you might reply. The book explains the rationale for everything.
Here’s the thing gets me a bit miffed: none of these people complain that their lousy discipline methods are not working, that seems to be okay. It’s okay if students and teachers endure disruption and disrespect and inferior learning every day as long as the methods du jour handed down by theorists who couldn’t get a class under control if there life depended on it are employed. Sheesh.
It is important to understand that if you are at a public school the ed. code trumps administration, and if you are within your bounds they should not be telling you you cannot use my time-tested, effective, high-expectations rules.
Okay MPT’s, resist evil and let’s get on with our jobs–teaching.
Cheers,
Craig
The default setting on detention time is have the students just sit silently or copy the rules if they had that added on. There is value in having a student sit silently; it may be the only time they learn to do so that week, and time alone with their thoughts doesn’t hurt.
I tell them if they talk or distract the clock resets–it is 15 minutes from the time they stop talking.
If they are squirming it makes detention that much more effective because they don’t want to return. Though sometimes I let them read and/or do homework. Other times I engage them in a little conversation to indicate how un-evil I am in real life, just that they are merely paying a consequence for a rule broken doesn’t make them a bad student either.
This is all a judgement call–do what you think will help your classroom environment in the long run. In other words, if a student really likes coming after school to talk to you, then chatting with them isn’t going to help your case.
I never have less than 2 or 3 students in the room for my own protection against any accusations. There have been cases where students conspire to accuse teachers of various things; were I wary of that, I would simply stand in the doorway marking papers or reading or keep myself visible somehow.
Question: I am a foreign language teacher so there has to be talking and action in my classroom. The students misinterpret this activity as meaning you can talk about whatever you like. I have worked on it and worked on it and told them they may talk only in the target language but many are just first year students. What should I do here?
Answer: The whole idea here is that there is a consequence for anything that is not contributing positively to the classroom environment that you, as a professional, want. Most activities that seem like they are a loophole are not at all if you check the rules; in this case, students not talking about the assignment are off task, and receive detention. My experience (and I tell students this) is that I can merely look at their body language and listen to the tone of the conversation without knowing exactly what they are saying to know if they are on the assignment or not, so I don’t have to be near them or listen to false protests of ’We were talking about the work’. ‘Get on Task or come after school today’.
An Example of Good Group Work
A More Challenging Group
Also, I recommend quiet academic book work for the first week or two to get students accustomed to a focused atmosphere, then slowly breaking them into the group work a bit at a time, and immediately stopping it and going back to quiet work if they are off-task, so that they know group work is a privilege and not for gossip or social networking.
1st grade substitute for 3 days
By · CommentsHello Peers, My name is Shelley Crawford and I am a substitute teacher in Baltimore City, Maryland public school system. I have an assignment next week teaching 1st graders for 3 days. How would your approach be modified to help 1st graders maintain classroom discipline? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter. Have a wonderful day as well!
Sincerely,
Shelley Crawford
The Equivocation of Positive Part 2
By · Comments
Let’s examine these dastardly equivocations further.
First, ‘positive’ used as a cover for educator naivete. The idea that all children are good if they are touched by the right educator with a positive attitude and that any student can be ‘turned around’ with the right loving care and miracle pedagogy handed down from the University Research gods is naiive. Certainly, students can be influenced for the good. Certainly, a good teacher is better than a bad one. But the root causes of current demise in education are hardly due to non-loving teachers, bad pedagogy, and a negative attitude towards students. This belief, in fact, is in the process of killing off what remains of American education.
Do Ipods Make You Smarter than This?
To illustrate this, let’s imagine (and I mean imagine) that negative thinking and attitudes on the part of teachers are one of the principle causes of poor education; let’s then imagine this problem being repaired. So, suddenly we will get a crop of teachers with a positive attitude, countrywide, that will solve this problem of students not learning due to the negative attitude of their teachers.
As I say in my book Classroom Discipline 101, wrong premises lead to wrong conclusions. If your premise is that students are performing poorly because their teachers don’t know how to teach and aren’t positive, you are going to try to solve the problem by fixing the wrong premise-by trying to make everyone somehow ‘positive’.
What’s the plan if you go with that premise? Certify Principals in positivity training, then make sure every teacher nation-wide is screened for a positive-attitude test? What will this test look like?
Question #1: Johnny is failing Algebra. He is in 10th grade but only working at 6th grade level. He is absent once or twice or three times a week. Why is he failing?
- He has nowhere near the skills to achieve what he is supposed to at this level.
- His past teachers displayed a negative attitude towards him.
- His current teacher does not have a positive attitude and doesn’t care enough about him.
- He has problems at home that need to be countered with a positive attitude at school.
- Johnny sensed the negative attitude of the teacher thinking he may not be able to do algebraic equations well when he couldn’t multiply 6 x 12, leading to his discouragement because of the teacher’s preconceived notion of what Johnny could and could not accomplish. Had the teacher said ‘Hey! You don’t need any skills to enter this course, I can not only provide you with the skills you are missing from the last four years, not only reconnect synapse functions which are missing from your lack of intellectual brain stimulation for the last 8 years, but fill the class with the positive aura that comes from my positivity and faith in you which will turn around a lifetime of poor habits, but through the force of my positivity make you achieve, achieve, achieve! Now, we need a bit of research-based technique also, so watch the smoke and mirrors as I throw in a little scaffolding! Abracadabra, voila!’
Wow, if we can just replace all of the big meany negative teachers currently ruining the system through their lack of magical thinking and positive intent with teachers like these, attitudes will turn around and we will once again sit atop the world as the educational leader! After all, all other countries with high achieving students do it by positive thinking…don’t they?
(to be continued)
