How much disruption should a teacher tolerate?

When a teacher enters his or her profession, and embarks on their first assignment in a school, how much disruption and disrespect is tolerable?

A.  None  B.  Zilch  C.  Zero  D.   Everything to the left

When I got serious about my classroom management philosophy, I thought deeply about education.  Is it a valuable commodity, or something that needs to be forced upon an unsuspecting youth to torture them or force them to hold still while we foist our questionable pearls of suspect wisdom upon them?

It started as a valuable commodity.  It still is in many parts of the world. 

But in our Sibling Society (see the excellent book by Robert Bly), it has often become viewed as some sort of chore or unseemly vegetable or medicine you have to take because it is ‘good for you’.

Ask a group of students why they should go to college.

‘To get an education.’

‘Why?’

‘So you could be somebody.’

My usual response to this is ‘Well, you are somebody now, so you’re already there–might as well skip college.’

What a horrible religion it is to preach that you are a nobody unless you have an education.  How about going to college to get educated?  

But there, I digress.  The topic is how much disruption a teacher should tolerate in a classroom, and the answer is none, by my reasoning.  My classroom discipline philosophy follows from my educational philosophy.  There is something valuable going on, the teacher has a great thing to offer, the student is in a classroom to learn, and that only.

I’ve thought of the photos I’ve seen of blacks in the South not a half century ago being attacked by dogs as they marched for, amongst other things, the right to an education.  Contrast that with administrators these days outside on school grounds with bullhorns begging kids to get to class on time. 

It is no secret that teacher burnout comes from this day in day out dealing with discipline troubles, because of the imbalance of power–students are given more power to disrespect and disrupt than teachers are given tools to battle it.  

The only long term way both students and teachers can have a positive experience in the classroom is if there is no disruption or disrespect, and the time can be spent in focused learning.

But how do you arrange that kind of environment?  Can it be done if your students do not already have a basic sense of respect?  Yes, it can.  You must start with the idea that classroom management is not an ongoing battle to manage your class, but an effort to create an environment where the management is so good you don’t know it’s there.

When people read all of my rules and consequences and accountability methods they may think all day is spent on classroom discipline or that the classroom resembles some sort of police state–no, the rules are just there, in the background, ready to be enforced once in awhile, while the actual class atmosphere is one of quiet, respectful attention and preparedness to learn.  This cannot be requested of the students, but demanded as the only appropriate way to have education take place.

Here’s to enjoying your teaching experience–

Craig Seganti