Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

I like how this chapter deals with the idea of classroom management from the students’ point of view. I found it very interesting how all the students wanted the classroom to be orderly and how they recommended setting boundaries on the first day. I think this is one of the hardest things to do as a new teacher because you want to be liked but your class so you tend to be more lenient and then class gets out of hand. I agree that it is important to be consistent with your rules. If a rule applies to one kid than it should apply to everyone and if you tell the student that you’re going to call his parent then call his parent. I found the part about why students are disruptive to be very helpful, if you are able to tell why someone is being a nuisance than you are one step closer to helping him and calming him down. One of the most helpful parts of the chapter was when they had tips from the students. Many of the tips seemed to be common sense but if the students felt that they were important enough to mention then it probably means many teachers do not follow them.

I have classrooms that were completely run by the students, classroom that were dictatorships, and some that were in between. The classes that were run by the students were not always with new teachers, I also found the same thing happened when teachers were about to retire. They seem to get to a point were they figure that they are going to be gone and there was no reason to just let the students do what they wanted to do. It did not matter who the teacher was, I found that I was unable to learn in these classes and I generally did not like the class. The classes that were run like a dictatorship were fewer but I found that they same thing would happen, I would not like the class and I would not learn. The classes that were somewhere between were the classes that I really liked, where the teacher had control but let the students make some decisions. These classes were fun and I was able to learn a lot from them.