Classroom Management Stance 

Classroom Management can be described using multiple comparisons, concepts, and philosophies. However I feel that the best metaphor for my idea of classroom management is a sports team. Our class requires many components of a sports team: using communication, handling interpersonal conflict, and keeping engagement in accomplishing the goal. Moreover, these parts are essential to making a classroom function and successful in educating the students as well as me. 

Communication on a team involves several coordinators. This means that communication for my students is going to have multiple contributors. Principals, faculty, parents/guardians, and my instruction all provide many resources to ensure the success of my students. My goal is to utilize some form of mass communication for outward contact. For example, I would use a program called Remind which would allow me to send out a text to all of the parents about various announcements, assignments, and upcoming assessments. Communication inside the classroom involves my students and I actively building relationships. While some students may be able to come to the open house, I will not meet them all on the same day. As a result, I must strategically create a path to make each student feel heard and known by me. This leads me to include using parent/guardian contact sheets as well as student surveys. These two techniques will allow me to stay in touch with both the family and the student individually. The final source of communication I want to use are positive notes/emails. I can tell my students how their good behavior makes me more excited than if I call or mention it out loud in class. Plus, it can be hard to instantly tell everyone all about their good behaviors at the end of class. Therefore, positive notes/emails are an easy way to show them that I notice their behavior and that I care about how they are doing.

While communication and having a plan seems sufficient, the truth is that people in groups will have some type of conflict. This means I must have an adequate way to not only document and track overwhelmingly alarming behaviors, but also an idea for how to resolve conflicts among my students. Milner (2019) emphasizes how restorative discipline can be a way to keep students in the classroom, instead of having them suspended out of the learning environment. Moreover, Marzano (2003) suggests that including students in the rule-making process helps their overall behavior and learning. My plan is to use a combination of having the students create their own rules and also helping them understand social responsibility. Part of my role as a teacher is to teach the aspects of life that are not listed in the textbook. There are social responsibilities that require more than simply comprehension. I want to use my classroom as a space where making mistakes is okay, but it also means taking ownership of them and resolving any hurts that have occurred. Milner (2019) suggests that using affective language can prevent or fix smaller problems before they turn into more serious issues. Therefore, my use of language and helping my students understand how an action or behavior may have hurt someone will make it easier to handle conflicts. 

The final main piece for classroom management is engagement. The longer students go without a specific task or set of instructions, the more likely trouble and conflict will happen. As an educator, I have to maintain the focus of my students in order to prevent boredom and/or apathy towards learning altogether. One way to engage the students as a part of the learning process is to learn about them: what their culture is, what their families are like, and what are their interests. Teachers with “strong pedagogical content knowledge know how to select the best content and effectively present it to students” (Milner et al., 2019, pg.72). I have to have multiple ways to explain the same concept. Some students may not like sports, while others may love to watch sports. If I tried to use a metaphor from baseball or soccer, every student may not understand. As a teacher, having multiple ideas or ways to teach something is key. My students may work better with visuals. Other classes I might teach might overall learn more with a movement activity. Until I know my students and their identity, how can I effectively and fully teach them? Moreover, the layout of the classroom can contribute or hinder the maximum amount of learning. For my classroom design (See Figure 1), I wanted to go with a design that allows my students to collaborate and still see me. Moreover, I like having the students be able to have some space to move, stand up, and stretch if they need to. This classroom is designed for a middle school age group of students because I want to teach at the middle school level. I have the students grouped by fours so that they can easily do partner or small group activities. I have the whiteboard/screen in the front (it depends on the school district). I have also included a “cool down” space where students can go if they need to be away from the area temporarily. This allows them to not have to leave the room completely and it helps me have an idea of where everyone is at all times. The final aspect I love about this design is that I can do an activity that moves them from group to group. This can be great for different stations or even a beginning activity to get to know their classmates. 

Figure 1

In conclusion, classroom management can be seen from a sports team perspective. From communicating effectively to engagement, classroom management is a team effort that requires all to contribute. Without the students’ cooperation, how will anyone truly learn? Without the proper activities and including other interests, how will I be able to gain the full attention of my students? These questions are what lead me to see how classroom management can be not about what punishments fit the crime per se, but about how we as a class can function and grow as an unit. 

References

Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

Milner, H. R., Cunningham, H. B., Delale-O’Connor, L., & Kestenberg, E. G. (2019). “These kids are out of control”: Why we must reimagine “Classroom management” for equity. Corwin. a SAGE Company.