Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Control in the Classroom
While I was sitting in my math class waiting for the teacher to get there, I began to think about what I was going to write about for this first blog about control in the classroom. As I sat, my teacher came in, she did not say anything and the rest of the class just kept talking and finding their seats. Class had official begun and students were still talking and Mindy, my teacher, just sat down in the front of the class and looked at us. Slowly, the my fellow classmates took notice of her and they stopped talking. Than class began like it normally does with her making her announcements and than on to today's lecture. It hit my right than and there that teachers really do control the classroom and even in very subtle ways which most don't notice. I think teachers need that type of control because if there was a lack of control, nothing would get done during class. Also, I believe controls goes hand in hand with the students respecting the teacher too because we know from day one that the teacher is someone we have to respect and that they are there to help us learn. So in my mind there are two parts of control when it comes in the classroom. Who knew that math class would be helpful when it came to this blog?!?!
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5 comments:
I really liked how you said teachers can control the classroom in very subtle ways. I've definitely been in classes where teachers come in and the students stop talking, and never really thought of it as a way the teacher had control. I'm sure there are many ways a teacher can control a classroom that we haven't even thought of.
I definitely agree on the subtly ways that teachers have control. You never really notice until you really think about it. For example hand raising..
When reading through your blog, I remembered a technique that one of my teachers used to use in high school. Obviously, we've all been in classes and know how hard it can be to calm everyone down and get them to concentrate on a lesson, especially if its a large group. In high school, I had a teacher who told us on the first day of class that the 50 minutes we were in class were his 50 minutes and for every minute we took away from him, we owed him a minute. At first, no one took him seriously but the first class period where everyone continue to goof around even after the bell had rung, our teacher quietly sat at the front of the classroom and watched the clock. After about three minutes, people began to notice him and calmed down. He then told us that we owed him three minutes at the end of class. We quickly learned our lesson as three minutes is a big chunk of time when you only have five minutes to get to your next class and we weren't given late excuses. Looking back, my teacher did a great job of gaining control of the classroom without actually doing much, purely by banking on other teachers' tardy policies. Not to mention that a lot of students began to shush everyone once the bell rang to keep them from owing minutes! Holding the whole class accountable for a few students' actions definitely helped in effectively changing classroom behavior!
I think you make a valid point that from day one students understand the place of the teacher and the place of the students. However, I don't think that students automatically respect teachers. It is a harder thing to obtain these days. Students these days do not feel like it is necessary to automatically respect their teachers. I do agree that students know what the teacher expects from them without them saying a sound. THe fact that a teacher can walk into a room and not have to say a word and students know whats up is still amazing.
Great Blog and comments. Is it the teacher that has control or is it really the students? Wasn't it the student who decided to stop talking and not the teacher making him stop? I make this distinction because I think it is faulty logic to believe that you can actually control another person's behavior. You have alot of resources that you can use to convince/encourage/conjole the other person to decide to behave the way you would like him/her to .... but when push comes to shove, the student makes the choice.
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