My Classroom Management Mentors // (or: A self-selected June blog in July)
So my mom didn't want me to do MTC. She never really said why, but basically, bottom line I think she just thought that a) I wouldn't really be able to do it, and b) as a result of that, I would be unhappy in the attempt.
This is actually completely logical in my mom's head. She has four kids and she was awesome with us, but she is utterly convinced that she simply does not have what it takes to control a CLASSROOM full of students. She basically thinks the same thing about me. My mom is amazing one-on-one, she tutors and all her kids adore her, and all of us grew up knowing that whatever WE decided to do we would have her full support.
So how do you convey that to a classroom full of kids? How do you combine the caring with the persona you need to make it work? Basically my answer came in three stages, with three faces.
1) Ben. People keep asking me how he knew to pick us. Service, achievement, and commitment are the common threads but that doesn't make us good teachers. Thing is, that falls exactly into Ben's philosophy. The service and the academic achievement DON'T make us good teachers. Learning and training and TEACHING make us good teachers. Commitment makes us willing to LEARN. Couzo had me worried for a while, because when I went to see him in November I asked a lot about training. At some point I said "I couldn't walk in here tomorrow and do this." and he said, "You could if you had to." Okay, some of my classmates definitely could, but that's not the attitude I want my TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM to take about my training. Fortunately, it totally isn't. The summer training is about helping us to BE good teachers. That's why the screening process works, with no personal interview and no model lesson to turn in or present. Ben finds people who want to be here, and puts them in a position where they can and have to learn what they need to learn. This is extremely empowering for us, and for anyone coming into the program. We can do it, if we try.
2) Ann. Okay. The lady who's going to teach us CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT is adorable, comes armed with crayons and markers, and used to teach third grade. Where I'm coming from, this is the my-mom component. The I-care-about-you part of teaching, in action. Ann shows us how to get everybody involved, how not to upset anybody, and most importantly, to have high expectations EVERY DAY, for EVERY STUDENT. There's a lot more to EDSE 500 than paper-folding and cushy inclusiveness, but this is the biggest message I took away: High expectations, believe in everybody, and rewards are your best friend.
3) E. My summer school head teacher. I think that Elizabeth Savage and I, at first meeting, had a mutual (albeit mild) distrust. She thought I was going to quail in front of a classroom full of 17 high school students (I, incidentally, had no experience to suggest that this was in any way untrue), and I'd heard that she could be, well ... a bit overbearing in the classroom.
At the end of the month, I guess the simplest explanation is that E. filled in the missing pieces for me. How do you control a class FIRST so that you can then let them know you care about them? Well, she not only showed me how to do it but helped me to understand that controlling your classroom is a way to show you care. It's not only about the encouraging note on their desk or the quiet conference in the hall -- it's about creating and environment where they CAN learn, and where they EXPECT to learn, and if you've gotten that done then it really doesn't matter if they think you're the Wicked Witch of the West (and, on top of that, they probably won't).
One day during summer school Elizabeth noticed that the other first-years and I were getting slack on discipline. We were complimented repeatedly on having one of the most controlled classrooms in the building, and even this day, it wasn't anything big, a subtle slip here or there over a period of time. She railed us. She was MAD. Not out of control, but obviously incensed. She told us that you HAVE to give that warning or detention at the first slip outside the lines because you CARE ABOUT THE STUDENTS -- to maintain a positive learning environment for THEM, ultimately, to let them ALL know that you CARE ENOUGH ABOUT THEM NOT TO IGNORE THEM. She told us that she didn't want to see any of our kids get kicked out before the end of the summer school, but that by being lax in enforcing consequences, we were going to let that happen.
You've heard this message a million times, I've heard it a million times, you give them a punishment because you care, my mom used to give me that after she spanked me when I was three and four years old.
I have never believed it before like I did when it came from Elizabeth. She wasn't mad at us, she was mad that the students weren't getting the best opportunity they could to learn things that they will someday need to know.
And it sounds corny, and it sounds like I'm trying to say the right things, but that's where it's different. Ben Guest told us on May 31, "I am pretty laid-back about everything else, but I am as serious as a heart attack about this program."
Elizabeth meant it. She cares fiercely for her students, and the more time we spent teaching together, the more unmistakably evident this became to all of us.
I'm sure I didn't learn enough, in four weeks, to be ready to face the fall. But I learned an awful lot.
So my mom didn't want me to do MTC. She never really said why, but basically, bottom line I think she just thought that a) I wouldn't really be able to do it, and b) as a result of that, I would be unhappy in the attempt.
This is actually completely logical in my mom's head. She has four kids and she was awesome with us, but she is utterly convinced that she simply does not have what it takes to control a CLASSROOM full of students. She basically thinks the same thing about me. My mom is amazing one-on-one, she tutors and all her kids adore her, and all of us grew up knowing that whatever WE decided to do we would have her full support.
So how do you convey that to a classroom full of kids? How do you combine the caring with the persona you need to make it work? Basically my answer came in three stages, with three faces.
1) Ben. People keep asking me how he knew to pick us. Service, achievement, and commitment are the common threads but that doesn't make us good teachers. Thing is, that falls exactly into Ben's philosophy. The service and the academic achievement DON'T make us good teachers. Learning and training and TEACHING make us good teachers. Commitment makes us willing to LEARN. Couzo had me worried for a while, because when I went to see him in November I asked a lot about training. At some point I said "I couldn't walk in here tomorrow and do this." and he said, "You could if you had to." Okay, some of my classmates definitely could, but that's not the attitude I want my TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM to take about my training. Fortunately, it totally isn't. The summer training is about helping us to BE good teachers. That's why the screening process works, with no personal interview and no model lesson to turn in or present. Ben finds people who want to be here, and puts them in a position where they can and have to learn what they need to learn. This is extremely empowering for us, and for anyone coming into the program. We can do it, if we try.
2) Ann. Okay. The lady who's going to teach us CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT is adorable, comes armed with crayons and markers, and used to teach third grade. Where I'm coming from, this is the my-mom component. The I-care-about-you part of teaching, in action. Ann shows us how to get everybody involved, how not to upset anybody, and most importantly, to have high expectations EVERY DAY, for EVERY STUDENT. There's a lot more to EDSE 500 than paper-folding and cushy inclusiveness, but this is the biggest message I took away: High expectations, believe in everybody, and rewards are your best friend.
3) E. My summer school head teacher. I think that Elizabeth Savage and I, at first meeting, had a mutual (albeit mild) distrust. She thought I was going to quail in front of a classroom full of 17 high school students (I, incidentally, had no experience to suggest that this was in any way untrue), and I'd heard that she could be, well ... a bit overbearing in the classroom.
At the end of the month, I guess the simplest explanation is that E. filled in the missing pieces for me. How do you control a class FIRST so that you can then let them know you care about them? Well, she not only showed me how to do it but helped me to understand that controlling your classroom is a way to show you care. It's not only about the encouraging note on their desk or the quiet conference in the hall -- it's about creating and environment where they CAN learn, and where they EXPECT to learn, and if you've gotten that done then it really doesn't matter if they think you're the Wicked Witch of the West (and, on top of that, they probably won't).
One day during summer school Elizabeth noticed that the other first-years and I were getting slack on discipline. We were complimented repeatedly on having one of the most controlled classrooms in the building, and even this day, it wasn't anything big, a subtle slip here or there over a period of time. She railed us. She was MAD. Not out of control, but obviously incensed. She told us that you HAVE to give that warning or detention at the first slip outside the lines because you CARE ABOUT THE STUDENTS -- to maintain a positive learning environment for THEM, ultimately, to let them ALL know that you CARE ENOUGH ABOUT THEM NOT TO IGNORE THEM. She told us that she didn't want to see any of our kids get kicked out before the end of the summer school, but that by being lax in enforcing consequences, we were going to let that happen.
You've heard this message a million times, I've heard it a million times, you give them a punishment because you care, my mom used to give me that after she spanked me when I was three and four years old.
I have never believed it before like I did when it came from Elizabeth. She wasn't mad at us, she was mad that the students weren't getting the best opportunity they could to learn things that they will someday need to know.
And it sounds corny, and it sounds like I'm trying to say the right things, but that's where it's different. Ben Guest told us on May 31, "I am pretty laid-back about everything else, but I am as serious as a heart attack about this program."
Elizabeth meant it. She cares fiercely for her students, and the more time we spent teaching together, the more unmistakably evident this became to all of us.
I'm sure I didn't learn enough, in four weeks, to be ready to face the fall. But I learned an awful lot.
posted by Miss Marshwater at 1:00 AM
1 Comments:
Agree with you. Ben and Ann and Liz (from what I know of her) are all awesome in their own ways. Agree especially with you about strictness/structure being the means to showing that you care. As I put it, structure creates freedom. In my opion, freedom without structure creates anarchy usually. By the way, my summer school classroom was a lot less strict overall, and we also had the most kids kicked out of summer school.
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