CHILDREN NEED TRAINING – CONTINUED

Teaching is spoiled and learning diminished if management devices are not in place and practised. Teachers can be too busy and bravely attempt to control, manage, discipline, and teach.  They wear themselves to frazzles and finish up with a group of students ranging from the disruptive (those setting the class social agenda) to the very frustrated (those who want to learn but are not taught because the teacher is too preoccupied to teach).

Processes, procedures, rules, and regulations can be reinforced and satisfied. That satisfaction embraces students, teachers, the class as a community of learners, and the school. When teaching a class, it can be that teachers lose the group. It is ever so important that the initial time teachers spend with a new class is a ‘steady as she goes’ period.

Set the Scene with the Children

A losing strategy for any teacher can be an attempt to set the classroom scene without involving the children. Ironclad rules and tight procedures will quickly lose their impact if they are set without the class’s involvement. Teachers and children must establish class rules and guidelines in concert. The class needs to own its governance. Rules won’t work if they are dictatorially set and then maritally announced. Collectivity, the group contributing to and therefore owning governance, is the intelligent way to formulate procedures.

‘Us shaping’ rather than ‘me saying’ and ‘you doing’ is essential. Groupship is empowering. Without the right approach to classroom management, a teacher can become awfully isolated and almost unappreciated. No teacher wants to be overbearing to the point of being ‘sent to Coventry’ by their class.

To be continued