Classroom Management
I am constantly amazed over the many kinds of classroom management. Some are positive and then, there are some that are very negative. This is a weak area for me. I was a substitute teacher for about two years and I quickly learned to be very firm with my classroom management. You almost had to. Everyone knows that students quickly figures out how much they can get away with and push it as far as they can. The regular teacher is not around and they may never see the substitute again.
However, when establishing a long term classroom relationship you have to find a healthy balance. From what I have read from very various articles on library classroom management, you want to do everything possible make the library a very appealing place to visit. I could not tell you how many times in my middle and high school days as a student the school librarian made my visits very unappealing whether it was my interaction with them or other students. They would just always have a very unhappy look on their face and whether they realized it or not they gave the impression that they had not interest in helping you at all.
So, as an upcoming school librarian, I am on a search to find a classroom management styles that firm, very loves. I do not want them to run over me as some students have been. But I do not want them to dread the library but having to deal with me yelling at everyone.
I have been observing other teacher’s classrooms in hopes to adopt my own style. I have seen one teacher’s style that I am very eager to learn. She is a very sweet and loving kindergarten teacher. The kind you wish you had every year of your academic career. Being in her classroom made me feel cheated not having this experience as a childe and made me yearn to be a kindergarten again.
Like her students, you find yourself wanting to please her by answering each request correctly. Her students did sometimes make bad behavior choices, but this happened very little. But you would hardly notice because she handled them very quickly and never stopping her lesson. She would use slight hand gestures and a disappointing look to the wrong doer. When a student passed her three warning she quickly told them to stand and kept right on with her lesson. The student was not upset that he was caught, but more the fact that he disappointed her. About five minutes later she told him to sit and try again. Then, she went right on with her lesson without missing a beat. He did. He wanted to please her.
You can walk into her class and her students are very, very quiet and working diligently. This did not happen out of fear, but out of love for their teacher. Not only does this classroom management produce wonderful behavior out of her students, but it is very evident that it produces great academic achievement. These students made me in awe of their amount of knowledge they already have achieved. I have visited higher grades in the elementary school that are not as quick as the kindergarten class.
I have seen other teachers whose classroom management is so harsh. It may control the behavior, but it leaves the student either mentally paralyzed or an outburst of tears. They would use screaming in their student’s faces and belittling them to get their students to do what they ought to be doing. Learning cannot take place here and it is obvious in their scores.
