is that unless you’re a full-time blogger on the specific topic, you may not have something topical to submit when the deadline rolls around. And me, I’m just not the kind of person to torment myself trying to think up some crap to send in just because the deadline is nearing.
Anyway, I watched Hard Times at Douglass High yesterday. All I can say is alien environment. What we at the university call discipline problems, well, the teachers in the documentary would just laugh. Sure, we get disengaged students (although most of those don’t come to class, so we don’t have to put up with it), but for the most part, the considerable amount of misbehavior on university campuses happens outside the classroom.
And that started me thinking. I always had a policy: Any time any colleague in the department needed a sub, I volunteered. I didn’t do this because I wanted to be altruistic. My motivation was purely self-interest. You see, I had everybody in the department owing me big-time and when I did go out of town — and while rare, those trips tended to be for a full week — I would always be able to get subs.
As a result of this policy, I have more experience than most in seeing other people’s classes. What was striking was how some people (no names) always had unruly classes. I never could figure out why.
I’m no storm trooper in the classroom. I don’t yell at students (even when they are being unruly), and I don’t get nasty. The thing is, my classes were never unruly. Never. Here’s my untested hypothesis to explain it.
Way back when I started teaching, I was overly familiar. That was no doubt because I wasn’t that much older than my students. That didn’t work, or at least, I wasn’t at all effective at controlling the classroom.
As the age difference between me and my students increased, I became more formal and authoritarian. I swung way too far in that direction, and found that it didn’t help me control the class. I also wasn’t comfortable with it.
Over the years, I found an effective balance between the two extremes. I am warm and cordial with students, but I maintain a professional distance. I am not on a first-name basis with them (although I don’t insist that they address me in any specific way). I address all of my students as Mr. Jones and Ms. Wilson — not to be cold or formal, but respectful. I never talk down to students, even when they are being stupid (and yes, they are sometimes incredibly so). I made sure that they understood that my highest priority was not only to teach the material, but to do everything I could to see that they learned it, and succeeded.
I treat my students like adults. Not peers, because we are not peers, but adults.
The surprising thing is that they respond to that. When I walk into the room, students stop talking. Well, that’s my classroom. When I walk into many of my colleagues’ classrooms, the talking continues until I have said, “Let’s start,” four or five times. In my classroom, when I ask a question, students respond. In those other classrooms, I have to ask repeatedly, and often have to threaten to “volunteer” somebody.
Students come to my office hours, sometimes just to talk. They greet me in the hall or the library. Until I left the university, ex-students frequently dropped by my office to chat and let me know what was going on in their lives.
My hypothesis is that while students may not be adults in the fullest sense of the word, they appreciate being treated like adults, and they appreciate being treated with respect. If you set a respectful tone, students (in my experience) will rise to it. I had only a very few students that could be termed discipline problems. Some of my colleagues, on the other hand, at least to judge from daily conversation, had troublesome, disrespectful students on their hands all the time.
At meetings, they would ask things like, “How do I keep students from walking out early?” I could not imagine one of my students walking out early, unless he had asked me if he could before class started. It just never happened. Not once.
Note that my colleagues ribbed me a lot about the way I addressed my students. The thing is, they were the ones with the problems, not me.
Thats my hypothesis, anyway.
Entries (RSS)
My experience as an NCO has parallelled your experience in the classroom. The first NCO stripe is the hardest, because in one day you go from being one of the guys to a leader/boss.
However, I doubt that anything could of saved those students. I suspect that any school that does get good results with similar populations only does so through attrition, not redemption.
The same applies to little kids (and dogs.) At least that’s been my observation. Adults with no self-respect or self-discipline have unruly kids and dogs - and vice versa.
[…] I blogged on this some time back. You aren’t their peer. You aren’t their friend. You aren’t their […]