Philosophical Basis

I believe the best way to manage a classroom is by getting the students implicitly motivated to learn. Throughout my life the most successful people I've encountered have been those who like to be "in the know"--that is, those who enjoy the process and product of learning. When you are the last person in the group to find out about a juicy piece of gossip, for example, it feels bad. But when you're the only person in class who knows who wrote the metaphysical poem, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," it should feel good--really good.

When happiness is the end result of learning, students will want to learn because they will want to feel happy; and conversely, when unhappiness is the consequence for not learning, students will do what they need to do solely to avoid a state of unhappiness. This is not to suggest, however, that a teacher ought to just positively and negatively reinforce behaviors in a B.F. Skinner kind of way, or ever do anything that deliberately hurts the feelings of a child. What I am saying is this: students feel happy when they are rewarded for good grades, good behavior, hard work, and attentiveness with anything from candy, to personal notes, Student of the Month awards, special priveleges, positive phone calls home, and putting their work on display; students feel unhappy, on the other hand, when they are punished for bad grades and bad behavior with a lecture, suspension, phone call to their parents, and a look of dissapointment on the teacher's face. The choice is up to the students.

IThe key to classroom management is making students aware of how it good it feels to learn and how bad it it feels to fail to the point that they will learn to avoid feeling bad. And once they have that ounce of self-motivation, they will get into a habit of learning and of experiencing the joys of learning to the point that they will not want to live without learning.

Ultimately, I believe it is the students' responsibility to manage their own classroom. If the students want to learn--that is, if they choose to learn--then they will want and choose to control themselves when it is time to learn. This means getting to class on time, always coming prepared, sitting still, paying attention, taking notes, asking questions, ignoring distractions, staying on task and following rules when necessary. By getting children in the habit of loving positive feedback and hating negative feedback, and by rewarding things like timeliness and preparedness while punishing inattentiveness and disruptiveness, students will eventually get into the habit of managing and controlling their own classroom.

Pragmatic Basis

When you have a classroom full of kids who want to learn, of course they will manage themselves and do what they need to do when they need to do it. The reality is that the students won't be in this condition when they get to you. The real challenge of classroom management is thus getting the students under control from the moment they arrive on the first day of school. In other words, before a self-controlled classroom of students can organically develop, some artificial means of classroom management need already be planted.

When planning classroom rules, policies, and procedures, It is important to consider students' backgrounds, social development, and prior knowledge. Most of my students are kinesthetic and interpersonal learners, naturally greggarious and sanguine, historically marginalized from academic, scientific, and political circles, and living near, at, or below the poverty level. These and other factors definately determined the kind of clasroom management plan I needed to implement. For example, when first trying to establish some rules in my class I thought it would be a good idea to be as specific as possible, so that there was no confustion as to exactly what I meant. My verbosity inevitably backfired, because the students had no interest in reading a discursive list of rules, nor the prior experience of reading one, and they tuned me out as soon as I started. Based on the type of students I teach, I realized two things about classroom management: (a) if I expected the students to learn the rules, I had to teach the rules, meaning I would have to teach them in the same way I would teach a literary concept or skill, and (b) the rules, policies, and procedures themselves must be logical and sufficiently elucidated.

Classroom Management: A Five-Dimensional Model

The best way to understand how I think about classroom management is in terms of five dimensions, or essential elements:

Room Arrangement

My classroom is square in shape. The entrance is at the back of the room and opens into the Commons/Cafeteria. The back wall is occupied by an oversized bookcase and two large cabinets. The bookcase contains students' textbooks so they never have an excuse not to have it, class sets of dictionaries and thesauri, and issues of VOX, a monthly newspaper written by and for teenagers in the metro-Atlanta area. The right wall is a collage of maps, posters, quotations, key words, and essential questions. The left wall contains three glass cases which contain course info, S.A.T. words, and samples of student work, respectively. The front wall of the the room is occupied by a dry-erase board, above which Georgia Professional Standards are posted. The teachers desk is at the front of the room, and students are seated at one of four round tables or at desks along the left and right walls.

Rules

Expectations, Policies & Procedures

Dress Code -  Students should adhere to the dress code as defined in the student handbook.

Electronic Devices - There are to be no electronic devices (iPod, cell phone, etc.) visible or in use during the instructional period.

Food/Drink - Food and drinks, with the exception of bottled water, should not be brought into the classroom. 

Hall Passes - Students will be issued three Hall Passes at the beginning of the year to use at his or her discretion throughout the semester. 

Preparedness - Students will be prepared for class each day with a notebook, writing utensil, and relevant course documents.

Timeliness -  Students will adhere to the tardy policy and consequences set forth by the administration: 1 tardy = warning, 2 tardies = call home, 3 tardies = detention, and
4 tardies = referral/demerit/suspension.

Language - Students will not use vulgar, inappropriate, or violent language.

Organization - Students will organize course documents and work into a three-ring binder divided into sections, one for each unit in the course.

Late Work: All late work will automatically receive a grade of 70%. 

Make-Up Work: For any work you missed because of an excused absence, it is your responsibility to make up outside of class time.  Do NOT ask about make-up work during regular class time.  You must see the teacher after school during tutorial.  You will have 3 days to complete make-up assignments.  For any work missed because of an unexcused absence, you will receive a maximum grade of 70%.  You CANNOT make up any work missed due to unexcused absences.   This is is to prevent students from skipping school because they didn't study for a test or finish an assignment on time.

Redoing Work: You may redo up to five assignments throughout the semester, but only if you attend afternoon tutorial.