My classroom management style has always been to be proactive. In other words I try to stop classroom management problems before they arise.
The effectiveness of this approach has never been more evident to me than it is has during the past couple of weeks of teaching. Two weeks ago I took a bad fall while skimboarding with my son. Yes, yes I know...my wife has made it quite clear to me that I am getting too old to be skimboarding. Meanwhile I broke two toes (as well some serious bruises elsewhere) and this has made teaching quite the challenge.
While my students have been great to me these past two weeks, it has made me realize how physical my classroom management style really is. The fact is I rarely, if ever, sit down while teaching...I am always up and moving. This is one of the most effective classroom management strategies there is...by moving about the classroom the teacher is able to easily keep students on task without saying a word and without stopping the flow of the lesson. It also allows me to "interview" the students while they are sharing information or working together with their partner or group.
This has been my classroom management style since the beginning of my career, but the value of it was made very clear to me these past couple weeks as I was simply unable to move around the classroom at all. In fact, it reminded me of my old teachers when I was back in back in middle school. The ones who sat at their desk in the front of the classroom while all the students sat in rows and worked quietly on their own. However, this is not my classroom management style at all. Without a doubt, it is significantly more difficult to keep students on task when the teacher just sits in front of the class. It is just too easy for students to sit there and do nothing, or worse, get involved in minor chit-chat and misbehavior. I can't help but think about how many more kids fall through the cracks when teachers don't move about the classroom.
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Article added to SearchWarp.com on Saturday, September 20, 2008 View other articles written by Adam Waxler(2,391)
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