One top reason teachers leave the profession is their lack of mastery of one of the basic skills necessary to be successful in the field: effective management of student behavior.
Although classroom management is taught in teacher preparatory classes, few graduates leave Education College with the ability to successfully deal with the disruptive behavior that will undoubtedly present itself in that new teacher’s classroom.
Why the lack of mastery in such a basic and necessary skill of the teaching profession? It is the nature of the beast. The skills are not intrinsic and are not easily taught through instruction. Effective classroom management is best learned through experience. And experience is just what a freshman teacher lacks.
Education experts do not agree on what constitutes effective classroom management. Classroom management theories abound. So there is not a ‘cookbook recipe’ to follow. A new teacher must discover what approach best fits their comfort level for the management of the students in the classroom.
Despite differences in approach, all successful classroom management programs share basic tenets. The consequences for misbehavior must be clearly defined and consistently applied. Teachers who maintain a persona of dispassionate strength are most likely to ensure success.
Teachers must also be flexible enough to throw tried-and-true tactics out the window if they no longer work. Each new classroom of students will require a carefully honed set of classroom management techniques. It is the veteran teacher who is best able to accomplish this task.
Classroom management skills do not ‘come naturally’ to most new teachers. It is the kind of skill learned as necessity dictates. In most cases, the degree of success achieved by first-year teachers is dependent upon the support of the school administration. Schools with a strong mentoring program have higher teacher retention and a greater degree of overall school success. The administrator who take the approach that ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention” is likely to spend more money on dealing with a high teacher turnover rate that would have been necessary to provide a quality classroom management mentoring program.
Excellent article and spot on. My son likes the teachers who can manage the students who are disrupting the class. He likes toughness but consistency. Surely this could be taught – at least role played?
The best teachers are those who have a true calling for it. My degree is in secondary Ed. I taught high school English for awhile, but at the time I looked like I was a student. I wanted to “save” inner city schools where they lacked proper materials and attention. But I was unprepared for the hostility, aggresive behavior and drugs. It was culture shock. I left and went into social work where I belonged.
Terrific article with one piece missing: WHY is it so much harder these days to manage classroom behavior? Because too many kids are coming into the school system lacking the essential social skills and character traits that set them up to participate effectively in a classroom environment.
Even the best classroom management techniques and programs can’t be as effective as THEY should be if you have kids who do not understand that their job is to sit quietly, pay attention, be respectful and listen to your teacher and peers, and actually DO your work – your BEST work – completely and on time.
It’s a perfect storm: kids who don’t know how to behave and teachers who too frequently aren’t taught how to control them. No wonder teachers say they spend more time on classroom management and discipline than they do on teaching!
Programs that simultaneously work on both side — give teachers a framework for management at the same time they teach kids these essential skills — are proven to do best. Increased time on task for students, more time for teaching for the instructors. As a result, better grades, too! It’s not fair for teachers to bear the brunt of the “you must manage equation” because it assumes that the kids are willing participants in the process.
Interested in more, you can check out http://www.socialsmarts.com
Excuse me. A PROGRAM that teaches effective classroom management while simultaneously teaching kids social skills? Teachers cannot even utter corrective feedback to students without being interrupted by a chorus of “what did I do?” Students today have been taught by their elders that it is more valuable to openly challenge authority figures, i.e., their teachers, rather than passively accept criticism. The absence of wisdom in this strategy dictates that students cannot actively process constructive criticism, that sitting silently absorbing teacher feedback amounts to passivity and weakness. Where are parents in this dialogue? We live in a litigious age, where a teacher can be disciplined simply for pointing a finger in the general direction of a student’s face, yet a student would pretty much have to be caught on video beating a teacher with a baseball bat to receive an in-school detention. We live in an age in which teachers are blamed when students don’t do their homework, but who is at home with the students? The teachers? We live in an age in which arrogant and ignorant administrators and politicians (Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Klein) believe that teacher tenure should be based on test scores. They claim that it is only one barometer, yet they consistently fail to specify what other measures they would take. Meanwhile, under their proposed guidelines, how would teachers obtain tenure when they work with the lowest-performing students, with the mentally retarded, with the severely learning disabled — where high test scores are difficult and/or unlikely and/or nearly impossible? Or with kids whose parents just don’t give a damn? All this talk about raising the achievement levels of all students ignores the statistical reality that all things in nature fall on a bell curve – wherever the average happens to be, there will always be outliers on either side of the curve because of the inevitable nature of the standard deviation. Municipalities all over the country are telling their citizens that the cause of the economic downturn is that teachers refuse to accept pay cuts. How much less would the public like teachers to be paid? Most teachers cannot even afford to purchase homes in the cities and towns that employ them. So give teachers a break.
Banks nearly destroyed the world economy, yet they received billions in government bailouts. So what’s the solution? Let’s fire all the teachers! Or perhaps a small percentage of those bank bailouts should be redirected toward the public schools, paying teachers a decent wage, and giving teachers and schools the relief and support they deserve. Do you hear me, President Obama?
Bull! Teachers leave because they get tired of sending Johnny to detention and he keeps coming back. Lets face it some kids don’t need to be in school. To hell with NCLB!