Introduction
Easier said than done...
I taught classroom management for nine years in The College of Education at The University of North Florida. It was a little ironic to me, because I secretly believed I wasn't the best classroom manager when I taught elementary school. My classroom was always a little noisy. I believed that the heart of classroom management was not actually management at all. It was building relationships with students and making learning fun. I was never a fan of the "flip your card" method or treasure boxes to motivate students to follow the rules. If students are "bad" their card is on red; if they're "good" they are on green, and might earn something from the treasure box. The problem with those kinds of systems is that the same students are on red most of the time. They're the "bad" kids, and they see themselves in that light, and often their peers and teachers do too.
In addition to teaching classroom management, I supervised elementary school interns who were doing their student teaching. The interns had to use the same management system their directing teachers used, so I saw a wide variety of these kinds of systems where young students were somewhere between "fabulous to terrible" on a chart. I can't count the number of times I saw five and six year olds doing the walk of shame up to a chart, tears streaming down their face, to move their card.
I taught my interns and undergraduate students in classroom management that the main component of classroom management is to provide learning experiences that are engaging, challenging, and personally relevant to students. Students who are given choices, who feel that they have a purpose for learning, and who interact with their peers are less likely to be disruptive. These are authentic learning experiences. Of course, that doesn't mean that there will never be problems or issues that arise. After all, children are learning about making good choices.
Fast forward to August, 2016 and I am the new kid on the block at age (gasp) fifty. I am back in an elementary school as a classroom teacher after seventeen years of teaching college. It became abundantly clear the first day of school that teaching classroom management is much easier than actually doing it! I think back to all the talks I had with interns and undergraduate students about authentic learning, and this journey into inquiry begins. What happens when students research a self-selected topic? Turns out...pretty amazing things.
In addition to teaching classroom management, I supervised elementary school interns who were doing their student teaching. The interns had to use the same management system their directing teachers used, so I saw a wide variety of these kinds of systems where young students were somewhere between "fabulous to terrible" on a chart. I can't count the number of times I saw five and six year olds doing the walk of shame up to a chart, tears streaming down their face, to move their card.
I taught my interns and undergraduate students in classroom management that the main component of classroom management is to provide learning experiences that are engaging, challenging, and personally relevant to students. Students who are given choices, who feel that they have a purpose for learning, and who interact with their peers are less likely to be disruptive. These are authentic learning experiences. Of course, that doesn't mean that there will never be problems or issues that arise. After all, children are learning about making good choices.
Fast forward to August, 2016 and I am the new kid on the block at age (gasp) fifty. I am back in an elementary school as a classroom teacher after seventeen years of teaching college. It became abundantly clear the first day of school that teaching classroom management is much easier than actually doing it! I think back to all the talks I had with interns and undergraduate students about authentic learning, and this journey into inquiry begins. What happens when students research a self-selected topic? Turns out...pretty amazing things.
My name is Lisa Ross and I live in Jacksonville, Florida. I have a Master’s Degree from New York University in Early Childhood and Elementary Education. I am currently pursuing a second Master’s Degree in Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum with an emphasis in Reading Education. I taught first, second, and third grades in both public and private schools in New York, Virginia, and North Carolina. My career took a different path in North Carolina when I began as a teacher educator at University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1998. My family and I moved to Jacksonville in 2005 and I taught at University of North Florida for many years. I am currently teaching third grade at a small private school in Jacksonville and am learning a lot from the eight and nine year olds I spend my days with.