Chapter 5

How Not To Get Control of the Classroom

Effective...But at What?

"Withitness" Kounin 1970:The teacher not only was attentive to what

students were doing, but let them know she knew what was going on.

To be effective to Kounin it meant..

Sit Down and Shut Up !!

- Why does everyone think that the teacher should be in control of the classroom?

- Why do we have to make students comply?

Be Seated and Refrain from Talking !!

- “The more voice and choice students have, the more cooperative and responsible they will act and feel”.

- The New Disciplines are just as much about getting compliance as is the more traditional approach.

- "get the trains to run on time in the classroom, never mind whom they run over.”

The Problem with Compliance

- Teachers want students to be good people, not necessarily good learners- Long-term goals - “Desirable outcomes are harder to achieve if we rely

on bribes and threat”.

- "The more we 'manage' students' behavior and try to make them do what we say, the more difficult it is for them to become morally sophisticated people who think for themselves and care about others."

Making Moral Meaning - The constructivist model of learning challenges the

central metaphors that so often drive instruction

- The only way to help students become ethical people is to have them construct moral meaning

- Maximize the opportunity for students to make choices and to discover and learn for themselves

- Create a caring community in the classrooms that students have the opportunity to do these things together

Behaviors v. People

- The developer of one New Discipline program has described its goal as getting students to choose appropriate behaviors.

- Discipline Programs can change behavior, but they cannot help people to grow

Beyond Rules

- The problems with rules are that they:Turn kids into lawyers that are just looking for

loopholes.Turn teachers into police officers, a role utterly

at odds with being facilitators of learning.Often include punishments for breaking them.

- To avoid this:- Have the students create the rules- Think about how everyone should treat each other

The Value of Conflict

- Kohn says that it is more important for students to wrestle with dilemmas, clash with others ideas and take others needs into account than to follow sets of rules.

- Kohn says that conflict presents golden opportunities for learning and therefore should not be suppressed.

- Even hurtful conflicts need to be resolved rather than pushed aside.

Conclusion

- Many teachers are afraid that they will lose control of the class.

- Effective teachers use collaborative problem solving instead of coercive control

- Education must be reformed so that classrooms take on the nature of communities.

- Teachers who wish to move beyond discipline must do three things: provide an engaging curriculum based on student interests, develop a sense of community and draw students into meaningful decision-making