Classroom Management Philosophy Statement

Effective classroom management is the foundation that any successful teacher builds upon. My role as a teacher is to design my classroom environment to be conducive to learning. My classroom is a welcoming, safe environment where students are accepted for their unique gifts and struggles and are encouraged to grow as learners and members of their community. In order to encourage growth in my students, I must create an environment that students feel respected and appreciated. In order to accomplish this, we will become a classroom family. For the time that we are together in this room, we are a family. To build upon these relationships, I will embrace my students’ families as well. Communicating early and often with families is crucial for building a positive connection between the classroom and home. As well as building relationships between my students, their families and myself, they must also cultivate relationships between each other. Our classroom family is similar to other family. We may
disagree but at the end of the day, we need to love and respect one another. A critical component to build classroom community and develop conflict resolution strategies is through group work.
Allowing students to work in groups or with a peer mentor fosters problem solving, time management skills and social skills. I believe that students learn best from each other while guided by an adult. I feel that by engaging in project-based student-led endeavors, children will discover how to learn through problem-solving adventures. This also places the accountability and motivation onto the student and allows for an enormous amount of growth to occur.
With a majority of the learning being student driven, there needs to be structure in place to encourage this cooperative environment. Early on in the school year, rules and procedures, as well as meaningful consequences for negative behavior are established. In order for children to fully understand the behavioral expectations, they need to see it. I must live what I teach through modeling the
behaviors.
Each student walks in the door with distinct gifts and challenges and depending on those, I will establish a positive reinforcement system. This could be an individual, tangible reward, like a sticker or a whole class reward system. In the past, students earned letters for positive behavior that when connected, completed the word ‘Recess’. When the word was completed, they earned an extra ten minutes of recess time. I believe that by focusing on the positive behavior, you diminish the negative. With that being said, there are from time to time, accidental infractions. These are treated for what they truly are, teachable moments. A student must be shown that everyone makes mistakes and the opportunity used to reflect on what could have been done differently.
By laying the foundation of classroom management, I am able to be an effective educator. I use strategies to cultivate relationships with my students and their families, as well accept students for their diverse abilities, struggles and perspectives. This allows me the ability to create an inclusive, safe environment where children are encouraged to grow as learners and blossom into productive members of their community.