SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT Copy

AND
CLASSROO
M
MANAGEM
ENT

What To Look For in a
Classroom
Excerpts from the Schools
Our Children Deserve
By
Alfie Kohn

MIND
1.

2.
3.

4.

To what extent does a given school meet the basic psychological needs shared by all students?
To what extent does it meet every child’s unique needs?
To what extent is it likely to promote the long term goal of our mission? To what extent does it reflect a general sense of the purposes of education? DEPED VISION
We dream of Filipinos
Who passionately love their country
And whose values and competencies
Enable them to realize full potential
And contribute meaningfully to building the nation.
As a learner-centered public institution, The Department of Education
Continuously improves itself
To better serve its stakeholders.

DEPED MISSION
To protect and promote the right of every Filipino to quality, equitable, Cultured-based, and complete basic education where: Students learn in a child-friendly, gender-sensitive, safe, and
Motivating environment Teachers facilitate learning and constantly nurture every learner Administrators and staff, as stewards of the institution, ensure an enabling and supportive environment for effective learning to happen Family, community, and other stakeholders are actively engaged

Furnitur e Good Signs

Possible Reasons to Worry

Chairs around tables to facilitate interaction

Chairs all facing forward or (even worse) desks in rows

Comfortable areas for learning, including multiple “activity centers” Good Signs

On the walls

Covered with students’ projects. Evidence of student collaboration. Signs, exhibits, or list obviously created by students rather than by the teacher.
Information about, and personal mementos of, the people who spend time together in the classroom. Possible Reasons to Worry
Nothing
Commercial posters
Students’ assignments displayed that are:
•Suspiciously flawless
•only from the “best students”. • virtually are alike
List of rules created by an adult or punitive consequences for misbehavior. Sticker chart – or other evidence of student ranking. Good Signs

Possible Reasons to Worry

Faces

Eager, engaged

Blank, bored

Sounds

Frequent hum of activity and ideas being exchanged The teacher’s voice is the loudest or most often heard.

Location of Teacher

Typically working with students so it takes a few seconds to find him/her Typically front and center Teacher’ s voice

Respectful, genuine, warm Controlling and imperious Condescending and saccharine sweet

Good Signs

Possible Reasons to
Worry

Student s’ Reaction to Visitor

Welcoming, eager to explain or demonstrate what they’re doing or to use visitor as a resource Either unresponsive or hoping to be distracted from what they are doing

Class
Discussi
on

Students often address one another directly

All exchanges involve
(or directed by) the teachers Emphasis on thoughtful exploration of complicated issues

Emphasis on facts and right answers

Students ask questions at least as often as the

Students race to be the first to answer teacher’s “Who can tell me …?” queries.

Good Signs

Possible Reasons to Worry

Stuff

Room overflowing with good books, art supplies, animals and plants, science apparatus, “sense of purposeful clutter”. Textbooks, worksheets and other packaged instructional materials predominate; sense of enforced orderliness Tasks

Different activities All students often take place usually doing the simultaneously same thing
Activities
When students are frequently not listening to the completed by pairs teacher, they’re or groups of working alone

Good Signs

Around the School

Possible Reasons to
Worry

Appealing atmosphere; Stark, institutional feel a place where people would want to spend time. Awards, trophies and
Students’ projects fill prizes displayed, the hallway suggesting an emphasis on triumph rather than
Library is well stocked community. and comfortable.
Restrooms in good condition. Faculty lounge is warm and inviting.
Students helping in lunchroom, library, and with other school functions. CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
IS…
…all of the things that a teacher does to organize students, space, time and materials so that instruction in content and student learning can take place.
Two major goals…
1. To foster student involvement and cooperation in all classroom activities
2. To establish a productive working environment. -First Days of School, Wong

12

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT IS
ALL ABOUT THE BALANCE
BETWEEN LEARNING WITHIN
THE CLASSROOM AND
DISCIPLINE.