Teach English in LongchAng Zhen - Chifeng Shi

Classroom management has been a hot topic for centuries of education. Traditional education was based on corporal punishment, where a student would be physically hit for a mistake or disciplinary offense committed.Throughout this summative task, I will be going to explain alternatives of corporal punishment, give solutions for the problem of shy students and give my experience on how I dealt with classroom management throughout my career as a teacher. The use of corporal punishment has been declining in U.S. schools. Waning public acceptance in states where it is allowed, many school boards voluntarily prohibit it. Yet, almost a half million children are being hit yearly in public schools with a disproportionate number being minority children and children with disabilities. This is a major concern because the use of force may solve the disciplinary problem of the students just temporarily.The undesired behavior is, therefore, intermittently reinforced when it is not punished, and the behavior continues. Sometimes it may even act as a just attention to the offender, serving more as a reward than as a punishment. I have had this case when I was teaching in a small school in Cambodia. I had a student in grade 2 and his name was Ravid. I would constantly punish him by bringing him to the office and force him to write on a piece of paper for 10 to 100 hundred times that he would not disturb the class again or not talk again. Instead of feeling guilty, the student would enjoy going to the office because he would love to get attention from his class, have everyone laughing at me,letting everyone enjoy me and him quarrelling with each other. It was very entertaining for his classmates to witness and occasionally, Ravid started in doing it intentionally. When the problem arose, I felt embarrassed in front of the other members of the school's management team. One of the supervisors gave me an alternative way to combat this problem. She suggested me to use the power of love and understanding to solve any disciplinary problem. That completely changed my life and I started to search for the root of the cause rather than just punish a student. They say that before we want top change others, we need to change ourselves and that is exactly what happened. Ravid changed for the better and stopped to behave unacceptably to grab everyone's attention. He became my class's best student and developed in one of the best academic and talented students in the school. Thus, I can say that the alternatives of punishing a student for a mistake or wrongdoing are becoming a “friend” to students, listen to their problems and needs, try to help to understand the root of their misbehavior, share students love & care by explaining them what they did wrong in a very understanding matter, motivate students by making the lessons more interesting, encourage disciplinary consequences which are meaningful to students and have an instructional/reflectional components. An example would be giving them an extra homework or activity to do rather than giving them a corporal punishment, let students role play on what they would do and how would they feel as a teacher if their classmate would disrupt their lesson, take time to make decisions, don’t rush them. use consequences over punishments. For every decision we should always think ahead in the future on what will happen next. We should not make decisions based on the present. We should use tactics and the perfect strategy to fix the student’s problems step by step, support strong parent/school and community/school communications and ties so that the problem can’t occur in class. For the students who continue committing undisciplined actions, we should let them come to the front of the class and assist the teacher. Most times the student would be either embarrassed to do so, making them stop the offensive action. When students commit a wrongdoing collectively, the teacher should ask a group of students to come collectively in private and ask them why it’s wrong to have done so. Eventually the students will reveal the truth to the teacher without the teacher forcing it. We should always remember that whoever asks questions is the one that controls the conversation. On the other hand, with the shy students that are afraid to answer a question because of making a mistake and be ridiculed by others, a teacher should motivate and encourage students to try more than to punish for a mistake. Punishing a student is a major cause for students to be shy and not confident enough to answer.When a child is continually criticised by their parents or teachers for being wrong or making mistakes, that child may well begin to resist answering rather than possibly answer wrongly. Students feel threatened when students are put on the spot and everyone is looking at them, waiting for an answer.Putting pressure with a quick response will serve to increase their stress levels. So students to make the question/answer process relaxed and free. To encourage students to participate more and become more confident we should bring the shy students to the front, call on students even when they don’t have their hands raised We should call on them to participate, get the extravert students to help to get the confident students to engage with their shyer classmates is to seat them next to each other. Assign group work, mix the different personality types and make sure shy students are surrounded by kids who are bound to ask for their input, always remember to make a priority to involve them, being patient with them by absorbing your anger and taking time to accept who they are and what their needs are, be vigilant and helpful all the time, treat them the Same as the other Students, create signals to interact with them, get them get prepared before you call on them to help them prepare what they want to say, pair them with a friend, give them a classroom job to allow them to interact with others and pick them if they offer to answer a question, reward them if they offer themselves to answer questions. Even if they get it wrong, praise them and let the class applause or cheer for their tried effort. Using this classroom management techniques has truly transformed my life as a teacher and has a created harmony and a peaceful environment in my class. Of course, there will always be exceptions and special cases where serious punishments must be taken by the top management in charge of the school such for gun violence, drugs, racism, smoking or immoral acts at school, but definitively these classroom techniques can help any teacher create a positive class environment between the teacher and the students.