Discipline

One of my students who is studying to become a teacher recently asked for some guidance on classroom discipline. At first, I was stumped. After a lot of thought on the matter I tried to give him some advice from my experiences.

I thought I'd share my response to him with you:

Dear SS,

Funny that you should ask me about discipline in the classroom. I always thought that was one area of teaching that I was not good at. We had a couple of major issues over the years in Sheridan, but in several of those instances, it was out of my control. For those times students still did stupid stuff I tried to handle it the best way I knew how.

Reflecting back on it, I would say the keys to effective discipline in the classroom, shop, on field trips would be:

1. Lay the ground rules and make sure everyone understands them. I had a lot of unwritten rules in the classroom which were more-or-less just my expectations of how everyone should act and be treated. Laying ground rules is incredibly important especially on field trips and anywhere that is different than then normal classroom setting. I usually tried to sequester students on the bus when we arrived at a destination for two reasons - let then know what the plan/schedule was and establish the rules of behavior. Only after they'd heard the spiel and verbally agreed to act accordingly were they allowed to disembark.

2. Respect. I'd like to think that because I respected the students as young adults, respected their differences in learning requirements, etc. they respected me. If students respect you as a teacher, there is less chance of misbehavior. I'm not sure if this actually happened but I'd like to think it did. I liked having conversations with you as a friend but I never allowed that relationship to get too friendly. I was still the one responsible and I wanted you to know I was still in charge.

3. Create a moral environment. Little things like making students write thank you notes, participating in a food drive, or school beautification projects help foster a good moral attitude in the classroom. If there is a good moral basis, then I believe misbehavior is less likely to occur.

4. Constant vigilance. As an ag teacher it is really hard because you might send students to four completely separate areas of building (or multiple buildings) and expect a productive class period. I used the roaming tactic. I made sure to check up on every student multiple times throughout the class period. If I didn't physically walk to them, I tried to make sure they were within eyesight. I also made it a real priority to know where every student was at all times. I just about died every time I left a substitute because I never trusted them to watch the class like I did. It is when students aren't supervised that they misbehave.

5. Follow through on consequences - even if you are just making an example. If you say you are going to punish misbehavior is a certain way then you'd better do it that way. So, be sure the consequences fit the action before you threaten. For example, you remember one of my pet peeves was not wanting to students to sweep dirt into the sump. I always gave everyone one warning. After his first warning SB swept some sawdust in as we were cleaning up one day. I wasn't mad and I could have honestly cared less because it was such a small amount of dirt, but I had to follow through. I had him come in after school that afternoon and clean the entire sump out. Hopefully, he went back and told everyone what a mean teacher I was and that no one else should sweep stuff in there or else you'll have to clean it out. I was using him as an example and that if broken, the rules would hold up and have consequences.

6. Engagement and constructive activity. I am a firm believer that an idol mind is a mischievous mind. Active minds and active hands can do great things. I worked really hard to have students active in my class from first bell to last bell. Maybe taking notes, maybe welding, maybe cleaning. Point is, if students are active and engaged then they won't have time to cause trouble. Take for example paper collection for the recycling project. I sent students around the school without supervision. I felt comfortable with that because they had a task to collect paper from every classroom and it was somewhat of a race to get around the entire school before the class period was over. Planting in the greenhouse was the same. I never had anyone cause problems in the greenhouse because they were always active. If I saw someone standing around, I always found something for them to do no matter how minuscule or mundane. Usually, about five minutes before the last bell, everyone was so happy to be done they just sat quietly waiting for the bell to ring.

This is probably a lot more than you wanted but it is the first time I've really thought about it. Obviously, these recommendations don't work perfectly in every instance and I had plenty of challenges over the years. I hope it helps. Good luck with your paper and let me know if I can do anything else for you.

WF