Haley Lushington

As a teacher, I think there are many strategies that work for managing your class. Depending on your group of students, some strategies will be more successful than others. I believe you must be flexible enough to incorporate these different strategies at the correct times. Overall, I believe that my teaching falls into the category of backbone teaching. I do not believe that students flourish in a harsh environment where they are expected to stick to the rules and are given no opinion. Students need the freedom to explore who they are and to learn how to build their own sense of self-discipline. Since I prefer teaching older grades, I believe that my role is to mold students into being well-rounded adults who have the knowledge necessary to be whatever they desire. In order to facilitate this type of learning, students must be allowed to carry gradually more responsibility. You cannot spoon feed or hold students hands through life so they need a healthy amount of responsibility. However, you cannot become a jellyfish teacher. Students crave structure and rules, and though this sounds like an oxymoron, they find the freedom to grow through this structure.

 

 

In general, I believe that students are inherently good. But in order to make that statement, I feel that I must define my definition of “good”. I define “being good” as aiming towards virtuous, altruistic, and selfless actions and being committed to personal betterment. Based on outside factors, students may develop negative behaviors or thinking patterns. I also believe this can always be reversed.  I believe students only succeed in life when they learn to be independent and develop a system of self-discipline. In turn, if they are never asked to develop this ability, how can they be expected to have it? Therefore, I believe in a democratic classroom environment where students are expected to operate on their own system of discipline. However, since one student can affect the learning of the entire class, I do not feel that having a democratic class means letting them take over the class. I believe that is you abuse it you lose it and that the privilege to make your own choices and decisions can easily be lost. I view my students as equals to me that should respect my knowledge base but never view me as more important than they are. I believe in earning respect but that the best connections form when students feel they can authentically relate to you. I think that rewards are a valuable tool for teachers. You cannot bribe students to do work and the rewards must be reasonable. However, in life, there are rewards for good behavior whether they are easily seen or not. This should be the same in your classroom.

 

 

Overall, I feel that positive reinforcement is more effective 90% of the time and will lead to a trust and respect from your students. I also believe there is a time and place for punishment. You should not use it as your first response but in certain situations it is necessary. I don’t believe in the use of threats inside a classroom. How can we teach students not to use that type of forceful behavior to solve their problems when that is our first response? I have a general classroom management philosophy as well as a more specific plan so I do not have a problem adopting a school-wide system but am prepared to teach without it. I would prefer to use my own strategies but have no issue with using a well thought out school-wide plan. I believe that students should play a part in the creation of your classroom discipline policy. They help decide what rules are necessary to have a successful environment and contribute to deciding consequences for breaking said rules. This helps give them a sense of ownership over the classroom environment which leads to fewer disruptions of the normal classroom flow. This also helps free up time spent teaching the classroom rules because the students have chosen and helped create them so they already understand them. I believe that teachers must be both managers and in cases disciplinarians. Your goal is to design a classroom free of issues and incidents. However, when these do arise you must be able to effectively discipline the behavior to reduce its likelihood of reappearance.