EDU 6942 Course Reflection

In late August and September I had the privilege of observing an 8^th grade language arts classroom in a middle school in Seattle. One part of this observation that made a major impact on me was how my mentor teacher worked to create a foundation of effective classroom management during the first days of the school year. On the first day of school, my mentor teacher took a strict stance with students and showed no tolerance for misbehavior. However, in one class on the first day, I witnessed two students misbehaving and being confrontational toward this teacher when she called on them to change their behavior. The teacher became flustered and removed them from the classroom and they both ended up switching classes. This interaction was very stressful for the teacher, but she started the next day’s class by apologizing for the previous day and telling students that they would start fresh that day. After this first day, I witnessed very little misbehavior because she had set the tone on the first day. For me personally, this was beneficial because I was able to witness one of my worst fears going into teaching. I am glad that I saw an administration that supported the teacher and see a teacher apologize to students and deliberately change course in how the class would go. I do not know if being especially harsh on the first day of school is the right way for me, but I have learned the importance of setting standards of behavior early on, sticking to them, and changing course when something goes wrong. One thing I would change from my mentor teacher’s method is explicitly teaching specific rules and expectations. This teacher implied that students should already know how they are supposed to act in her class because they are in 8^th grade, but I read in the article “Creating environments of success and resilience” and agree that it is important to explicitly state behavior expectations, model those expectations and give examples, provide rationale for those expectations, and regularly review those expectations with students over the first several weeks of school (Bondy, Ross, Gallingane, & Hambacher, 2007, p.338).

Another beneficial part of my observation was getting to witness my mentor teacher opening up to students so they could get to know her. She gave students a brief presentation about where she grew up, some stories of when she was in school, and also that her son was starting at the school that year. This gave students insight into her life not only as a teacher, but also as a student and mother. After the first day I felt that I had a good idea of her personality and background without learning “too much.” Opening up is a crucial part of creating effective teacher-student relationships (Bondy, et al, 2007), but when I was growing up I rarely experienced teachers who appropriately shared their personal lives with students; typically I either knew nothing about their lives outside of school or I knew too much because they spent class time going on unrelated tangents. Since my natural inclination is to keep my professional and private lives separate, it was beneficial to watch a teacher share an appropriate amount of personal information with students and observe the impact this had on building teacher-student relationships. I think that planning my introduction to students would be a good idea for me because I can consider the personal information I feel comfortable sharing with students. I will have the opportunity to practice this introduction during my internship and then make changes before I start teaching next fall.

References:

Bondy, E., Ross, D. D., Gallingane, C., & Hambacher, E. (2007). Creating environments of success and resilience: Culturally responsive classroom management and more. Urban Education, 42, 326-348.