Classroom Management, Uncategorized | Feb 10, 2011
The X factor: self-control
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
The X factor: self-control
By Angela Watson
Picture it: Sicily, 1948. Okay, I’m not Sophia from The Golden Girls, but I do want you to picture a certain time and place so I can ramble a bit and demonstrate an important lesson. The scene: two middle schools within a few blocks of each other in the same Bronx neighborhood in New York City.
The stairwells at School A are littered with trash and students race down them at dismissal, yelling profanities and occasionally stopping to urinate in the corner. Teachers struggle to get through a lesson in School A. Every few minutes, several students spontaneously burst out in off-color song or rap, stomping on the floors, thumping pencils and books, and dancing…in the middle of what should have been an engaging, collaborative, technology-infused, hands-on activity. They shout random insults to one another and conduct loud conversations across the room as the teacher darts around, trying in vain to focus the class. When corrected for their disruptive behavior, a riotous chorus of protests erupts. “I ain’t say nuthin! You always picking on me! Man! I ain’t do nuthin to nobody!” Anyone who works at School A will tell you the kids are out of control.
Five blocks away in School B’s stairwell, the middle schoolers file wordlessly into their classroom as the bell rings, the girls in plaid knee-length skirts and the boys in dress pants. They sit down immediately in the desks arranged in neat rows and listen for directions. The teacher sits at her desk and instructs the kids to take out a textbook and answer questions from it. Every student in the room does exactly this for forty-five minutes. The teacher addresses ‘misbehavior’ with a sharp look and firm directive: “Are you talking? This is independent work. Be quiet. And tuck your shirt in.” The students accept correction without as much as an eye roll. Penmanship is of equal importance as the content; messy papers with incorrect headings are trashed. Students use rulers to make chart lines straight and erase mistakes unprompted until their papers look perfect. At the end of the day, 100 middle schoolers walk in complete and total silence down six flights of stairs, a single teacher leading the way.
I assure you that School A and School B are each a sight to behold for their own unique reasons. And beheld them I have, because I’ve worked in both. These descriptions are no exaggeration; they show exactly what I experienced each time I stepped inside their doors.
Which school embraces better pedagogy? Which school is trying to train students to be 21st century global citizens? Undoubtedly School A (a public school under the DOE’s control) has embraced the latest educational trends. But there is no learning taking place because of student behavior. School B, which is a private Catholic institution, still embraces instructional methods from the 1950’s…but the learning environment is orderly.
The students in School B outperform the students in School A by double digits in every subject area. And that’s with large class sizes, a total lack of technology (even overhead projectors are unheard of), and few best teaching practices in place.There’s nothing innovative about School B: just worksheets and textbooks and round robin whole-group reading.
Which school would YOU say is more effective? I believe it’s School B, not just because of test scores, but because it produces students who have the ability to demonstrate self-control. This is the “X factor” that the Powers That Be refuse to acknowledge: students with the self-discipline to apply themselves to their school work will usually be successful despite the type or quality of education they receive.
You cannot learn unless you can discipline yourself to sit still, pay attention, read, converse respectfully, concentrate, THINK. And teachers all across America are shouting from the rooftops that most of our students aren’t demonstrating those basic, fundamental skills. Our achievement levels are being compared to Asian countries in which respect, compliance, and the good of the group are valued within the culture. No new DOE-sanctioned curriculum map or standards or ten-point rubric will fix that discrepancy.
So how do we instill self-control in our students? Do we need a complex set of lesson plans and activities, or a systemic movement to change the popular culture and home environments of our students? Both sound complicated and time-consuming. Let’s just start with classroom management. Let’s train students in routines and procedures that support positive learning habits.
Classroom management has been, and will always be, one of my top priorities. Not everyone understands this, especially when there’s so much testing pressure and so many competing agendas. Why do I insist on total quiet when I take my class to lunch? Why do I take the time to model and practice and reinforce clean desk procedures over and over? Why do I wait for every student to have their hands folded before I give directions? Why do I create routines for the classroom library that ensure every student has exactly five books in their reading boxes and every book is returned to the correct genre bin with front cover facing out, right-side up?
Because I want them to develop self-control. I’m teaching them to value the qualities of being detail-oriented, disciplined, orderly, and respectful of everything and everyone in their learning environment. The whole premise of The Cornerstone classroom management is to construct a self-running classroom that frees the teacher to teach. Self-running means the students are able to manage their own learning routines without constant direction from a teacher. I don’t want to control students; I want to train them how to control themselves.
I don’t buy the argument that teaching self-control will produce students who are better prepared for a rote-type factory job than a complex 21st century career in innovative fields. Why are people worried that expecting students to conform to teacher expectations will somehow produce robotic learners who obey every command without critical thought? We are in no danger of producing a generation of students who wait mindlessly for directions and do exactly what they’re told. In fact, we’re faced with the exact opposite: children who cannot function under any sort of formal structure or authority at all. School B is far from the typical American reality; most children simply do not exert the self-discipline needed to learn, and teachers are not empowered with the tools and time needed to help them.
Sometimes this perspective makes me feel old-school, so I’m glad to see self-control leading some of the headlines this week. Let’s hope this starts a push toward getting students not only to innovate and collaborate, but to control themselves.
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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Funny you should write about this now. I’m currently teaching a grade 7 class that is part of a cohort of 5 classes, all of which seem to actively work against the idea of letting procedures become automatic. My class is sitting here as I type, having begun their silent reading. Beginning in September, part of their morning routine on arrival is to get their reading logs and books from the class bookshelf. Even though for the first weeks I would do spontaneous checks and award points to their English grade for being prepared, only about 20% of the class will now automatically get their supplies in the morning (despite still awarding points for spot checks). Perhaps I am in the minority with so many students refusing to learn procedures and follow them – the example I gave is one of many I could have – but somehow I don’t think so.
So my question is this:
Any suggestions for a class of stubborn students for whom procedures, homework and even grades are just ‘too much effort’ and seem to prefer being bossed around.?
b)
Hi, Anna! I think what you’re experiencing is extremely common. In my book, I refer to this phenomenon as “a slow descent into laziness.” The teacher stops modeling, practicing, and reinforcing the expectations as often because she feels the students should know what to do after a certain point. The students read this as “My teacher must not really care anymore about whether I’m maintaining my reading log, because she hardly ever checks it now. I don’t need to put forth the same effort.” It’s a cycle that we fall into very naturally in the classroom, and fortunately, it’s one that can be easily rectified.
I’d recommend drawing students’ attention to the matter and doing more procedure practice/reinforcement. The spot checks are good–up the ante a bit if needed. Distribute additional reinforcers randomly; maybe jot down the names of the kids who get their supplies right away on a particular morning, and then call them over to your desk in a group. Thank them for doing the right thing without being reminded and give them a few free minutes on the computer or a homework pass or something. This sort of thing rewards the kids who always do the right thing and get less attention because of it, and provides motivation for the sometimes-do-the-right-thing kids to step it up a little bit.
Don’t get discouraged. This is the type of thing you’ll need to do alllll school year to varying degrees. Stay on top of the situation and I think you’ll see improvement. It’s a battle worth fighting, for sure–you’re teaching your students great work habits!
Angela – Thanks for the advice. I think upping the ante is especially important now for two reasons: 1) it’s nearing spring and things always go nuts then and b) the kids are now only a few months shy of being “ready” for eighth grade!
I’ll try the homework pass idea – perhaps that’s what will motivate them to do some things…including other homework!
Great, Anna–let us know how it goes!
I’ve been in both environments and left a “School A” last year because I just couldn’t take it anymore. The “powers that be” just don’t get it. You really can’t force children who don’t care about school or learning to sit down and learn.
I am in the same district this year but a new school and it’s world’s different from a year ago. I don’t have a classroom of saints or anything but most of my children are respectful and responsible. Just today I told my students how embarrassed I was to have the other 5th grade class walking behind us because they were so loud and rude and I didn’t want people to think that was US (because it wasn’t). I love my teaching partner (she was my co-op teacher) but I am very firm in my management because I’ve definitely seen the other side and refuse to let my students behave that way. It sucks that we have to be responsible for teaching manners but it often doesn’t come from the homes and I figure if I don’t model and show them what I want, I can’t expect them to do it!
Hi, Sunny! It’s amazing how different your teaching experience can be from one school to another, right?
I think the key point you shared is that “If I don’t model and show them what I want, I can’t expect them to do it!” I agree that it’s unfortunate that kids may not come to school with qualities of self-control and respectfulness, but children do behave in different ways with different people. As I shared in my response to Becky, I trained my kids to act right when they were with me, but had a hard time getting that skill to transfer to situations with substitutes and other times where I wasn’t around. Some of the stuff kids try with certain teachers in school wouldn’t fly at home, but kids do it because they think they can get away with it in a different environment. It really is up to us as teachers to create expectations for our own classrooms and model, practice, and reinforce them.
Well said Angela! I went to workshop the other day on Global Awareness and 21st Century Skills and the presenter shared a lot of information that compares US students to Asian students and students in other countries. Having traveled to India myself, I can say that respect and immediate compliance are demanded of students there and teachers are highly revered as an authority. Not so much the same in our schools here. Which is why I’ve loved reading The Cornerstone and implementing your ideas in my classroom. While my county’s standards based grading system may not require that I grade students on respectfulness, cleanliness, working with others, etc I know that my students learning environment would be affected WAY too much if I didn’t take the time to teach and continuously model these things over and over again.
Hi, Julie! I think more emphasis should be given to cultural norms when comparing achievement across nations. In China, for example, classrooms often have 50 students sitting in rows; the teacher lectures with no differentiation and students are responsible for learning the information. It’s completely the opposite here where teachers are responsible for presenting content for 100 different learning styles and preferences until the child finally gets it, with no mention of the fact that some kids put forth zero effort and don’t want to get it. Excellence and self-discipline are part of the culture in China; comfort and convenience are part of the culture in America. It’s apples and oranges.
You make a good point about respect, cleanliness, etc. not being in the standards. In some places they actually are, but aren’t tested, so that’s almost the equivalent of not being there at all. Part of me fears that too much clamoring about the need for teaching self-control will cause it to be regulated and mandated as part of a regimented program just as it has happened for academic subjects. I’m not sure what’s worse–the fact the school boards don’t value it, or the fact that when they value something, they legislate it to death.
The only thing I would add, since I agree with everything in this post, is that for it to work the best, it needs to be schoolwide in nature. I have some little darlings in my kindergarten class that really resist the structure, the routines, and the procedures of my class. Without support from administration, it can be difficult. I find myself getting bogged down in the day to day aspects of teaching 30 5-6 year olds and forget some of basics.