Talk Softly | Week 8 Reflection

This week, the experience that I had in school that made the most impact on me happened during an assembly rather than in class. The 9th and 10th grade students were called down to the auditorium to for a presentation on distracted driving. Typically, the students in the school that I'm working in are relatively respectful of the teachers but in this circumstance the assembly made them more rambunctious than usual. Much to the teachers' disappointment, the students had a lot of trouble settling down before the assembly started. Multiple times, the students were asked by the principle and by other teachers to quiet down. At one point, even the presenter told the students that she would not be able to continue if they didn't settle down. The presenter finally did begin her presentation but the students are still having trouble staying quiet. One of the faculty members asked the presenter to stop so that she could reprimand the students. She began raising her voice at the students and they laughed at her. This made the faculty member even more angry and she began yelling even louder. Finally when it was clear that she was not going to be able to get the students under control, another teacher stepped in. Rather than yelling, this teacher talked softly but seriously to the students in the auditorium. He calmly explained to them that it was embarrassing for the teachers and the administrators to have a visitor come to the school and to have the students act in such a way. He asked them to be respectful and said that if there were any students who were unable to do so, he would remove them from auditorium to have a talk. From this point on the students began to settle down and were nearly silent at the time the presenter began speaking again.

This experience was so profound for me because it demonstrated many of the things that I have heard people talk about and seen writings about when discussing classroom management. One of the things I've heard a lot when talking about classroom management is that students will take their cues from you, as the teacher. If you raise your voice or show that you were angry, they will mimic you. It's very important to keep an even, calm temper even if the student is doing something that upsets you. The difference in the students' reaction to the two different faculty members was as clear as night and day. The first faculty member immediately started off accusing the students and losing her temper. The second faculty member addressed the students calmly, pointing out that the students were better than the behavior that they were demonstrating. While the students clearly needed to be reprimanded for their actions, it was absolutely not necessary to yell at them. In fact, the yelling had exactly the opposite consequence as was intended.

This is a concept that I definitely am trying and will continue to try in my classroom. During my first observation, I noticed a student who was off task and calmly reminded her to return to her task. After I was done, the person conducting the observation commended me on the fact that I stayed calm while still steering the student back to the correct activity. My initial inclination when seeing students misbehaving is to take them aside and to have a conversation. This way, not only can I discipline them in a calm manner, I can do so in a way that is not public, in the front of their peers. It was interesting to see this concept played out in a real school scenario rather than just reading about it. This is a lesson that I will keep with me as I continue to learn and begin in my own classroom.