A lesson of my own

Today I went to Stevensville because I had the opportunity to teach my grade 3s without my associate teacher being at the school (he was away at a meeting). Before I knew it was a Reading Day, he had asked me if I wanted to come up with a lesson for the afternoon that I could faciliate under the supervision of the supply teacher. I eagerly agreed before I realized it was Reading Day, and I did not feel it was right to go back on my word. So I came up with a fun lesson that went along with my classes' media unit. I taught them about advertising, and then the students had time to get into pairs and create a commercial about the product of their choice.

I have to say, my teacher makes it look a lot easier than it actually is. He is extremely laid-back, so he is usually "okay" with his students interrupting and having kids come up to him and ask questions while he is with other students- I am not okay with this. When I am with a child discussing something, I do not think it is appropriate for other students to come and completely interrupt us (unless it is imperative that they speak to me). Today I had students stand directly in front of the student I was speaking with, in order to get my attention...and the funny thing is, they didnt see anything wrong with this. I think this is because my teacher usually "lets this go". This became a problem for me today because my students were being a bit disruptive and interrupting each other (and myself) during my lesson. The lesson overall went great, and the end results (the commercials) were AMAZING. The marks I gave ranged from B to A+ so they definitely understood the concepts and used their imaginations...but their behaviour was not something I would applaud.

The grade 2 teacher (who had my kids last year) asked me how my lesson went (apparently the whole school knew how nervous I was- haha), and I told her I had problems with class management in the sense that I did not want to be "too strict" because thats not at all what my teacher is like with the students. She made it very clear that last year when she had my students, they were EXTREMELY well behaved, because they knew that the kind of behaviour that they were exhibiting with me today (which is normal for them) was unacceptable. She gave me some great suggestions and insight for when I have my own classroom someday:

She told me that classroom management is something you need to start the first day of September. During that entire first month, you need to show your students WHAT type of behaviour is acceptable vs. unacceptable. She uses CHAMPS in her classroom, and uses statements such as "CHAMPS walk to the carpet quietly"- and cues like this are enough for the students to walk over to the carpet without a sound. She believes that if you do not start molding your class into well-behaved students in September, it is very difficult to change those "bad habits" later on. She also said that she believes effective teachers can use simple cues and those should be enough to let the students know what is acceptable. For example, when she does a certain motion with her hand in front of the class, the students know it is time to quiet down. This is because in September, she started showing the class what behaviour is expected when she does these cues- by the end of October, the students are usually successful at recognizing those cues and what behaviour is associated with them.

I learned a great deal with my chat with this teacher. She is an incredibly dedicated woman and will actually be retiring this year, so she has MANY years of experience under her belt. I really appreciated the advice that she gave me, because she understood why my situation was frustrating me. Although I do not feel it is right for me to employ any of the methods she discussed with me in my placement classroom (since I am not the teacher), I will definitely do so when I have my own classroom someday.