Classroom Discipline

This week, I’ve had several occasions where the need for classroom discipline has become evident.

The first: Our school has asked a teacher not to come back. Several of the teachers in my part of the school have shared our concerns with his lack of classroom discpline, and the fact that he teachs math very old school and our kids don’t get it that way.

The second: I had a first year Alternative Certification teacher teaching the same subject come and stay with me for a day. She was impressed with both student behavior AND hall behavior. I spend a LOT of energy keeping kids out of my part of the hall, and it definately pays off.

The third: and this is a situation that really has to change. I won’t let my kids participate if it continues this way. We get the whole district together for a Saturday tutoring session, and the students that attend are just flat out rude. As a whole, those students are Magnet students and I suspect that they might even have a smaller class size that I am used to. I know that the teachers have expressed distain for the classroom discipline classes that our district has required us to attend.

FYI: Those are CHAMPS, and oddly enough it’s based on the same system of reinforcement and expectations that I use as a very successful dog trainer. Basically you establish rules of behavoir, establish rewards and consequences. All really good stuff.

And as I told the other teacher–it doesn’t not matter how well you know your subject or can deliver it, if your students are not behaving they can’t learn anything.