The best ways to create a favorable environment in your classroom hinge on the following:
1. Get to know the parents and enlist their help.
2. Keep the class busy for the whole period.
3. Never take insults personally; they are just blowing steam because they are frustrated.
4. Accompany them during games or special events. Visit their homes and see how they live; they’ll understand that you are genuinely interested in them (Stand up and Deliver is a true story).
5. Respect them and you will (eventually) be respected. Teens are especially sensitive to slights, even said jokingly. It is in their nature to be untrusting with adults, as many of them have been the subjects of verbal abuse as children.
6. Talk to each one of your students to get to know them better (in private). A student will react differently alone than accompanied by his peers.
7. Study the way they get along (or not) in small groups and detect the leaders of the classroom. These last students will be of invaluable help to you due to their influence on the rest of the group.
8. Decorate your classroom in accordance with school policy and with the age of your students. A history teacher in high and middle school may have posters of historical movies on the walls. An English teacher may prefer posters of famous writers. An elementary teacher will favor educational decorations that include fun characters (such as cartoon heroes).
A good idea is to post famous sayings by great minds all over the walls, such as “Great will power is more important than great intelligence.”
9. A list of what they may not do in the classroom is useful from day one; for example, “no electronic games, no gum, no foul language, no horseplay, and no cell phones (prevalent in high school).” Make a very visible poster of the list and stick it on the wall at the entrance so students can see it every day as they come in. Read it to them the first day of school and enforce the rules very strictly.
10. A list of what they should do; “start working immediately (pre-established activities), stop talking, take out your notebook, and raise your hand if you have a question.” Same location as the previous list for maximum exposure.
You must set the working conditions immediately from day one. Students, as a group, will always test you to see how far they can go. Firmly, gently, and with good humor, let them know that you have a job to do and that you count on them to help you out.
Even though you may feel discouraged at first (that happens to all first year teachers), try to hide it from your students. They are much more perceptive than you can imagine. Even small children sense a change in humor in adults and react accordingly. Put on your best face and remember that you are dealing with immature human beings.
Let them know that you have very high expectations of them, even though they might feel unskilled and undereducated. It is your job to create a productive environment in which students and teachers work in harmony. If they discover, after showing skepticism, that you are the genuine article, they will open up and do their best to succeed. It might take time, but the end results are indeed highly rewarding.
By: J.C. Sprenger
Posts Tagged ‘Peers’
Long Island Schools Putting Fewer Students in Special Education
November 15th, 2009
Over the last couple of years, Long Island schools have been placing fewer students in Special Education classes. Instead, some students at Long Island schools with special needs have been receiving tutoring to help them keep up with their school work.
Mainstreaming Students in Long Island Schools
On the face of it, mainstreaming special needs students attending Long Island schools into a regular classroom as much as possible makes sense. If the special-needs student can attend classes with his or her peers, there is a cost savings for the board of education. No matter what we want for our children attending Long Island schools, there are only so many dollars available for education.
For too long, children who were “different” were kept away from the mainstream. Students in the regular education stream didn’t have a lot of opportunities to get to know them or interact with them. Special Education students were the object of suspicion and/or ridicule, simply because other students didn’t understand them; all they knew was that these other children were different. Being different was not something to be celebrated at that point.
Any measure that helps students attending Long Island schools learn to be tolerant of others can only be for the good. Humans tend to be suspicious of things (and people) they don’t understand. With time, mainstreaming can help to reinforce the idea that there is no “Us” and “Them” at Long Island schools. All students are in the environment to learn together and to learn from each other.
Long Island Schools Need to Ensure Students Don’t Fall Through the Cracks
It would be most unfortunate if, in the interest of saving a few dollars, students who need to be in a different learning environment to do their best work were denied access to Special Education programs. We shouldn’t be too quick to either segregate students from their peers or to push them into the mainstream learning environment in Long Island schools.
Instead, we need to take the time and allocate the appropriate resources so that a thorough investigation is conducted when a student is having trouble learning at Long Island schools. Only with a proper diagnosis of a difficulty, can a plan be implemented in Long Island schools to address that student’s needs.
Our children are our most valuable resource. When they don’t get the support they need to become effective learners, we are setting them up to fail in life. It would be far better for teachers and administrators at Long Island schools to find out what the students’ needs are and find the resources to meet them, whether in the regular classroom or an alternate one.
By: Patricia Hawke
