Glengarry Glen Ross
Hunter Gair
How should teacher both prevent and react to disruptive behaviour without interrupting learning?
To both prevent and react to disruptive behaviour in the classroom teachers should set and follow through with clear expectations, identify student needs and ensure that they are being met, and ensure that punishment is doled out fairly and equitably. By setting and following through with clear expectations students will always know what is expected of them and will have an easier time settling into a routine. If you are constantly changing the class rules as a teacher this will cause confusion amongst students and could result in students breaking class rules without realizing it.
Identifying student needs and ensuring that they are being fulfilled is an essential part of being a teacher. Students can not focus on learning when their more pressing needs are not being met. If we can ensure that students in the classroom feel safe, and aren’t too hungry to focus on learning, then student engagement and attentiveness will surely go up. By ensuring that punishments are doled out fairly and equitably we can help to reduce the feeling of resentment that students inevitably feel towards their teacher. Students need to understand that punishment is not personal, if they believe that they are being punished by the teacher because the teacher dislikes them then the punishment will not be effective and the student will not enjoy being in that teacher’s classroom. It is our job as educators to ensure that students understand both how and why punishment is delivered. We as teachers and educators are not waging a war on the students, we are supposed to be targeting student behaviour. As soon as punishment stops punishing behaviour and is instead punishing the individual as a person, it becomes both unacceptable and unhelpful. If we view preventative measures as sunlight and punishment as water, then fostering the mind of a young learner is just like growing a plant. Students are like plants in the sense that plants need sun and water together to thrive, but if you only meet one of their needs then the plant will wither away.
