I was searching the internet tonight to try to locate something to help me with my 8th grade students write their final reflections. I came across the AOL@SCHOOL SITE, which is directly linked into the NEA website. I came across this article: Getting Students to Complete their work.
The article is written by Charlotte Wellen, who teaches at a Glasser Quality High School. The Glasser method is based upon the choice theory. I didn't recognize this was the method used by the educator who I recently took a full day workshop on classroom management, but this is it. The kids have a choice. They have the choice to do the work or not to. They have the choice to pay attention in class or not. They must know that with choices come consequences though. Usually the student's are then left to determine their own consequence or to work with the class at the beginning of a school year to identify classroom consequences for different unwanted classroom behavior.
What is missing so much today in my classroom, is the internal "wanting" to do well for sheer personal satisfaction. The kids want to please us, they want to please their parents, they want to show off and be naughty to please others in the classroom and to look "cool". It is a lot "cooler" to show off and get into trouble rather than behave and do their work. Why is this? Is it sheer rebellion?
I really like the way the teacher talks to her students. She puts the "owness" back on them. I think it will take some practice, but I am working on it, one student at a time.
It is all because we care and want them to succeed! Relationships are very important in the middle years, and hopefully we can foster them.
Any other ideas for classroom management? Especially in the technology classroom. How about for 80 minute blocks of time in a computer lab? Long time for 6&7th graders!
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