I was talking with some of my colleagues yesterday about classroom management, and about a colleague of ours, a second-year teacher who is struggling a little with finding that magic balance.
One of the other teachers said something like, “It’s the classic new teacher problem. She’s too nice. It took me about 4–5 years to learn to be mean enough.” Of course this was tongue-in-cheek—the teacher who made the comment can be strict when she needs to be, but is also a nice teacher who enjoys a good rapport with her students. I replied that it took me about 3 years to learn to be mean, and five more to learn to be nice, but in a way that maintains appropriate control. That got me thinking about why it takes all new teachers several years to learn to manage a class effectively, and why all of the techniques touted in the edubabble books haven’t had much of an impact.
I think some of it is the process of learning something new—being able to decide what’s important, getting used to noticing it and adjusting it early and often. Like learning anything else, it takes time and lots of practice. (Some people say it takes ten thousand hours to fully master a new skill.) I’ve enjoyed watching my daughters learn new skills like riding a bicycle, blowing bubbles with bubble gum, and solving algebra problems. All of these took a bunch of attempts with coaching and help, then a bunch of solo practice. I remember when I first learned to drive, I was exhausted after three hours behind the wheel. Now I can drive from Boston to Toronto (over 9 hours), and feel much less exhausted than my sixteen-year-old self after one-third of the time.
I also think there is a shift that happens somewhere around five years of experience. When I was a new teacher, the lesson plan was what drove my teaching. Any distraction or deviation from the lesson plan was a potential crisis. If I didn’t succeed in implementing the lesson plan fully, I treated it like an emergency, and I expected the students to share in my state of near-panic. When a student disrupted the lesson, I got angry, because the disruption threatened the core of my lesson and my teaching.
For me the beginnings of the shift away from the lesson plan-centered focus started in my third year of teaching, but I didn’t fully get there until about year six. Now, my focus is on the students themselves, and on the skills they need to successfully do the homework and pass the tests. My lesson plans are much rougher, with much more room to wait and find out what the kids need and where I need to take the lesson so they’ll learn the skills. If I don’t get all the way through my rough plan, it means either the plan was too ambitious for one day and we continue the next day, or the plan didn’t work for my students and needs to be modified. If there are disruptions, I treat them as insights into how my students are feeling about their ability to be successful in doing the homework or passing the tests. We take a moment to discuss what’s behind the disruption, which is often a disconnect that left the student feeling unable to succeed. By taking the time to address some of these disconnects directly, the reasons behind some of the disruptions vanish, and other students see direct evidence that I care about their ability to learn and be successful, not just my own ability to implement a lesson plan.
Even when I need to tell them that we need a little “Silence To Foster Understanding” (better known by its abbreviation), it’s never about my ability to manage my class, but about their friends’ ability to pay attention to the class and do well. “I don’t personally care whether any of you choose to listen to me or not, but I can’t let any of you do things that get in the way of other people’s learning.”
The bottom line is that, at least for me, it works. My students tend to be reasonably quiet and attentive, at least most of the time. I have very few behavior problems in my classes, and very few failures for the year, both of which I think follow directly from the more student-centric focus.
