We've all had problems
Whether it's been with our family, friends, or even in the situations where we've been teaching.
Problems though, take on a delicate balance in a classroom. This isn't just a child that may be misbehaving that you can personally take the time to deal with as it could be in a personal situation. When the management and control of the class is on the line, problems can become something that could destroy control over students.
I thought about what my first step would be to reduce the number of problems in my classroom. And, the first thing was the first thing that had to happen. There had to be rules. I recently talked to my cousin about a class that he had, and how he hated how on the first day they got a huge list of things that they were not allowed to do. He felt like they were being told all of these things they couldn't do, and that sets a rather negative mood. I want to have rules in my class, but I want them to feel more like precautions and agreements with students and myself on how we all want behaviour to be in the classroom. So I decided that I would want to set up a list of rules, a few that I find to be very important, and then on the first day ask kids what kinds of things they want to see in the classroom, ask them what they don't like to happen. It's a bit risky, to see if they would participate in this, but I think that if you give them the opportunity to be heard, and if they all agree on the rules, then its a contract between all of us, and less of something I'm telling them to do.
Outside of that, I've learned a few tricks here and there. The PLAS program I took part in this semester through my KPED class really gave me the perfect chance to try out a few of these techniques. There is nothing like energetic kids acting up to make you think on your feet of how to deal with the problems. I've had to employ minor and moderate interventions, though thank goodness nothing far enough to take it to the level of serious interventions. I'll try to illustrate a few scenarios where I had to use skills in those two areas, of course, changing the names of the kids.
Minor Interventions
There were two brothers who seemed to constantly be causing a disturbance and building off of each other to the point that they interrupted the class and often took things to a stand still. My group and I had to employ a lot of techniques, each hoping to get them to stop. We often used a proximity technique of standing directly behind them, or a silence technique of falling quiet and pointedly waiting for them to stop their behaviour. It was always easier to handle when we had our instructions clearly planned out, and every kid was actively involved in the event. Eye contact didn't seem to work, though there were times when it seemed like they were waiting to see if you noticed their behaviour. So yes, most of our interventions in the class were minor, though it seemed as if it took calling out behaviour in some cases...or worse...
Moderate Interventions
Unfortunately, there was more need for moderate intervention that I thought. There were cases when a child would refuse to move from a gymnast mat where he was at risk of getting hurt, and creating a time out of exclusion of the next activity was the only way that they would stop their current behaviour. There was also some cases of ownership problems that had to be sorted out through the involvement of bringing in the Principal to deal with the matter.
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