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Chapter 2: Classifying Approaches to Classroom Management and Moving Up the Teaching Style Continuum

From Transformative Classroom Management. By John Shindler. ©Allyn Bacon Pub.

Reproduction is unlawful without permission

 

In this Chapter:

·         Introducing the Teaching Style Matrix

·         Vertical Axis – Function vs. Dysfunction

·         Moving Up the Axis – Examining the roots of Dysfunction

·         Things to Start Doing

·         Things to Stop Doing

·         Examining the Effects of Our Thinking

·         Horizontal Axis – Teacher-Centered vs. Student-Centered

·         Brief Descriptions of the Four Management Approaches

·         Comparing the Advantages of a 1-Style vs. 2-Style Approach

·         Moving up from a 3-Style Approach

 

Each teacher has his or her own style of teaching and classroom management. There are as many styles as there are teachers. Much of the style of any teacher will come from their own unique personality. However, a great deal of what we might call our classroom management style comes from our attitudes and pedagogical choices. In the domain of personality, each of us can find ways to translate our personal style into an effective teaching demeanor. Yet, in the domain of choices and attitudes, some styles will be lead to substantially different outcomes than others (Harris, 1998).

 

 

Chapter Reflection 2-a: How would you characterize your teaching style, and/or the style that you would most like to have?

 

 

In this chapter, we will examine how the classroom management choices that we make as well as our orientation to discipline itself will determine the results that we will achieve.  To help support this examination it will be useful to incorporate a four-quadrant classroom management style matrix (see Figure 2.1).  

 

Effective/
FunctionalFigure 2.1: Four-Quadrant Matrix of Management Style Orientation and Practice

 

 

 

Conductor,Dominator,Enabler,Facilitator,1,2,3,4
Student-
Centered
Teacher -
Centered
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ineffective/
Dysfunction
 

 

 

 


This Classroom Management Style Orientation Matrix, depicted in Figure 2.1 above, has proven useful as a tool for classifying the management orientations and strategies used by teachers (Shindler, Jones, Taylor, Cadenas, 2003, 2004, 2005), and will provide one of the fundamental frameworks for the ideas and concepts in this book. The matrix is formed by the intersection of two continuum or axes. The vertical axis of the matrix represents the level of effectiveness and function of the management practices. The horizontal axis represents a continuum of theoretical orientation defining each approach or “Style,” from more student-centered on the left, to more teacher-centered on the right. The intersection of these two axes produces four distinct teaching style quadrants. It should be noted that on the level of personality, any personal style could be fit into each of the four quadrants. However, as well we explore, each of the four styles represented by the quadrants will produce dramatically different results in practice.

 

 

Vertical Axis – Effectiveness and Functionality

The vertical axis of the matrix is related to the continuum of effectiveness and function of the management practice. At the top of the axis are the most effective forms of practice defined by high function, sound relationships, high levels of motivation, and high productivity. At the base of the axis are the least effective forms of practice defined by low function, relationship dysfunction, low motivation and a lack of productivity (see Figure 2.2).

 

Figure 2.2 Depicting the Defining Qualities of the Vertical Axis

High Function

 

 

 

·         Intentional Climate

·         Internal Locus of Control

·         Environment defined by Efficiency

·         Emotionally encouraging

·         High Levels of Awareness

·         Efficacy

 

 

Low Function

 

 

 

 

·         Accidental Climate

·         External Locus of Control

·         Environment defined by struggle

·         Emotionally discouraging

·         Low Levels of Awareness

·         Incompetence

 

 

 

What contributes to one’s placement on this effectiveness continuum? When the classroom management performance of teachers in the field was examined, three factors were found to predict effectiveness (Shindler, Jones, Taylor, Cadenas 2004). These factors were related the following three domains:

1.      Orientation and Dispositions

2.      Choices and Practices

3.      Thinking and Assumptions

 

First, to be an effective teacher one must have an orientation to teaching that is defined by a sense of responsibility, and intentionality. Second, effective management will relate to a great extent on the quality of methods and strategies that one chooses to incorporate and the effectiveness with which they apply them. In this chapter, we will examine practices that will lead on a path up the continuum and others that will leave one mired in the ineffective realm. Third, we will examine how our attitudes, assumptions, and patterns of thinking will substantially determine our ability to realize effectiveness and function. Each of these three factors are inter-related, but will be examined independently.

 

Orientation and Dispositions

The degree of classroom management effectiveness and function were found to relate to the orientation taken by the teacher and their dispositions related to teaching (Shindler, Jones, Taylor, Cadenas 2004). High levels of effectiveness were related first, to the degree to which the locus of control of the teacher is internal rather than external, and second, the level intentionality of the system of management. Therefore, the peak of this axis represents practices that are less accidental and reactive and more systematic, deliberate and reflect an increasing level of teacher ownership for student outcomes. Let us examine both of these sub-factors in more depth.

 

Responsibility and Internal Locus of Control

If you talk to a teacher who does an effective job of classroom management and possesses a high degree of self-efficacy (Henson, 2001), you will hear in their words the underlying convictions – “I believe it is about what I do,” and “I am responsible for helping my students succeed.” The frame of mind that is expressed in this attitude is both internal – “Success will be dependent on the investment I make in my variable in the equation,” and responsible – “My job is to help every student succeed.” Contrast this to the mindset of a teacher who, after a sufficient amount of training and practice, still demonstrates ineffectiveness and experiences a high level of student failure. In most cases, the attitudes that these teachers express are both external – “There is nothing that I can do with these kids,” and irresponsible – “It is not my fault.” 

Greenwood (1990) found that teachers who believe that they, and teachers in general, can motivate students to achieve give less evidence of stress and exhibit more internal locus of control than do teachers who believe that neither they, nor other teachers, can affect student performance.  In a study by Guskey & Passaro (1994) the most significant predictor of teacher efficacy was the degree to which teachers assigned the cause of the outcomes in their class internally rather than externally. While our success in the area of classroom management will have a great deal to do with our training and the methods we choose to employ, our underlying attitudes related to responsibility and locus of control will be the foremost determining factors in our success. Simply put, success is impossible without the mind-set that one is responsible for their student’s learning and behavioral outcomes.

 

 

Chapter Reflection 2-b: Recall a teacher that you judge to be excellent. When they speak about their students and their profession, how would you characterize their language? Does it reflect a more internal or external locus of control?

 

 

Intentionality and Consciousness

Put simply, more effective teacher practices are demonstrated by those who know what they are trying to accomplish and how then intend to accomplish it. That is, they are “intentional” in their practice (Richardson & Fallona, 2001). This approach is contrasted to those that are short-sighted, reactive and unconscious, which could be described as “accidental.” Intentional practice is characterized by efforts undertaken within a larger scheme within which each specific teaching act fits (Pajares, 1992).  An accidental set of practices has no such coherence, and therefore collectively amount to little if anything beyond a series of disconnected strategies. This lack of vision creates a lack of confidence and a feeling of discontinuity in the students, in other words, a sense that they are part of a class that lacks leadership.

 

 

Teaching Choices and Practices

Not all classroom management strategies will get us where we want to go. Some will lead us up the effectiveness continuum and others will keep us treading water or can even promote greater degrees of dysfunction. In this section we will examine those practices that will lead to the highest levels of sustainable effectiveness, and those to avoid.

 

Text Box: Classroom management effectiveness is defined as a learning environment that promotes learning, motivation, and collective function.  Classroom management dysfunction is defined as any event, behavior, pattern, feeling, or thought that keeps a teacher from being able to teach to their fullest potential or keeps the class from learning in the most liberated, satisfying and effective manner. 

Management practices come in three types:

·         Effective practices that we do that we would want to keep doing.

·         Effective practices that we don’t yet do, or do very well yet (that would affect improvement) that we would want to begin doing.

·         Ineffective practices that we do, that we need to stop doing (because they are limiting our success or in some cases actually leading us down the effectiveness continuum)

Moving Up the Continuum to a More Functional Approach

As we examine the list of management practices that will contribute to our movement up the continuum (represented in Figure 2.3), it should be noted that there are no quick fixes on the list. Effective practices will have the effect of creating a fundamentally more functional classroom, and will produce increasingly more effectiveness over time.  They have the effect of empowering students and bringing out their best. Truly effective practices have the effect of not only promoting better student behavior, but in addition helping students become fundamentally better individually and collectively. Below, six practices are described that have the effect of increasingly and sustainably raising the level of function in a class. In addition, three strategies for moving to the highest level on the effectiveness continuum are introduced.


 

Figure 2.3: Management Practices that One Will Want to Engage in to Move up the Continuum toward more Functional Approach

 

Practices That Lead to Higher Levels of Function

1. Create Clarity with All that You Do

2. Be a Model of Consistency

3. Incorporate Pedagogy that Supports Your Management Goals

4. Develop a (Basic) Needs Satisfying Learning Environment

5. Facilitate the Collective Social Bonds and Social Contract among Students

6. Teach and Practice your Management Procedures

 

Transformational Ideas: Moving to the Next Level

7. Intentionally Promote a “Psychology of Success” in Your Students

8. Move from the role of a Manager to that of Leader

9. Create Communal Bonds and Community among the Students in the Class

 

 

1. Strive to Create Clarity with All that You Do.

Most classroom management dysfunction is related to a lack of clarity in some form. Let’s examine four areas where the existence of clarity can be seen to mitigate dysfunction. First, students need clear expectations. Without them, they are forced to guess. This can create a “vacuum” in expectations, which students fill with their own ideas of conduct. When we use abstract terms such as responsibility, respect, or “good behavior,” without defining those concepts in a concrete and material way, these ideas remain only abstractions.  Much of what we call misbehavior is simply students guessing how to act in ways that we do not like (i.e., their guess was wrong!). Second, the teacher needs to infuse a sense of intention and movement to the class. When the class experiences the deliberate movement toward a goal they are much less likely to be bored, distracted, or feel their work lacks purpose. Third, students need to be given clear boundaries. Boundaries help students understand where lines exist (Bluestein, 1999). In their absence, problems arise. In part, this is due to the fact that inevitably students come to any class with a wide range of previously learned behavior and expectation for boundaries. Fourth, abstractions such as respect, listening, effort, responsibility, etc., need to be “operationalized” or they will remain only abstractions. Many teachers complain that their students lack these traits, yet do not make the concepts concrete and practical for their students. Clarity can only exist in a concrete and observable world. Words can only point to behavior. Clarity, therefore, requires an intentional effort on the part of the teacher to make the abstract, conceptual and assumed into something that is concrete, behavioral, personally relevant and collectively shared.

 

Chapter Reflection 2-c: Recall the last class that you observed that you would call well managed. Did you get the sense that the students had a clear sense of the expectations? Recall the last class that you observed that you would consider poorly managed. Did you get the sense that the students had a clear sense of the expectations?

 


 

2. Be a Source of Consistency

Along with clarity, if the element of consistency exists in a classroom, things will run relatively smoothly (Evertson & Emmer, 2003). Even a flawed set of strategies, if applied consistently, will result in relatively effective results.  How is classroom function and/or dysfunction and the idea of consistency related? First, the consistency of one’s actions promotes or detracts from another’s sense that a person is trustworthy. Part of being trusted by students is being reliable. When our decision-making process is perceived as too subjective, or random, students lose trust in us. The loss of trust usually translates ultimately into a loss of commitment on the part of the student. Second, when the teacher follows through and consistently implements consequences, it makes the (concrete and practical) statement that the agreement (our social contract, class rules, bill or rights, etc.) is primary and the teacher’s subjective interpretation is secondary.  Third, when we are working with a student or a class to help shape behavior, reinforcing more functional behavior is necessary. In many cases, even a small amount of contradictory reinforcement can undermine our efforts. Consistency helps clarify the cause and effect thinking we are trying to build. Inconsistency confuses it.

 

 

Chapter Reflection 2-d: Related to consistency, a useful principle to maintain as a teacher is that “it is not the severity of the consequence that will make it effective, it is the certainty.” Consider the consequences that we negotiate everyday. Typically we take those that are certain more seriously than those that are more severe but less likely.

 

 For example, imagine, if you were a driver who had a tendency to like to drive faster than the speed limit, which intervention would be more likely to modify your behavior:

 - If your car was equipped with a meter that fined you $1 for every time your car went over the limit?

 - If you knew that there was a patrol car that gave $1,000 tickets to a handful of speeders each year?

 

 

3. Incorporate Pedagogy that Supports Your Management Goals

If you offer students a curriculum defined by monotonous tasks, mindless busy-work and exclusively teacher-directed learning, expect problems. Students involved in passive learning often use disruptive behavior to achieve a sense of control, engagement, satisfaction, and fun. Students who are engaged, challenged, and see a real-world value to their work will be much more interested in learning than creating problems.  When students feel successful, they associate that success with the source (you the teacher), when they are bored and unsuccessful they associate that failure experience with you as well. Teachers who accumulate positive association over time are able to use that “emotional capital” later when they need to make requests. 

 

4. Create a (Basic) Needs Satisfying Learning Environment

If the students’ basic needs for power, competence, belonging, freedom, and fun are not met by what you provide in their experience, they will find ways to meet those needs by other means (Glasser, 1998). Often those other means include unwanted and/or problem behavior (Driekurs 1974, Albert 2003).  If we look at a student’s actions from within the lens “is this student doing what I want?” then when that student misbehaves, we have little useful insight for a solution to the problem. However, if we examine student’s actions within the lens “what basic needs are the students attempting to meet with this behavior?” then we are well on our way to making sense of the problem, and identifying solutions. When we create engaging learning activities that create a sense of “psychological movement” in the class, a good portion of the reasons for misbehavior are removed, and replaced with reasons for students to invest and enjoy their time in our class. Moreover, our students experience our curriculum as culturally relevant and meaningful to their lives, they are more likely to connect with it and less likely to express their sense of disconnection in very understandable acts of passive and/or active resistance.

 

5. Facilitate the Collective Social Bonds and Social Contract among the Students

We are the primary force in the room that can help the students become responsible to one another and develop a set of social bonds that support the group’s capacity to function. Rules answer the question, “What am I supposed to do in here?” The Social Contract answers the question, “What – if I did it – would help the class function more effectively, and best ensure my rights as a member?” Few students feel a sense of ownership over rules. However, bonds by their very nature are owned by those that share them, and are therefore are much more likely to lead to responsible behavior.

 

6. Teach and Practice your Management Procedures

If our students do not know how to behave, listen, transition from one thing to another, interact respectfully, work cooperatively in a group, resolve conflict, process failure, line up, perform when you leave the room, etc., it is our responsibility to teach them these things, or to stop complaining when they do them poorly.

Burden (2003) suggests that we think about teaching our classroom procedures in the same way that we think about teaching any other content. In Chapter 6, we will discuss strategies for promoting this area--strategies that we will refer to as “Technical Management.”

 

 

Chapter Reflections 2-e: When you observe a class that is running smoothly early in the year, ask the teacher how it got to be that way. There was likely a lot of practice and intentional effort put toward the management in the first few days.

 

 

Transformational Ideas: Moving Your Management to the Next Level

As you become more skilled at recognizing and executing the six ideas listed above, you may find yourself ready to stretch your efforts toward a more advanced set of ideas for achieving effectiveness. These next three ideas represent avenues for not only reducing behavioral dysfunction but for helping your students transform their current level of functioning into one in which they can truly thrive.

 

7. Intentionally Promote a “Psychology of Success” in Your Students

In Chapter 8, we will explore in depth the three core psychological orientations of the successful learner, and how to cultivate them. They are: an internal locus of control, a sense of acceptance and belonging, and a mastery orientation to learning.  As you will recognize upon examining the factors that promote or detract from one’s psychology of success, much of what is accepted as common discipline practice actually acts to elicit a “failure psychology” in students.


 

8. Move from a Manager Role to a Leader Role

As you progress through the book you will be given ideas for thinking about classroom management as not simply a process of keeping students on task and motivated, but to help them become self-responsible. Glasser (1998) describes the role of teacher leader as one who sets and models high expectations, encourages students to evaluate their own work, and promotes a climate of support and empowerment that is free of coercion.  

 

9. Create Communal Bonds and Community among the Students in the Class. Societal bonds answer the question, “What am I required to do, and what can I expect from others?” These bonds are critical for helping reduce problems and providing a functional environment. However, if students experience their class as a community it opens up a wide range of new ways that they can grow both personally and collectively.  Communal bonds are characterized by the question, “What can I do to make the collective better?” As students increasingly take on this mindset, there will be a corresponding decrease in the number of classroom management problems. Moreover, problems themselves become opportunities for growth. Developing community is discussed specifically in Chapter 16.

 

 

Chapter Reflection 2-f: In what ways do you want your teaching and classroom management to have a transformative effect on your students?

 

 

Practices that Draw us Downward on the Continuum and will Eventually Lead to a Greater Degree of Dysfunction

Most ineffective classroom management practices are done under the assumption that they are on some level “working.” As we later examine the notion of the phrase “it works,” (as in such phrases as “it works for me,” or “it is the only thing that works for my students”), we will begin to recognize the fallacious logic that keeps us bound to practices that don’t work, or operate to maintain a dysfunctional dynamic in the our classrooms. While the practices listed in Figure 2.4 are relatively common, when observed in action, the dysfunction that they eventually generate becomes evident. All of them appear to the user to have a desired effect, and in many cases will help the user experience a sense of efficacy in the short term, but each will inevitably leave a long-term residue that is counterproductive to one’s ultimate success, and will lead us downward on the effectiveness continuum in the long-term. For many of us, these ideas may have been modeled by or suggested to us by teachers whom we respected. It is understandable to therefore have an attachment to the ideas, but that is not a sufficient reason to retain them and thereby keep hindering our own success. And as we recall our “model teacher’s” practices more critically, we will likely recognize that while they may have been generally effective, there was a cost for the use of any of the practices listed below.


 

Figure 2.4: Management Practices that Ultimately Lead a Class in a Downward Movement in the Continuum toward Greater Dysfunction

Practices That Lead to Higher Levels of Dysfunction

 

1. Relying on Bribes, Gimmicks and Short-term Fixes

2. Incorporating Negative Strategies, Assuming they will Eventually Produce Positive Results

3. Using Punishments and/or a “Pain-Based Logic” in Your Discipline

4. Intermingling the Personal with the Performance

5. Involving those that are not involved

 

1. Trusting Bribes and Gimmicks to Motivate Students

Short-term fixes such as bribes and gimmicks may obtain an apparent desired outcome initially, but in most cases they will erode the long-term quality of classroom discipline and/or motivation. Bribes such as prizes for desired behavior, giving preferred activity time, rewarding students with inactivity (free time or avoiding work), stickers, stars, and gimmicks such as names on the board, or colored behavioral charts seem like good ideas on the surface. But as we progress further in the book, you will better recognize that each of these strategies actually does more long term harm than good.  Bribes, by definition, make the statement “you need to be given something of no educational value to con you into doing something educational.” The students’ need for bribes will inherently grow, as their intrinsic appreciation for learning will become suppressed. Later, in Chapter 7, we will explore how extrinsic rewards used purposefully can promote clarity of expectations as opposed to operating as bribes.  Colored card behavioral charts and names on the board work on the principle that public shame will modify behavior. For some students this might be true in the short-term, but in the end, these strategies will work against the development of responsible behavior and against the reduction of misbehavior. While they are common and seductive, in Chapter 20 we will explore the many reasons why they create more problems than they solve.

 

2. Incorporating Negative Strategies, Assuming they will Eventually Produce Positive Results

If we are waiting for our complaining, lectures, guilt, shaming, put-downs or any other negative actions (or, more accurately, passive and hostile inactions) to translate into better student behavior, it is a safe assumption that we will be waiting forever.  These strategies may provide us with a momentary relief from the feeling of responsibility, and may even feel like action, but they are at best useless actions to which students become immune very quickly, and are toxic and destructive influences that erode the motivation and emotional climate in the class. The law of cause and effect dictates that every action will have an equal and opposite reaction, thus these negative actions will breed a corresponding negative response from students. This reaction exhibits itself in a wide range of manifestations of dysfunction ranging from apathy to conflict. We can’t discard these practices soon enough! The remaining chapters will offer positive and practical alternatives.

 

 

 

Chapter Reflection 2-g: Recall someone you knew who constantly told you what you did that was wrong. How did it make you feel? Did it motivate you to succeed?

 

 

3. Using Punishments and/or a “Pain-Based Logic” in Your Discipline

The deliberate use of punishment presumes that if one administers enough pain to a student it will result in that student changing behavior. This same logic goes for showing disapproval, put downs, or anything else that implies the use of discomfort in attempt to modify behavior or “teach a lesson.” There are two problems with this logic. First, punishment does not do a very good job of teaching lessons, unless the lesson is how not to get caught and/or how to avoid the source of the punishment. Second, introducing more pain into the equation of a class environment will inevitably create a ripple effect that will manifest itself in such behavior as rebellion, displaced aggression among students, negative identity promotion, as well as increasing the level of fear and anxiety.

 

In Chapter 19, we take a closer look at how this “pain-based logic” is at the heart of the 4-Style management approach that has remained so prevalent. We will examine how to move from this style, up the continuum, to one both healthier and more effective. In Chapter 10, we will examine why logical and related consequences are vastly more desirable alternatives to punishments for both changing behavior and encouraging more self-responsible thinking and actions on the part of the students.

 

4. Intermingling the Personal with the Performance

It is tempting to try to encourage better student behavior with personalized strategies, such as personal praise, disappointment, affection and withdrawal of affection.  We can assume that these types of strategies will help us leverage our relationship with the students into better performance and/or behavior, but in the end, it will work against each of our goals – the relationship, the level of performance, and the quality of behavior.  Let’s examine why. When a student is given personal praise (i.e., “you are good because you are done” or “I like you because you are behaving well.”) for desired performance, or given personal criticism (i.e., “you are not good because you are not done.” Or “I am disappointed in you because of the way that you are acting.”) for undesirable performance, the line between self and actions is confused. Consequently, there are a whole series of problems that stem from this confusion. Let us briefly identify two of them. First, it results in a student who spends an unnecessary amount of time thinking about whether they have pleased the teacher rather than learning to love the process of learning for its own sake. In the younger grades, this is experienced as love and the loss of love depending on one’s performance. In the later grades, this is experienced as the teacher’s public comparison of students, playing favorites with those that perform better in their course, or threatening to lower grades for students who “act up.” Second, when the performance and the personal are co-mingled it introduces an external and random/subjective logic into the class. The result is a diffusion of the clarity of classroom expectations and students’ internal locus of control, in which students think and act tentatively, always keeping one eye on the teacher, as opposed to developing their own sense of self-direction. This invites more misbehavior and collective dysfunction. Instead of students learning to function for self-responsible reasons, they behave to please the teacher - to the degree they want to please the teacher. What we achieve over time with these personalized strategies are students who behave on days that they want to reward the teacher and not on days that they do not want to reward the teacher or have more powerful internal reasons (i.e., friends, the weather, bad moods, or meeting any of their basic needs) to disregard their loyalty to the them.

Assessing student participation can be a healthy and effective strategy. It can help clarify and reinforce student effort and investment in the process. But in most applications it is used as a subtle or not-so-subtle form of manipulation. This must be done intentionally and thoughtfully or not done at all. Chapter 21 outlines a positive and effective system for assessing student participation.

 

Chapter Reflection 2-h: When you observe those teachers who seem to make the job look easy, do you find common attitudes among them? Conversely, when you observe those teachers who seem to be perpetually unhappy and fighting against their students, do you find common ways of thinking among them?

 

5.  Involving Those That Were Not Involved.

Albert Jones (2007) suggests that when we involve persons into the equation of our discipline interactions who were not originally involved in the event of significance, the result is a weakening of our discipline environment. When we tend to use a lot of referrals to the office and administrative interventions, we make the implicit statement that we cannot manage our class ourselves. Likewise, having the parents involved in the learning process can be an invaluable asset in helping our students succeed. However, when we out-source our problems to the students’ parents it leads to an erosion of our authority. When we involve those that were not involved, we shift the locus of control externally and away from where it can be most effective – the cause and effect relationship between the student’s choices and our consequent actions.

 

Chapter Reflection 2-i: Recall a teacher that you have observed that sent a lot of students out of the room and regularly called parents requesting that they straighten out their children. Did that teacher have a well-managed class? Do you see a connection?

 

Commonly, dysfunctional practices like those described above can be alluring and thus difficult to give up. But their use will inevitably keep us mired in the bottom quadrants of the matrix. As you work on moving away from short-term fixes, you will likely be tempted to resort to them in times of crisis for a period of time. However, if you are ultimately successful in resisting their appeal and instead put your efforts into developing a set of effective long-term practices, you will increasingly notice the contrast between the effects of the less effective practices and the more effective replacements, and recognize that the old practices were in fact keeping you stuck in a rut. However, if you do not take time to reflect on the beliefs and misconceptions that first attracted you to these ineffective strategies, you may find an irresistible desire to revert to them once again.

 

How Our Thinking Can Promote Either Movement Up or Down the Continuum

When we experience classroom management dysfunction it is not enough to find a set of new practices. It is also important to understand why you were drawn to the ineffective practices in the first place. As Eckhart Tolle (1999) states “If we do not change the thinking that has created the problem-making conditions in our lives, even if our situation changes, we will soon find a new set of problems to replace the old ones.” Often just the way that we think can produce the experience of dysfunction, dissatisfaction and/or unease. To a great extent, our classrooms will be a projection of what is taking place in our minds. Our thinking can be a great ally in our efforts or our own worst enemy. Below we will examine thinking that will tend to encourage the conditions in our classroom up or down the effectiveness continuum. These domains of thinking are depicted in Figure 2.5.

 

Figure 2.5 Examining the Effects of our Thinking on the Movement of our Management Practices on the Effectiveness/Ineffectiveness Continuum.

 

Thinking Leading to Ineffectiveness/ Dysfunction

Thinking Leading to Effectiveness/ Function

 

·         Accidental and/or External Mindset

·         Faulty Assumptions

·         Taking events and student behavior personally and losing present moment attention

·         Lack of Self-awareness

·          The “It works” mentality

 

Intentional and/or Internal Mindset

Sound Assumptions

Maintaining focus on the present moment what is important now (WIN)

Desire for Self-awareness

Pursuit of what really works

 

 

 

Sound vs. Faulty Assumptions

Much of the practical as well as emotional dysfunction that we experience in the area of classroom management will stem from our faulty assumptions about our role as teacher. Here we examine a few of them.