I'm a senior education major and going to be student teaching in the fall. I'm currently taking Classroom Management and we are suppose to join a teacher forum and ask questions periodically throughout the semester and found out how current teachers manage their classroom. Today's question is: What are the most common discipline problems you have in your classroom? Thanks ahead of time for your help.
I think the most common discipline problem I have is children wanting to be social with their friends at a time which interferes with the lesson the class is working on. This means talking at the wrong moments, trying to get friend's attention at the wrong moments, starting to bounce/hug/wiggle/make faces when it does not work for the lesson at hand....
If you're talking about student behaviors, then the most common behavior I see is a near-constant need to socialize at inappropriate times (such as while I'm teaching or during tests). If you're talking about problems with discipline, then the most common problem I see at my school is teachers who want to be their students' friends and are therefore unwilling to issue appropriate consequences for inappropriate behaviors.
Welcome to A to Z, Kinfolk13! Could I trouble you to follow up on Caesar's post by specifying which of the possibilities you had in mind? (If both, that's fine too - but it might help spark a bit more discussion.)
I actually don't know for sure which one my teacher is asking for. I personally think that hearing both is helpful to me and something I can mention in class. I would love to know both.
I agree with PP that students often see school as a "hang out time" and I know that I remind them, more than id like, that school is not social hour. I also agree with Ceasar. I am a relatively new teacher and I have a coworker who this is her first year and she is struggling so much with classroom management bc in the beginning of the year she wanted to be "liked". the kids even told her that she is too nice and thats why they dont listen to her. Unfortunately, you cannot go back to the first day of school so she is struggling with this.
I don't think you need to go back to the first day of school. You can start a discipline regimen or change it at any time during the year if it doesn't work out. Now I can tell you that doing it later rather from the beginning will be tough especially for certain students. I had one student get in trouble all the time last year, and he complained to the VP that I was nice and the class had no problems until my evaluator came and told me I needed to be mean, and after that he kept getting in trouble. I almost laughed out loud at that, especially because there were definitely 'problems' at the beginning of the year. You also need to be careful about how you do it, or you may have a whole class rebellion. I got pretty close one time. You just need to focus on behaviors of each individual and not the entire class. As for behaviors, I agree, socializing is a huge problem. I also get unsafe behavior from a few students. Disrespect from a few. Cheating from a few. And refusal to work from a bunch of the same students.
I teach second grade and what I see most often are students who call out answers, students who are off task (talking, fiddling with pencils or erasers, etc.), and students who don't listen and follow instructions.
It might surprise you. The last statistics I heard were for K-8 breaking of rules are: 80% of discipline issues are talking related such as interrupting the teacher by "talking out" or talking at an inappropriate time. 15% of discipline issues are related to a student getting out of one's seat at the wrong time. 2% of the discipline issues are related to a student passing a note in the classroom 3% are all other discipline issues. As you can see most "breaking of rules" are the smaller constant things, and not very much of the larger things. *These statistics were gathered by people who were assigned into classrooms to keep track of times children broke any rules in the classroom. I believe the study was done in Callifornia. I am sorry that I do not know the exact name of the study.
I teach an elective and I'm guilty of being too nice to the kids also but not cuz I want to be their friends but cuz I want them to like my class otherwise, I am afraid a lot of kids might drop my class, and they might have me teach something else or get fired.
Interesting I take discipline as more a skill that is developed by the children. For example I am disciplined in my work. I get there on time, I do all the necessary work, I support fellow workers... All of which shows I am a disciplined worker. Discipline in education for me is helping train children to be more disciplined so a discipline problem is an issue where the children do not show quality discipline. It has nothing to do with punishment. Of course the discipline issue I listed is one of the most common areas of weak discipline for teachers also, how many of us have sat through a PD class and not wanted to talk to our friend next to us? After all humans are social creatures.
