It has been a couple of days since I addressed my concerns and perks of public education series. There are two letters left to discuss in the alphabet. The letters Y and Z are next on my agenda.
A concern for public education is yelling. Throughout my years of teaching I have noticed that adults tend to think that being louder gives them more control. However, I have also discovered that when adults continuously discipline children by using loud voice tones such as yelling, the children simply learn to tune-out the noise.
In moments of frustration and feelings of lost of control, it is very tempting and almost second nature to become loud and angry. I have been in those moments myself. However, loud out of control adults only escalate the actions of loud out of control children.
I believe that teacher education programs should better demonstrate to their students how to properly and more effectively manage discipline in a classroom. Methods such as using positive redirection and positive reinforcement should be discussed. We usually tend to think of focusing on the undesired behaviors rather than the desired ones.
Many times remaining clam and quietly redirecting students to a new more preferred activity will calm an entire classroom full of children. It is amazing how simply walking to the carpet with one child and reading a book will draw the attention of others. Before long, the carpet is usually filled with the entire group.
I have been in classrooms, at ballgames, and in the cafeterias and heard corrections being made through rough, hard yelling voices. In some cases, this will prove to give results. However, I had much rather get results because a student wants to change his or her behavior rather than him or her doing so with fear, negativity, or without seeing purpose.
More Perks of Public Education
More Concerns of Public Education