A Classroom Management Plan That Works.
In his book, Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys To Creativity, Hugh MacLeod points out that Abraham Lincoln penned the Gettysburg Address on borrowed stationary.
Hemingway wrote with a simple fountain pen.
Van Gogh rarely used more than six colors on his palate.
And MacLeod, himself an artist, sketches cartoons on the back of business cards.
His point is that there is zero correlation between creative talent and the materials and equipment used.
The same can be said about an effective classroom management plan.
A simple set of rules and consequences hand-printed on ordinary poster board is all you need.
You see…
There is no magic in the plan itself. It has no power to influence behavior. Only you have the power to influence behavior by creating a classroom your students want to be part of and then strictly—obsessively—holding them accountable.
Therefore your plan doesn’t need to be elaborate, complex, or involved.
It just needs to be followed.
A Classroom Management Plan Is A Contract
A classroom management plan is a contract you make with your students that promises you will protect their right to learn and enjoy school without interference.
And once it’s presented to your class, you’re bound by this contract to follow it every minute of every day and without exception.
Otherwise, if you don’t, you’re breaking your word—and your students’ trust.
A classroom management plan has two, and only two, purposes:
1. To state the rules of the classroom.
2. To state exactly what will happen if those rules are broken.
That’s it.
Some will tell you that you need to include a system of rewards and incentives. But to really change behavior, to create the class you really want, you have to let go of this idea.
The “do this and get that” mentality is a short-term solution that may get you through the day, and thus is a good strategy for substitute teachers, but it won’t actually change behavior.
It won’t transform your students into the class you really want.
A Classroom Management Plan I Recommend
I recommend the following plan because the rules cover every behavior that could potentially interfere with the learning and enjoyment of your students, and the consequences, when carried out correctly, teach valuable life lessons.
It’s proven to work regardless of where you teach or who is in your classroom.
Rules:
1. Listen and follow directions.
2. Raise your hand before speaking or leaving your seat.
3. Keep your hands and feet to yourself.
4. Respect your classmates and your teacher.
Consequences:
1st time a rule is broken: Warning
2nd time a rule is broken: Time-Out
3rd time a rule is broken: Letter Home
Notes:
*For information on warnings and how they can be effective, see the articles Should A Warning Be Your First Consequence and How To Give A Warning That Improves Behavior.
*For information on time-out, see How To Get Students To Stay Seated And Quiet In Time-Out and 10 Ways To Make Time-Out More Effective.
*For information on sending a letter home, see the article Why A Letter Home Is An Effective Consequence.
A Small Role, But A High Priority
A common mistake teachers make is assuming that a classroom management plan is able to do more than its intended—and quite narrow—purpose (see above).
On its own, it provides little motivation for students to behave.
Its usefulness comes from how it’s implemented, enforced, and carried out, from how you communicate with your students, from how much leverage you have with them, and from how much they enjoy being part of your classroom.
Your classroom should be exciting and creative. Your classroom management plan, however, shouldn’t be.
Avoid cutesy and colorful designs. Even kindergarteners need to know that your classroom management plan and the rules by which it governs are sacred, serious.
Let it have a look worthy of its utilitarian purpose.
Two large pieces of poster board or construction paper—rules on one, consequences on the other—will do. Put them up on your wall, prominently, so everyone who enters your classroom will know that behaving in a manner that is most conducive to learning is a priority in your classroom.
Then honor the contract you made with your students by following it exactly as it’s written.
Read more at http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2010/06/26/classroom-management-plan/
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Showing posts with label Works. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Works. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Why Your Kid Is Not Creative
Why Your Kid Isn't Creative.
Most parents want their kids to be inventive and clever -- perhaps even the next Steve Jobs. But parents also want their kids to perform well by the standard measures of success. Prioritizing one of those pathways, it turns out, may close off the other.
In the new bestseller Imagine: How Creativity Works, journalist Jonah Lehrer synthesizes the latest scientific research into creativity and offers tips for how ordinary people can become more creative. It's a timely subject. Businesses increasingly value workers who can devise customized solutions to complex problems. And improvisation is a key skill for people who want a career of their own design, instead of one dictated by an increasingly cutthroat corporate sector.
The good news is that most people start out with healthy creative instincts, and virtually anybody can improve their creativity if they want to. The bad news is that our education system and social mores discourage creativity. "We're very good at killing creativity in kids," Lehrer told me in an interview. "We kill it with ruthless efficiency. The schools have twelve years to sculpt your mind, and they end up convincing kids that they're not creative."
There's nothing new about the way pragmatic concerns and conformity displace playfulness and originality as kids mature. "Every child is an artist," Pablo Picasso once said. "The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
What is new is the emphasis schools place on rote learning, memorization, and especially standardized tests, which generate a kind of assembly-line uniformity to what kids learn in school. Creativity, by contrast, requires qualities that schools tend to discourage, such as daydreaming, uninhibited curiosity, hands-on experimentation and an unstructured, permissive environment.
Lehrer profiles one highly successful school, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, where there are no textbooks or lectures, and kids spend most of their time working with music, art, theater or whatever their vocation is. Most schools don't operate that way, of course. It's also worth pointing out that many parents would be uncomfortable sending their kids to such an unorthodox place.
Lehrer also highlights one important theme I came across while researching my own book, Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success: the importance of letting kids fail. He describes a phenomenon known as the "fourth-grade slump," a point at which students suddenly start to censor their creative impulses. What happens is kids become more self-aware as they mature, and more eager to conform to social norms. They'd rather avoid something difficult than risk the embarrassment that might come from failing at it. They start to regard improvising as risky, suppressing their creativity. "This is why it's so important to practice letting ourselves go," Lehrer writes.
There are solutions, of course. Many parents instinctively want to "fix" the schools so that they do everything well: Teach the skills that society values most, while also teaching the creativity that will let kids stand out as adults. But that's not realistic. Most schools are appendages of a bureaucracy that serves many interests. They're capable of doing some things competently, but expecting excellence for all is a stretch.
This might be one job parents should handle themselves, instead of outsourcing it to the schools. We can start by tolerating, even encouraging, the kind of daydreaming and intellectual meandering that we too readily label attention-deficit disorder, as if it's a defect. Sometimes it's not. Parents who don't feel they're personally creative can find creative mentors for their kids outside the schools - -writers or artists or designers who seem to have an inventive knack. And exposing kids to many different things is crucially important, since creativity often happens when people connect seemingly disparate ideas, the way the Wright Brothers got the idea for an airplane by wondering if a bicycle could fly.
Lehrer invokes a maxim popularized by psychologist Angela Duckworth: Choose easy, work hard. That means giving kids the freedom to discover something they truly love, while making sure they know it takes diligence and grit to succeed at their passion. "It's going to involve failure," says Lehrer. "You have to be able to put in the work." The rewards may be well worth it.
Read more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-newman/creativity_b_1451850.html?ref=education&ir=Education
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Most parents want their kids to be inventive and clever -- perhaps even the next Steve Jobs. But parents also want their kids to perform well by the standard measures of success. Prioritizing one of those pathways, it turns out, may close off the other.
In the new bestseller Imagine: How Creativity Works, journalist Jonah Lehrer synthesizes the latest scientific research into creativity and offers tips for how ordinary people can become more creative. It's a timely subject. Businesses increasingly value workers who can devise customized solutions to complex problems. And improvisation is a key skill for people who want a career of their own design, instead of one dictated by an increasingly cutthroat corporate sector.
The good news is that most people start out with healthy creative instincts, and virtually anybody can improve their creativity if they want to. The bad news is that our education system and social mores discourage creativity. "We're very good at killing creativity in kids," Lehrer told me in an interview. "We kill it with ruthless efficiency. The schools have twelve years to sculpt your mind, and they end up convincing kids that they're not creative."
There's nothing new about the way pragmatic concerns and conformity displace playfulness and originality as kids mature. "Every child is an artist," Pablo Picasso once said. "The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
What is new is the emphasis schools place on rote learning, memorization, and especially standardized tests, which generate a kind of assembly-line uniformity to what kids learn in school. Creativity, by contrast, requires qualities that schools tend to discourage, such as daydreaming, uninhibited curiosity, hands-on experimentation and an unstructured, permissive environment.
Lehrer profiles one highly successful school, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, where there are no textbooks or lectures, and kids spend most of their time working with music, art, theater or whatever their vocation is. Most schools don't operate that way, of course. It's also worth pointing out that many parents would be uncomfortable sending their kids to such an unorthodox place.
Lehrer also highlights one important theme I came across while researching my own book, Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success: the importance of letting kids fail. He describes a phenomenon known as the "fourth-grade slump," a point at which students suddenly start to censor their creative impulses. What happens is kids become more self-aware as they mature, and more eager to conform to social norms. They'd rather avoid something difficult than risk the embarrassment that might come from failing at it. They start to regard improvising as risky, suppressing their creativity. "This is why it's so important to practice letting ourselves go," Lehrer writes.
There are solutions, of course. Many parents instinctively want to "fix" the schools so that they do everything well: Teach the skills that society values most, while also teaching the creativity that will let kids stand out as adults. But that's not realistic. Most schools are appendages of a bureaucracy that serves many interests. They're capable of doing some things competently, but expecting excellence for all is a stretch.
This might be one job parents should handle themselves, instead of outsourcing it to the schools. We can start by tolerating, even encouraging, the kind of daydreaming and intellectual meandering that we too readily label attention-deficit disorder, as if it's a defect. Sometimes it's not. Parents who don't feel they're personally creative can find creative mentors for their kids outside the schools - -writers or artists or designers who seem to have an inventive knack. And exposing kids to many different things is crucially important, since creativity often happens when people connect seemingly disparate ideas, the way the Wright Brothers got the idea for an airplane by wondering if a bicycle could fly.
Lehrer invokes a maxim popularized by psychologist Angela Duckworth: Choose easy, work hard. That means giving kids the freedom to discover something they truly love, while making sure they know it takes diligence and grit to succeed at their passion. "It's going to involve failure," says Lehrer. "You have to be able to put in the work." The rewards may be well worth it.
Read more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-newman/creativity_b_1451850.html?ref=education&ir=Education
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
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