One of the best books ever written for teachers is Harry Wong's The First Days of School. He opens Chapter 1 by boldly stating, "Your success during the school year will be determined by what you do on the first days of school." I agree. There is no substitute for establishing clear expectations, modeling routines and procedures, and following through with positive and negative consequences. Excellent classroom management begins and ends with effective relationship building with every scholar. Effective relationships develop each scholar's ability to be responsible and self-disciplined while staying within the established boundaries of the class and campus. One of the biggest challenges we face as educators is finding that fine line between freedom and authority (as the cartoon suggests). One of my goals as principal is to allow individual teachers the freedom and flexibility to work with scholars as needed while developing some level of consistency from room to room and from grade level to grade level. What successes and lessons have you learned about the importance of effective classroom management? This will be an important topic of conversation when we meet as grade levels in August.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Classroom Management
One of the best books ever written for teachers is Harry Wong's The First Days of School. He opens Chapter 1 by boldly stating, "Your success during the school year will be determined by what you do on the first days of school." I agree. There is no substitute for establishing clear expectations, modeling routines and procedures, and following through with positive and negative consequences. Excellent classroom management begins and ends with effective relationship building with every scholar. Effective relationships develop each scholar's ability to be responsible and self-disciplined while staying within the established boundaries of the class and campus. One of the biggest challenges we face as educators is finding that fine line between freedom and authority (as the cartoon suggests). One of my goals as principal is to allow individual teachers the freedom and flexibility to work with scholars as needed while developing some level of consistency from room to room and from grade level to grade level. What successes and lessons have you learned about the importance of effective classroom management? This will be an important topic of conversation when we meet as grade levels in August.
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