I started the interview by asking Tara if she organized her classroom in a specific way in order to keep potential classroom management problems from occurring. She replied with an ecstatic, �Definitely!� Sarah explained that, �The best prevention to classroom management problems is establishing predictable, meaningful procedures that are taught, practiced, and retaught to the students.� In her opinion, Sarah feels that the first week of school should focus solely on establishing rules and procedures instead of teaching content. She explained that, during the first week of school, students in her class take notes over her procedures, work in groups to complete a �Respectful or Disrespectful?� quiz, practice the procedures (role playing), and finally take a test over them. At about nine weeks into the semester, Sarah passes out a review sheet on procedures, goes over them again, and has students take another test over them. While this may seem excessive, Tara told me that she is one of the teachers at her school with the fewest number of referrals and/or discipline problems.
In addition to teaching and establishing the rules and procedures, other organizational and classroom management strategies Tara uses included desk arrangement, offering students jobs, journal entries (a warm-up activity), and the �+5/20 seconds� board. Concerning desk arrangement, Tara positions desks so that no one is �in the back�, cheating is difficult to accomplish, and so she can quickly and easily move to any desk at any time. Additionally, Tara offers jobs to her students. Students must fill out an application and be interviewed in order to get a job, which includes positions like clerk, grader, paper passer-outer, bookkeeper, and librarian. As an incentive to apply for these jobs, she pays the students with �checks� that may include anything from five extra points on a test to a free homework pass. Another strategy she uses is a daily journal entry. This activity is used as a warm-up activity and is written on the board already when students come in to the classroom. Tara told me that students are expected to immediately begin working on it upon entering the classroom. Finally, there is the �+5/20 seconds� board, a technique similar to what many elementary teachers use in their classrooms. Students who work hard when others are not or those who give an especially good answer to a question, get their names written under the +5 side of the board and get five extra points added to an assignment grade. Students who get off task, disturb others, or cause a disruption in the classroom get their names written on the 20 seconds side of the board and must stay in the classroom for 20 seconds after the bell rings. Students� names may move back and forth between the two sides, and may even be on both sides at the same time! Additionally, they may get checks beside their names for extra points or extra seconds and they may earn their name off either side of the board. Further, Tara told me that there have been times when the whole class was noisy at the start of class and she wrote �CLASS� under the 20 seconds board! Often, however, when the class is being noisy, students will usually settle down and begin working quietly once they see her walking towards the board with a piece of chalk (because they want her to write under the +5 side and not the 20 seconds side!)
Regarding other class procedures, Tara told me that when taking attendance, she passes a sign-in sheet around the room. Students are responsible (not the teacher) for initialing beside their names. If the student does not initial the sheet, then an unexcused absence is recorded. At the end of the class period, students are expected to make sure no trash is on the floor. Additionally, students must remain seated until Tara dismisses them with the word, �Namaste,� which they repeat to her before being dismissed. If the class� response is not adequate, this procedure is repeated. Tara told me that �Namaste� loosely means, �The god in me salutes the god in you,� but for obvious reasons, she teaches it to her students as, �The person in me respects the person in you.�
I next ask Tara what some of the rules and procedures were that she uses in her classroom. In addition to the procedures previously mentioned, Tara explained that one of the most important procedures she uses is �Give Me 5,� an attention-getting procedure. For this procedure, Tara raises her hand in an open five and says, �Give me five,� which means students have five seconds to stop what they are doing and give her their full attention. Once students know this routine, she can usually just hold up her hand without saying anything.
For my third question, I asked Tara which rule or procedure impacts her and/or her students the most. She told me that the �Namaste� procedure deeply impacts her and her students, partly because it ties so closely to her primary rule, which is, �Respect yourself, your peers, your teacher, visitors, and the property around you.� Tara said that she emphasizes the important role of respect in her classroom (both student-to-teacher and teacher-to-student respect) a great deal in the first week of school as well as throughout the semester. To her, �Namaste� is word that carries a deep subtext of respecting others, and she emphasizes this when she first discusses the word before she has her students practice saying and using it. Tara tells her students that this is her way of saying, �Whatever happened in class today, it�s okay and I want you all to have a great remaining day because I respect the people that you are.� She also tells her students that when they repeat it to her (before being dismissed), they are passing the same message on to her. Tara noted that while a few students do not like this procedure, most of them love it and sometimes even say �Namaste� to her when they see her outside of class, such as at school sporting events.