| "I coil pay attention in English class" |
| by Jessica January 2004 |
| After finally settling into my schools and establishing my own rhythm and teaching style, I quickly realized that discipline was going to be my next major issue. My kids were spiraling out of control and screaming over a classroom of 30 unruly 9-11 year olds was not what I had in mind for the next nine months. I planned on teaching and I knew that this meant that I was going to have to get tough. Jeremy told me that he had learned in one of his education classes that many teachers follow the adage "Stay mean until Halloween" in order to set precedent. Being young, I was getting the feeling that the kids looked at me as a "buddy" rather than a teacher and were taking the opportunity to screw around. After talking with a few of the teachers at my schools I realized that the strategies are different here---it's not uncommon for a student to be sent to the corner of the class, sit out of recess, and/or copy sentences as a result of "poor behavior". As with any system the definition of misbehavior depends on the teacher and the child and can range from forgetting their homework and notebook to pushing or insulting a classmate. This can all be very confusing when you are an outsider coming in only once a week (and everyone assumes you already know the rules). I am a pretty lenient teacher for the most part and I value participation as one of the most important parts of education, especially in a language class. What I define as bad behavior, however, is what I would classify as disrespect or for lack of a better word, insolence. If you let a kid get away with disrespect, it can spread like a disease and the kids start feeling like they can do whatever they feel like. In short, they stop respecting you. Respect is one of the few things that keeps a class from derailing into chaos. |
| I decided it was time to become the bad guy. In The Nanny Diaries, the lead character talks about the concept of "Good Witch, Bad Witch"---being nice and fun up until the point where a child or student breaks the rules and then snapping into "bad witch" mode or "strict" mode. The idea is that you are nice enough that the kids want you to like them and so when you do get strict, they actually care. This became my new mantra. This is when I started giving my first "punissions" (punishments). In every class, I gave the first student who was disrespectful to me or another student an English sentence to copy 15 times in the director's office. I was oddly nervous to hand out my first one. It felt symbolic of me turning the corner from "cool" to "mean". As it turned out, the first student to break the rules could not have been a better example. Raphael was his name and he had spent the last two weeks acting "to cool for school" (hehe. . .I sounds like such a grandma) and talking back when I reminded him of the rules. Essentially he had been driving me crazy since he sat in the first row and passed his time keeping a running commentary on anything I said and when he was the first one to misbehave, I didn't doubt whether he warranted the punishment. As I handed him a page with the sentence "I will pay attention in English class" scribbled at the top, I could see that the kids were shocked and everyone kind of went quiet. I could practically hear it clicking in their heads that I wasn't messing around. He left the room holding his head defiantly high and rebelliously slammed the door on his way to see the feared "directeur". Ten minutes later he returned with his fifteen sentences arduously copied in cursive and presented them to me proudly. I pretended to look them over and switched back into my "good witch" role, smiling and telling him he had done a great job and that he could sit back down now. I explained to the class what the sentence meant and that it is an important rule because listening is one of the main routes by which you learn a language. By now the behavior of the class had shifted and the silence as I went through the rest of my lesson was almost intimidating. |
| On my way home, I pulled out Raphael's punishment to take another look and pass the time on my 20 minute walk. I laughed out loud as I looked it over. In my nervousness when giving out the punishment, I had quickly scrawled out the phrase on the top of the page in none too perfect handwriting. Raphael had painstakingly copied under the supervision of the director "I coil listen in English class." 15 times. Ah well, he got the point. . .and so did I. He might not have understood what he had copied but Raphael got the message. Since I showed him I was serious (and have done so several times since) he has actually turned out to be one of my better students. |
| This was an important lesson for me. In a class of 30 kids, someone has to be in control. In order to do so, someone has to buck up and be the bad guy. Once these roles are established, it seems as though everyone is more confident in their position and things can continue in some sense of order. When rules are broken, consequences are expected. If these are delivered fairly and consistently, the kids actually seem to cling to them. It has been theorized by developmental psychologists that children crave rules and restrictions. They rebel against them as a way to confirm that these rules do indeed exist. In the end, feeling that there are certain clearly defined limits gives a child a sense of security. This feeling of security is necessary for a productive learning environment because when kids feel safe, they are more willing to explore and try new things with confidence. I have no illusions that Raphael will remember tomorrow what he copied down 15 times. I have doubts that he even understood what it meant in the first place. What he did understand, however, is that he wasn't going to get away with disrespecting me or his classmates. In the end, I think this is a much more valuable lesson. Sure, he might think that the word "coil" has something to do with classroom rules, but in the meantime, I am content knowing that he understands that classroom rules exist at all. |
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