Classroom Managment

Beliefs on Classroom management

What are my perspectives on management and discipline?
I want my classroom to be a learning process for everyone, parents, community, colleagues and the children. When it comes to discipline, my philosophy is closer to  perennialism. I believe students have to have rules and guidelines to be successful in the classroom. I believe in respect, obedience and hard work, but I believe that everyone involved should come up with classroom rules and guidelines.   I would like to be a fun teacher, I would like my students to know that we can have fun and play but I also want them to know I have rules that need to be followed. Respect is also a big issue for me in the classroom; I believe that students need to not only respect me as the teacher but themselves and their classmates as well. In the classroom, I believe there needs to be hands on activities, which helps children retain information better, technology, which is always changing, cooperative learning, where children solve problems together, groups, group discussions, nature walk and outside learning and class meetings. I also want to teach children responsibility by giving them little chores around the classroom. In real life society learns from each other and I believe we should bring that cooperation and those skills in to the classroom. I believe the more like society we make our classroom, the easier transition it will be when students leave the classroom.  I believe all children learn at different rates and we as teachers need to make room for that as well as accommodations and tweaks to our curriculum. I believe children need to learn in an environment that every child’s voice is heard and they feel free to express themselves. The teaching and learning environment has to be secure, stimulating, fun and safe. I believe children need a curriculum that interests them, that is relevant to their lives and that they are an active part of their learning process.  With an interesting curriculum, it enhances children’s motivation, want and need to learn. Lastly I want to talk about a nice quote I found from the book ‘Wasting Minds’, It says “Today’s students come from different income levels, cultures, learn in different ways and at different speeds and have different aspirations, talents and problems.” I believe students are not cookie cutter copies of each other, and cannot be educated with this ‘cookie cutter' approach. I believe we need to take each child in to consideration when creating a curriculum tailored to them. For students to learn in real life situations, they need to be in those situations. With no traditional core curriculum, students, parents and children are able to work collaboratively to design the students’ curriculum.

How will my classroom be set up to support this belief?
I believe the more nature brought in to the classroom the better. I believe in wooden furniture, natural toys and as much real life tools and objects you can get to fit a child’s small hands and feet.  I would like to set up my classroom with stations where the children can go from one activity to another depending on what interests them. I will set up my classroom where everyone has a voice which will be heard.