by Lindy Davies

The What!?!? The notion of "classroom management" evokes scary packs of rebellious teenagers. Nevertheless, a classroom that's happily well-managed won't seem to need manging at all -- and that can be a joyful experience, indeed!

One big problem for beginning teachers is how, without being authoritarian, to establish authority. It is definitely necessary, no matter how mellow a person you are. The classroom is not an equal relationship. In fact, students don't want it to be. They want to be led — even the know-it-alls! They are quite willing to be cooperative, if they are convinced that you are willing and able lead them.

Keys to establishing authority:

Be comfortable. Seems too obvious to mention — but easy to lose in the stress of those all-important first few classes. One thing you can always do is to pay attention to your personal ergonomics: dress the way you want to dress, set the room up the way you want it, have a good meal or a walk or a footrub or whatever before the class starts. And then, of course, remember to breathe.

Be genuine. Your own style is absolutely good enough. Many teachers seem to develop teaching "personas" (personae?) that are a bit like roles played by actors — but this evolves over time. Don't make your task any harder by affecting a style that takes effort to maintain. As you go on, your rapport with the class will get easier, and your intuition about what works and what doesn't work will sharpen.

Be consistent. This is surprisingly important -- I think because the classroom is an inherently risky place, full of insecurities of every kind. No one wants to be ignorant (that's why they're in the class) but...to lose our ignorance we have to admit its existence...and we try to do so in a way that doesn't sound ignorant...In the midst of all this angst, it helps if the trappings are as predictable as possible. It is comforting to be able to sit in the same seat each time, to have the teacher take roll the same way each time, to know that certain classroom protocols will be followed. The teacher, like it or not, is the one who administers those protocols — and no matter how knowledgeable you might be about what you're teaching, inattention to these piddly details can cause you much grief.

Project confidence. Have something to say. Care about getting it across. Have opinions. Make statements. Challenge fuzziness. Demand thought. This is not to say you need to be a bombastic blowhard — you can project confidence in a very quiet and empathetic manner. But there's no quicker way to lose the class's confidence than to give in to the temptation to apologize for all your obvious failings. For one thing, these failing are far more obvious to you than they are to the class. For another, you are allowed to make mistakes. Find a way to make yourself remember — when you need it most — that they are here to learn with you, that they are not sitting there in your classroom just to do you a favor.

Know the subject (but don't pretend you know everything). One of the great traps in which authority can get lost is the silly notion that a teacher must, like an oldtime prizefighter, take on all comers. It's your responsibility to understand the concepts you're teaching, and to come in with a plan for each lesson. But you are allowed not to know an answer! You do not lose authority by admitting that. You lose authority real fast by trying to fake it. Now, if you promise to look up the answer and report back later, you really should do that. But why not ask a student to look it up? The more secure you are in your authority, the more you can allow the students some of their own.

Another painfully obvious, readily overlook-able management technique is:
In other words: act the way you want your students to act.

  • demonstrate the thinking processes that you want them to use
  • follow the social rules that you expect them to follow
  • interact with them the way you want them to interact with each other

For example: FE is utterly logical. All its conclusions follow from definitions and observable behavior. The basic logic of the course is a sure pathway out of rhetorical swamps. So:

MODEL, by thinking aloud, the logical connections between the argumentative question and your central point. Encourage the class to note any logical errors you might make!

Is it true that teachers are frustrated thespians? Maybe not...but you must realize that you are engaged in a sort of interactive performance art and... Everything you do is part of the show! Body language is important. This should not make you nervous! We're not after conscious awareness of every gesture and glance -- that is a recipe for psychological collapse. It simply means that you should find a comfortable position in front of the class, and begin to explore its possibilities.

You can re-orient a discussion simply by changing your position — whatever it is. Some teachers:

  • incessantly roam about the room
  • sit cross-legged on the table
  • perform sleight-of-hand
  • lose themselves in flights of soaring eloquence
  • dance like Fred Astaire

It really doesn't matter how you present yourself — as long as you present yourself.

OBSERVATION is MOST CRITICAL.

All the other notes on classroom management really lead to this one. You are there to facilitate communication among a group. That is a difficult task. Some of the students will understand the concepts and not be shy about joining in the discussion. But you mustn't allow them to run the show! YOU ARE IN CHARGE! You make sure you are comfortable, secure, in authority, etc., for this reason: so that you can communicate as effectively as you can, with as many of those people in the room as you possibly can. So it is pivotally important to:
  • establish eye contact
  • dare to tactfully interrupt a motormouth (and have a technique for this!)
  • notice when people are ...just ...almost ready to say things
  • encourage the shy ones
  • don't allow the rude ones to overrun the polite ones
  • DO NOT communicate with just one side of the room, or just one sex, or just one age group, or just one ideological persuasion, or just one anything

In all these things, I think EYE CONTACT is the basic technique to practice. One indication of a discussion that is fully in the GROOVE is when all the class is absorbed, thinking, contributing, having things to say, AND — the teacher can call on people simply by means of eye contact. In that case, the teacher has established the kind of authority that allows him or her to be utterly unobtrusive. Or in the words of Lao Tzu:

LEARNING STYLES

HGS students have a broad range of motivation and ability. We have all run across these kinds of PROBLEM STUDENTS:
  • chair-warmer
  • clock-watcher
  • painfully slow
  • know-it-all
  • constantly irrelevant
  • discussion dominator
  • chronic arguer

Consider, for example, student who comes up to me after every class to hold forth. It seems that the guy must just love to hear himself talk! He acts like he's arguing, but he's not really arguing -- sometimes he's just repeating the ideas the class has just discussed -- as if he has to arrogantly come up and display his mastery of the material.

Does this sound familiar? That sort of student, whose classroom experience seems incomplete until he or she can spend those five or ten minutes telling the lesson back to the teacher, may try our patience. But don't be too quick to judge this behavior as arrogant or argumentative. It may be that the student's classroom experience really is incomplete, without that chance to talk it out.

That may even have something to do with the behavior of that know-it-all student who just won't shut up! There could be more motivating those students than a mere desire to make your life a living hell. They might be people who learn best by talking.

Teachers (and education researchers) have long known that different students have different styles of learning. The researchers tend to call them "learning strategies" and define them in long and psychologically significant words. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but teachers don't need jargon to benefit from the insight that different students have different ways of processing ideas. A good beginning would be to identify these four broad categories of learning styles: listening, talking, reading and doing.

Listening is by far the most familiar; indeed it is the basis of the classic lecture-hall format of a classroom. Many people actually do process information quite effectively in this manner. (For example, I find I learn far less effectively if I take notes in class.) It is also the easiest style to teach for — all we need (beyond understanding the subject matter) is a clear voice and the gift of gab! One problem that can arise, those, is that those who want to learn by listening resent the disruptions of those who do not!

For it is true, like it or not, that some students learn by talking. There is often something in the act of expression that makes difficult concepts come clear — perhaps because of a perception that talking is more fun than thinking! In any case, if one is to talk intelligently about ideas, one must think. Perhaps we teachers shouldn't be quite so hard on those motor-mouthed students of ours. Isn't it, after all, a truism that one never fully learns a topic until one is called upon to teach it?

Reading, like listening, is right in line with classical paradigms. The "information revolution" notwithstanding, human society has not yet beaten the book as an versatile and comprehensive means of purveying ideas. But perhaps a little more can be said, because the textbook is not the only thing our students need to read. Some people are adept at processing information spatially. For them, diagrams and charts are indispensable. (Incidentally, the teacher need not be good at drawing to use diagrams effectively. I remember one professor whose chalkboard after a lecture would look like a work by Jackson Pollock. But during the lecture, none of his students doubted the relevance of all his squiggles and slashes!) Last but not least, there are those who learn by doing. For many students, too much reliance on abstract reasoning can be irritating or confusing. They are the ones who will key into an activity or a simulation. They aren't unable to grasp abstract ideas; they simply have an easier time of it if they can see the ideas in context. Indeed, they have an advantage over the abstract reasoners in being able to see principles behind action. These are often the class members who come up with the best examples, relating ideas to real-life events.

talkers enjoy:

  • oral reports
  • debates
  • answering the specific questions in the FE lessons

talkers can't stand:

  • a teacher who lectures incessantly
  • a teacher or classmate who tells them to shut up
  • people who get annoyed and think they are argumentative

doers enjoy:

  • simulations
  • activities that involve physical manipulation of objects
  • in-class writing and reading aloud
  • research; data-gathering; taking surveys

doers can't stand:

  • a teacher who lectures incessantly
  • a classroom format that never varies
  • a value judgement in favor of abstract reasoning

spatial & visual folk enjoy:

  • lots of charts & diagrams
  • handouts that are readable, well-presented and have pictures
  • the occasional video
  • innovative seating arrangements

spatial and visual folk can't stand:

  • a teacher who lectures incessantly
  • a thousand abstract words about how something theoretically works
  • poor quality, confusing course materials

listeners enjoy:

  • traditional lectures by scintillating speakers
  • clearly intelligible speech and proper pronunciation
  • being read aloud to

listeners can't stand:

  • a lecture that is drowned out or interrupted
  • mumbling or inaudible speech
  • diagrams or formulas that are hard to follow

This article is an attempt to distill some basic pedagogical principles about making teaching more fun and effective. But, please, please, don't let yourself be intimidated by any of this advice! After all, we don't teach at the Henry George School for the money, or for the prestige. Perhaps we teach classes at the Henry George School out of a deep commitment to solving deep social problems. But somehow, I hope that isn't the main reason. I think the best and most important reason why anyone should teach classes at the Henry George School is that it is

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