Discipline & Day One

“Never smile until Christmas.”
“Shock and awe.”
“Be Clint Eastwood.”

All of these were suggested to me upon entering my first year of teaching, what was the purpose of these suggestions? Letting me know how to handle the first day of the school year for my first year of teaching. Luckily, before my first day, I sent a letter of help to one of my former professors asking him for advice. I do agree that the way we handle our first few weeks in the classroom determines much of how the rest of the year will turn out, but there’s got to be a smarter way to handle it. So, taking what I learned from my professor and my very own first day of school, I think the following is a bit more useful.

I believe that many discipline problems a teacher faces throughout the year can be traced back to the relationship that was begun at the very beginning of the school year. If you handle your first day like the quotes above, the relationship between you and your student will become confrontational rather than collaborative. Dr. Ronald Butchart once told me, “when a teacher dominates his/her classroom, this is a form of oppression”, and I think that’s definitely true. When you dominate, what else is left for the kids to do but resist? And when this oppressor-resistor relationship becomes cemented, you are in it for the long haul.

So, how should the beginning of the school year be handled? This is what I have learned from my limited experience and with the help of those who have taught me.

First off, your classroom must be set up in a way that celebrates collaboration not domination. That means working with your students to develop the type of classroom environment that you want, not telling them how it’s going to be. Domination doesn’t get you respect, you gain respect by respecting your students. It may be different in other classes, but since I teach social studies, the beginning of the year was a good time to talk about oppression, resistance, and other topics like that. Take your students’ suggestions, have a sense of humor, of course there is going to be the kid who says “we should watch movies”. That is the fun of it. One cool thing to do is to have each of your classes create their own classroom "Constitution".

Also, I think it is extremely useful to get students talking about and critiquing the ways that they have been taught in the past. Ask them, in my case: WHY do students hate studying history? What makes classrooms dull for you? Again, there will absolutely be jokes, but who cares? The students will begin to talk seriously about how they prefer to learn, and by taking their suggestions you are giving them ownership.

In the end, I wanted to work with my students to set up the type of classroom in which they could learn and engage themselves best, and I didn’t think that I could achieve that by following the advice from the top of the page. I am definitely not saying that you shouldn’t have rules, or give up all of your control in the classroom. We know that’s not smart, but just know that there are ways to set up a collaborative, non-oppressive classroom without it becoming chaos.

Thanks to Dr. Butchart for the advice he gave me on this topic.