Twelve Operating Principles that Lead to High-quality Classrooms

(Excerpted from Classroom Management for Middle-Grades Teachers © 2004, by C. M.

Charles and Marilyn G. Charles. http://teacherweb.com/ca/sdsu/charles/HTMLPage5.stm

)

By applying the following principles of teaching, you will be able to work effectively and enjoyably with your students.

1. APPROACH YOUR STUDENTS IN AN EXEMPLARY AND CHARISMATIC MANNER.

2. DEVELOP A SET OF CLASS AGREEMENTS CONCERNING HOW THE CLASS IS TO FUNCTION

3. WORK TO BUILD A SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN THE CLASS.

4. EMPHASIZE TRUST AS A BASIC CLASS VALUE.

5. STRIVE TO BUILD COLLABORATION AND SENSE OF CLASS OWNERSHIP.

6. ALWAYS MAINTAIN A HELPFUL ATTITUDE TOWARD YOUR STUDENTS.

7. TEACH IN ACCORDANCE WITH STUDENT NEEDS AND PROCLIVITIES.

8. ASSIDUOUSLY AVOID WHAT STUDENTS DISLIKE IN SCHOOL AND CAPITALIZE ON WHAT THEY LIKE.

9. DRAW ATTENTION TO STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

10. ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH STUDENTS’ PARENTS.

11. STRENGTHEN CLASS CHARACTER.

12. PRACTICE AND TEACH CONFLICT RESOLUTION.

1. APPROACH YOUR STUDENTS IN AN EXEMPLARY AND CHARISMATIC MANNER.

By exemplary manner, we mean two things: First, conduct yourself ethically in all dealings with class members and school personnel, by being honest, trustworthy, helpful, and considerate. Second, use your charisma to advantage. Charisma refers to the intangible attraction that people are able to exert on others. It is a trait students very much prize in teachers. They like teachers who are interesting, energetic, and intriguing. They delight in teachers’ special talents, experiences, and knowledge, all of which contribute to teacher charisma.

2. DEVELOP A SET OF CLASS AGREEMENTS CONCERNING HOW THE CLASS IS TO FUNCTION

Your classes will operate much more smoothly if you and your students have a set of clear understandings about how the class is to function and students are to conduct themselves. Such understandings can be formalized in two different ways.

Agreements

In the first way, you make a set of rules about how students are to conduct themselves and explain those rules to the students. For enforcing the rules, you explain pleasant things that will occur when students follow the rules, and unpleasant things that will occur when students break the rules. You make sure students understand the rules and consequences clearly. Hundreds of thousands of teachers use this approach, and you may wish to use it, too. However, for what we hope to accomplish in today’s classrooms, a second approach serves better.

Agreements

In the second approach, you work with your students to develop a set of agreements concerning how the class will operate and students and teacher will behave.  By involving students in formulating the agreements, you increase the likelihood they will abide by them. A suggested procedure for reaching the agreements involves a series of introductory sessions, too lengthy to be described here, but described in Synergetic Discipline.

3. WORK TO BUILD A SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN THE CLASS.

Many authorities emphasize the value of a “sense of community” in the classroom, where each person becomes concerned about all other members of the class and where everyone works together for their mutual benefit. Sense of community develops as we show caring for our students, provide them support, take them seriously, make them feel safe, and bring them into genuine partnership with us. As part of this process, students are asked to express their opinions, make judgments, assume responsibility, and work closely with us in resolving class problems.

Community

To build this sense of community, give your class frequent opportunities to collaborate on group endeavors. Class meetings can be devoted to talking about how the next unit in history might be approached, or what came across best and worst in the recent English compositions. Academic study pursued in cooperative groups enables students to make connections while learning from each other. And units in language arts and literature can be organized to promote reflection on helpfulness, fairness, and compassion. Excellent opportunities for collaboration are also available in class activities such as producing a class newsletter or magazine, staging a dramatic or musical performance, or doing community service activity as a class.

4. EMPHASIZE TRUST AS A BASIC CLASS VALUE.

To trust others means you feel you can count on them to support you and stand by you, all the time, in all situations. It means you feel sure they will never harm you, but will always help if they can. Trust of this sort between teacher and students is essential if full learning is to occur well. Full learning refers not only to academic achievement, but also to desirable attitudes, personal relations skills, and personal responsibility and self-control.

Trust

Students will not work closely with us if they do not trust us. Establishing and maintaining trust is our job, not theirs. To make this happen we must display, consistently over time, the following ethical qualities, all of which are better understood in light of the Golden Rule—that is, simply treating students as we ourselves like to be treated. Ethical qualities required for trust include kindness, consideration, faith in students’ potential, helpfulness, fairness, honesty, and patience.

5. STRIVE TO BUILD COLLABORATION AND SENSE OF CLASS OWNERSHIP.

Collaboration refers to working together in close partnership with your students where, together, you plan and make decisions that affect the class. Collaboration brings a number of desirable qualities to the class. It puts you and your students on the same side, where you can work together to ensure effective teaching, learning, and class behavior. It gives students a much-needed sense of positive power, and in consequence makes them inclined to support decisions they help make. It establishes students’ stake in maintaining the well-being of the class and does away with the somewhat antagonistic posture frequently seen between teacher and students. And finally, collaboration makes possible some of the most important aspects of effective teaching, such as such as meeting needs, providing mutual support, developing self-direction and self-control, establishing trust and consideration for others, and building a class sense of community.

CollaborationThe more closely you collaborate with students, the more

purposeful and responsible they become. Without collaboration, you are likely to find yourself frequently at odds with then, with neither of you fully able to meet your needs or enjoy the class. But with collaboration, the two of you are able to pull together, thus increasing mutual sensitivity and concern, promoting humane relations, and making the school experience more satisfactory for everyone. We do need to be clear about one thing: Collaboration does not suggest you and your students always have an equal say in matters that affect the class, nor does it imply that you turn control over to your students. As class leader, you have the final say, and at times may have to veto students’ suggestions. In those cases you are obliged to explain clearly your reasons for doing so.

6. ALWAYS MAINTAIN A HELPFUL ATTITUDE TOWARD YOUR STUDENTS.

Helpfulness is a fundamental quality of effective teaching. Students respond to it positively, and to us when we use it. It is clear that for most students in most settings, helpfulness is our most effective teaching strategy. It attunes teachers’ and students’ minds to student success in school and encourages them to work together to achieve it.  

Helpfulness

Helpfulness contrasts with forcefulness. In the helpful mode, we never try to make students do anything. Instead, we try to intrigue them, entice them, and use inspiration, encouragement, support, and close collaboration. When we do those things students quickly begin to behave appropriately because it seems to them the natural thing to do. 

Helpfulness

Most teachers would love to teach this way, but are afraid that if they do they will lose control of their students. For the time being, open your mind to the possibility the exact opposite will occur—that a gentle helpful approach, properly used, will eliminate most misbehavior, make students more cooperative, and lead to stronger learning and more positive attitudes.

7. TEACH IN ACCORDANCE WITH STUDENT NEEDS AND PROCLIVITIES. 

There is not space here to review all students’ needs and natures. For the most part, needs that can be met in school include security, belonging, hope, dignity, power, enjoyment, and competence. Learning prospers when instruction is made consonant with those needs, but suffers when it is not.

8. ASSIDUOUSLY AVOID WHAT STUDENTS DISLIKE IN SCHOOL AND CAPITALIZE ON WHAT THEY LIKE.

Do your best to identify what students like and dislike in school. To keep motivation high and learning strong we should avoid what students dislike, when possible, and emphasize topics and activities they enjoy.

9. DRAW ATTENTION TO STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

We saw earlier that the need to feel competent strongly motivates student behavior and helps determine attitude toward school. To gain and maintain a sense of competence, students need tangible evidence they are contributing to the class or growing in areas they consider important, such as academic learning and development of certain skills. Students use two sources of information to judge whether and to what extent they are achieving.  The first source is their own knowledge of what they can do now that they couldn’t do before. The second is feedback from others acknowledging their progress and prowess.

Accomplishments

Both students and teachers are prime sources of feedback for affirming competence. Members of a class can usually tell you who the top students are in academic areas and skill areas. They learn this from observing classmates on a daily basis. Teachers provide this affirmation, too, but must exercise caution in doing so. While almost all students want approbation from teachers, most do not like to see particular students singled out for praise repeatedly. All students want to feel competent and want their turn in the limelight. For that reason, try to find ways for every one of your students to have attention drawn to contributions or progress. Almost every student does something well, such as high performance on tests, special skills, greatest improvement, speaking well, writing well, doing individual projects, being helpful to others, contributing to class life or well-being, and so forth. You may wish to establish a number of helpful “positions” for students to fill, such as media director, materials facilitator, class president, class recorder, class newsperson, flora and fauna director, envoy to administration, ambassadors to sister classes, and the like, all of which bring recognition. You may wish to provide recognition for special skills and creative work through performances, musicals, skits, demonstrations, and exhibits of creative work. All such opportunities allow students to contribute or excel and to receive deserved acknowledgement.

10. ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH STUDENTS’ PARENTS.

Teachers acquire reputations in interesting ways. Generally speaking, they enjoy excellent reputations as good teachers if parents like them, average reputations if parents don’t know anything about them, and undesirable reputations if parents dislike them. Parents form their impressions from what their children tell them and from how well you keep them informed about their child’s progress. Most parents think you’re neat if you treat their kid well, but get very upset with you if the kids say you are mistreating them. Because your sense of well-being is so dependent on how parents see you, it is eminently worth your while to keep them informed about your program and their child. You can do this occasionally by telephone, but a concise class newsletter works better, and in many communities an internet web page better still. Whichever you use, tell what the class has been doing and indicate future plans. Mention every student by name if possible. Give the newsletter or web page a professional appearance. Students can deliver the newsletter or show parents how to locate the website. This takes a bit of time, but students respond well to the process and results, and so do parents.

11. STRENGTHEN CLASS CHARACTER.

Class character refers to the overall behavior of the class, especially as concerns ethical behavior, steadfastness, and assumption of responsibility. Character, comprised of a number of traits, resides in individual students. As character is strengthened in individual students, it is strengthened for the class as well. Be sure to give attention to the following elements of character: ethics, trust, consideration, dignity, purposefulness, persistence, responsibility, and joy.

12. PRACTICE AND TEACH CONFLICT RESOLUTION.

Conflicts are strong clashes of will that occur between students or between student and teacher. They usually involve heated emotions, with considerable threat to the dignity of the persons involved. Conflicts typically lead quickly to misbehavior as both sides put forth threats and throw up shields against loss of dignity. Conflicts can usually be worked out satisfactorily for all disputants, but people seldom know how to resolve them unless trained to do so. 

Conflict Resolution

Good conflict resolution, the type you should use and teach to your students, strives to find solutions that allow both sides to feel they have gotten more or less what they wanted. The procedure by which this is done is commonly called win/win conflict resolution.