Iowa+Teaching+Standard+6

Classroom Management Plan
==== Attached is my Classroom Management and Equity Plan. To sum it up, though, simply look at the picture to the right: Respect... give it to get it. That is the basis of my classroom management plan. ====

I started out my teaching career doing individual work with students in very close quarters. As I have gotten more kids and gained large classroom experience, I have grown only to feel more passionately about the issue of respect as it relates to your personal relationship with kids, their reactions to you as a teacher, their reactions to classmates, their expectations of themselves and others, and their level of success. I have personally experienced students excelling with me and not with other teachers, and the one key factor in those situations has been respect or the lack thereof. Therefore, I feel it all directly relates to the respect the teacher has for and expects from the students.

I want to include administrative respect in my classroom as well. I believe we, as a nation, are losing respect for those in authority. So you will see in my classroom management plan that I plan on making my building administrators a regular fixture in my classroom, inviting them in as celebrators of what we are learning, not as disciplinarians. I feel this promotes respect from the top down (and ultimately back up again) because of the fact that individual students are being acknowledged (respected) for their classroom involvement and achievements by administrators instead of having those same students be acknowledged only when they are sent to the office for their misbehavior.

Another way I will not only show but foster respect in my classroom is to always focus on what the student CAN do rather than what they can't do or aren't doing. Not only will that help my attitude about the students (and thus the other classmates) be more positive, but it will also be an encourager to the individual student to look at the best about him/herself instead of the worst that is so often pointed out in today's world.