My Portfolio: My Treasure

Managing Misbehavior

I strongly believe that nothing can be founded efficiently in education without having a

clear positive discipline plan. Whatever my discipline plan is, my concern is that it should not

deviate from the line of a pleasant and enjoyable environment that is constructive for student

safety, care and sense of ownership and belonging to reach self-discipline.

Thinking of how to communicate positive expectations to all my students is a very serious

issue in my class. I believe in the power of praise to let the student get informed of the type of

characteristic and behavior I am looking for. I used to say general statements denoting my

acceptance and approval of a certain behavior. But that was wrong for I have to specify the kind

of good deed like in saying, “Your reading is now clear since you have raised your voice

confidently and varied the tone.” But I cannot end it up without adding, “Good!”, “Great Job!” or

“Thumbs Up!” This works more with my younger students in grade five as they care for public

approval. Positive feedback should be mentioned to the person who deserves sincerely and

justifiably.

When I stand by the door daily waiting for my students to enter the class, I greet them with

my big smile trying to impress them and keep looking at their actions to show them my main

concern to have them disciplined. I value these preventative strategies in order not to reach a

managed classroom. In the past, I used to be acting as a friend but more like a teacher. I do

believe that I succeeded in playing both roles and there was nothing to worry about our
friendship for it was controlled by my pride being a new teacher. However, now I do understand

that the teacher should be in charge of the class and must be treated respectfully and not as a

friend or a peer. I used to manage my class in treating students well but giving the right to

humiliation when a student severely misbehaved as in being involved in bullying. Oh! This is not

right! Although it worked magically but I can tell now that this student might be some kind of a

seeker seeking attention, power or revenge. I used to give myself wrong excuses for no

disobedient child deserves humiliation or sarcasm as it affects his dignity and lets him lose a

face. In addition, I remember a male teacher who used humorous statements to laugh at a student

and create a sense of humor at the expense of the student’s own dignity. So this is also

unacceptable for it created a sense of hatred and belittling.

New teachers feel perplexed and anxious to meet their students’ parents. Personally, I used

to think of ways that could save me from that expected scary meeting .On the other hand, being

involved more and more in the teaching and learning styles propose a good plan to insist on the

worthiness of parent conference. During the conference, I have been using positive statements

throughout my career to inform the parents and the students with the good part the students have

while giving time to discuss my concerns about their problems.

I emphasize the necessity of rules of conduct and discipline plan policies that I have to teach

my students to minimize misbehavior. Discipline plan, rules of conduct and classroom signal

have to be taught and enforced at the beginning of the year and they can be reminded and

retaught if the student shows lack of understanding or disobedience. As a teacher, I remind my

students to move all the unnecessary items from their desks to avoid distraction. Students are

supportive to rules that are based on logic. I cannot suppose that they understand the logic behind

each rule. I have to make it clear to the students so that they become aware of the consequences.
I find it easy to remember the classroom rules when I post them on the wall in front of the

students as this reflects the significance of being consistent to monitor and enforce the discipline

policies. Besides, I post building rules in visible areas of the school such as hallways and

entrances.

Which of the classroom monitoring strategies could I do a better job of implementing:

proximity, silence, use of the eyes, or response opportunities? Monitoring strategies are very

essential for minimizing discipline problems in the school. I insist on maintaining proximity with

each student by moving around the classroom. Its purpose is fundamental in seeing all the

students. Moreover, eye contact is really effective in sending a message to the student to redirect

him to the appropriate task without causing disturbance to the class. I make my materials

accessible and focus on facilitating the traffic flow in pathways. The classroom doesn’t show

distractions. When my students want to work in groups, I prefer them to be in circle-shaped

seating arrangement so that I can move easily and see their interaction.

Where should my desk be placed? I prefer to put my desk in one of the back corners of my

classroom so that I can monitor my students without letting them know that I am watching them

(Thompson, 1998). Students’ participation is accountable so I let my students know that I call on

them at any time whether they are putting their hands down or raising them up. It is very

irrational to call students by their alphabetical name order. How can this make sense? I don’t

accept it for the student can guess who is to recite and who is not.

Students may wait for a single chance to make noise. Consequently, I don’t let my students

reach blind spots as they transition from one place to another while I am not monitoring, for

misbehavior may occur. I make it clear to my students that they are not allowed to come to my

desk when they need assistance for one time it happened and they blocked my view to see the
students and monitor the class. Thus, I am the one who should go to students. They are given

toilet paper tubes that have red color on one end and they have to stand them with the red color

up when they have a question (Wong and Wong, 1998).

My main concern in the class discussion is that I have to focus on the students’ prime thinking

time to maximize their wait time and give them opportunities to respond to questions. I have

high expectations for every student to be responsible to answer specific questions (Kerman et al.,

1980). I intend to work also on non-disruptive off-task behavior even when it is not bothering

anyone for many reasons. The student is not engaged in learning and he will be transformed from

non-disruptive to disruptive in later stages. He is not involved in studying and this will affect his

grades and academic performance. Besides, students may think that it is okay to behave that way

which is a dangerous conclusion. When I give students classwork, I take roll silently to avoid

letting them answer in an inappropriate way. I apply sponge activities such as a warm-up

assignment that is written on the board to be solved by the students entering the class, in roll

taking or after finishing work early to manage the problem of the unstructured class time and

decrease misbehavior.

As a teacher, I know that students in general have three “Make or Break” Times: when they

enter the classroom, transition and the last two minutes of the class. These are extremely crucial

to consider. I’ve designed hall passes to my students based on one color for each month so that

they may not steal one and keep using it. I don’t allow students to stay after school if they have

no school activity for this causes disruption. Students may get lunch detention that is considered

a strong incentive for them to leave. I can tell that a big number of students in the hallways may

increase the opportunity to fights and misbehavior. Staggering the passing periods to minimize

the number of students transitioning at a time improves the behavior and supervision things.
 After reviewing all the consequence strategies, which would I like to focus on?

Concerning consequences strategies, I tolerate no exceptions for my instruction should be

followed by every member in the class. I enforce the big rules and the less significant rules for

they support the discipline. When disciplining a student, I have to keep physical distance

especially when being emotionally frustrated. I don’t want to grab a student or do physical

intervention. I understand that I have no right to touch a student. I remember one time in

childhood, a teacher came and punished my class and I received the punishment too; for this

reason, I refrain from punishing the whole class for there will be innocent people. If students feel

they have been unjustifiably punished, they can fill the appeal form to be reviewed by me later. I

do believe that consequences are powerful when they are logical and planned before. Moreover,

punishment has nothing to do in my belief except more dependency, despair, aggression, anger

and revenge. Thus, punishment doesn’t address the unmet needs of the student. It is considered

retributive and reactionary. It creates negative confrontation for being personal. However, logical

consequences are teachable and related to the misbehavior by meeting the needs of the student.

They are emotionally neutral, rational and depersonalized (Larrivee, 1999: 170).

Discipline is the ultimate goal in providing solutions for managing behavior. My

interventions should be selected to fit the realities of my classroom. I do believe that intervention

should be used infrequently to deal with disruption. I consider the system of intervention is great.

To illustrate, the continuum ranges from non-intervention to intervention starting from the least

disruption to the clear intervention. One time I was having a quiet student who was off task by

not looking at the book. I knew that it was short-lived so I used non-verbal intervention by using

my eyes to form eye-contact. The student was aware and he went back to his task without

causing class distraction. If the student continued to be off-task, I could have proximity
interference or I could send for him to have a private talk outside the class. I can work on

boosting the student’s interest and build up good relationship. I have to keep calling on him to

grab his attention. Moreover, if the misbehavior continues, I might use humor to let him wake up

and pay more attention. As a teacher, I can depersonalize the challenge by breaking the tension

and clearing the air with a laugh associated with humour (Saphier and Gower, 1982)

Furthermore, if the misbehavior maximizes, I depend on my loud voice for shouting and physical

intervention. I depend on Glasser’s triplets using three question:

1-“What are you doing?”

2-“Is it against the rules?”

3-“What should you be doing?”

If the student doesn’t comply, I respond assertively to these questions showing the wrong deed of

the student (Glasser, 1969, 1992).

Thus, there should be logical consequences that are planned for each situation and violation

of rule. I do this when I exert all my power in dealing with the misbehavior. I strongly believe in

the theoretically-based models that give me a great knowledge in dealing with classroom

situations. The authoritarian and teacher-centered model of control should be used when I

become sure that the student is causing harmful disruptive behavior out of ignorance. The group-

process which is teacher-student centered is effective in sharing and cocreating rules and

consequences. Finally, the last one is student-centered that is the model of influence. This model

is effective in leading the student to reach self-discipline as the ultimate goal (Weber, 2006).
 References

1.  Allen, K.P. (2010). Classroom management, bullying, and teacher practices. The Professional

Educator, 34 (1). Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ988197.pdf

2.  Boynton, M. & Boynton, C. (2005). Educator’s guide to preventing and solving discipline

problems. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. 

3.  Hue, M., & Li, W. (2008). Classroom management: Creating a positive learning

environment. Hong Kong University Press.