I’ve been subbing this week at the local high school and I had two class periods that ended up being very frustrating and unproductive. So, when I was thinking about classroom rules for this blog I came up with ones that I would like to see applied in those classes and any high school English classes I teach in the future. What those two specific classes this week were lacking were all different facets of respect and responsibility, basically there was very little of either being exhibited. I’m going to make “Respect & Responsibility’ the slogan/mantra of my future classroom. There will be posters. I’ll make stickers and put them on every desk. It will be an extra credit question on quizzes. They. Will. Know.
Respect
1) Give others the respect you want to receive
2) Speak and act with integrity
Responsibility
3) Be prepared for class (homework, materials, attitude, on-time, etc.).
4) Take ownership of YOUR behavior, YOUR work, YOUR education
I’m really pushing for “Respect & Responsibility’ because I want students to understand how important it is to invest in themselves, even if they aren’t receiving that kind of support at home. If teachers become the only adults who is invest in them, then these two concepts are the ones that I would want to instill most because they function beyond the classroom as well. Somewhere, from someone, they have to learn how to treat other people, and themselves.
Extra Special Bonus Rule:
No cell phones.
I’m feeling particularly angsty about students being on their phones during class. Between Candy Crush, “The Fox’ music video, and the iPhone iOS 7 update I seriously could not win this battle today. My hypothetical future classroom will be a designated “No Phone Zone’ from day one.
The article I found from the National Council of Teachers of English is a question and response between a student teacher and an education professor. I thought that some of you would be able to relate to the student teacher’s questions about student motivation and specific class management techniques.
https://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/0914-mar02/EJ0914Insights.pdf
Wordle:
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