Sei's Reflection to Graves Ch 4

Chapter 4 was short, straight to the point, and sweet. Graves uses Mr. Bangs’ classroom and techniques as an example of how to deal with classroom dynamics and behavioral management. As educators, it’s important to provide our students with the best education possible. To do this, however, we must also provide a classroom that is convenient and beneficial to our students’ learning. It is an inevitable fact that what we, as educators, expect in our students’ behavior in the classroom reflects on what kind of work they’ll be producing. According to Graves, “Children couldn’t, on one hand, be told to be responsible for the information in their selections and learn to control the process of writing and, on the other, take no responsibility for the conduct of the classroom.”

According to Mr. Bangs’ technique to effective classroom management and learning, we must first help the children to help each other. During sharing sessions, it’s important to establish a sense of trust amongst the classmates. It may start off a little rough with some rude comments here and there, but as the year progresses, the children will learn “how to talk about writing, how to be specific, and how to help themselves”. After they have learned how to help each other, the class must participate in “group consciousness”. The children will work harder and cooperate with one another once they realize that they are accomplishing great things together, as a whole. Whether it’s publishing a book together or holding conferences with other classes, they will feel a sense of ownership, responsibility, and recognition. With all these things intact, it’s assumed that the classroom management will come automatically.

After reading this chapter, it’d be safe to assume that classroom dynamics; assigned work; and classroom procedures/environment are all closely correlated. I think that it’d also be safe to assume that a classroom with poor behavior is due to the students’ lack of interest, lack of confidence to do work, or lack of the feeling of ownership as a group. Keeping these things in mind, I know how to judge on whether I’m doing my job, as a teacher, right or not. =)