Classroom Confidential -- Chapter 3

From reading chapter three in Schmidt, what have you learned about behavior? Use specific examples from the book and from your student teaching experiences.

I particularly enjoyed reading about the self-accommodations section in this chapter. It begins by describing a typical faculty meeting and the behaviors and actions that teachers exhibit in order to stay focused (and now I've officially been to one of those meetings!). I was taken aback by the realization that the same accommodations that children get called out for occur at our very own teacher meetings.

Schmidt names a few of these self-accommodations and breaks them down into categories:
--Physical: rolling bits of paper, grinding erasers, chewing on clothing or pencils, whistling, fidgeting, putting heads down, drumming fingers on the desk, etc.
--Social: asking for help before beginning a task, passing notes, asking to work with another student, talking over the directions with a partner, looking around the room before beginning, etc.
--Cognitive: looking at pictures in books, making lists, doodling or drawing, reading aloud, highlighting, rereading portions of text, scribbling notes, etc.

Schmidt continues on to explain that "rather than congratulating kids for persisting in their attempts to learn, we're frequently irritated by their originality and imagination" (p. 47). I would have to agree with this statement. Unfortunately, too often, teachers expect students to perform tasks one specific way instead of fostering creativity and innovation which later results in problem solving.

Finally, I really appreciate Schmidt's eight strategies for ringmasters; I think these are useful ways to reign in students who might otherwise be considered 'free range'.
The strategies are as follows:
1. Provide choices
2. Change formats
3. Defer to the experts
4. Teach self-encouragement
5. Use body language
6. Provide supportive redirection
7. Devise alternative assessments
8. Re-energize students

Of these eight, I particularly like the first and fourth ones because they seem to relate very closely to my current placement at Elim. Providing students with choices in this setting is extremely important. One student in particular, refuses to comply quite often; however, when given some alone time to think and then re-approached and given the choice to participate and earn his preferred object, he often rethinks his behavior.
And, self-encouragement is also crucial in my classroom. These students need constant encouragement and praise in order to remind and probe them to continue their work.

These two strategies, among the other six, are used in my current classroom, so I've had the opportunity to observe these concepts in action. Now I just need to work on improving my own ability to use these strategies as I continue learning to be an educator.