No one wants to do it. None of us want to be considered the “bad guy”. But at one point or another, we realize that we have to enforce discipline. Sometimes I forget that in order for there to be a productive and respectful learning community there has to be order in the classroom. When my homeroom teacher (班主任) gets even near the classroom, the students quiet down and open their textbooks. When I walk into a classroom, most of the students will greet me with a smile and tell me their latest adventure or complain about some aspect of their life. This is fine with me—I’m glad that they sometimes see me as more of an older sister than a teacher. The problem is when it doesn’t stop and they are unable to do anything productive.
Every morning, the students have morning reading from 7:30 am to 7:50 am. The students are supposed to read out loud their latest vocabulary words and practice their pronunciation. The topic of the reading period changes between English and Chinese, and the two subjects rotate every other day. Almost all the other classes are in a routine of taking out their books and reading through the words. All the classes, that is, except for mine.
Monday morning was English morning reading. I had just lost my voice and was struggling to control the class. Hopefully, I thought, the kids would take initiative and control of their own learning (My mother always called it “自觉” – on one’s own initiative). I was wrong. I meandered around the classroom for twenty minutes trying to tell students to open their textbooks and read the list of words from Unit 9. After four rounds of struggling to yell over their noise, I realized that perhaps I was at fault for not keeping a calm and orderly classroom. I resorted to tactics that I had learned from my co-teachers. I asked each of the boys who were rowdy to get onto the floor to do ten pushups. If they failed to do them, they would have to do a minute plank. Many of the teachers here use physical exercise as a way for the kids to “burn off energy”. I’ve seen students being told to run laps until the bell rings or stand in the back of the classroom and study. There’s no need to yell or give a long speech about working hard. The teachers simply ask the disobedient children to burn off their extraneous energy. Every child is different, and I’m learning to accommodate my teaching and discipline styles to each one. For some children, positive reinforcement causes them to behave better. For some, discipline is necessary for them to realize the severity of the situation. None of my kids learned very much during that 20 minutes Monday reading period—most of them where too busy doing math homework or talking to their neighbors about their weekends. I stood for 20 minutes trying to talk over them with a raspy, sore throat. I felt disappointed, and most definitely defeated. I told the class that they have to make up for their behavior. Instead of going out to play during the ten minutes in between their classes, they have to stay in the classrooms and study their vocabulary words.
After the class, I went to the classroom to observe my kids. Most of them were furiously trying to complete their math homework from the weekend before the math teacher arrived for class. The few that weren’t copying answers were sleeping. I realized that without having a clear goal in mind, they didn’t have a motivation for studying. I walked to the front of the classroom and wrote on the board, “DICATION AT 4:15 PM ON UNIT 9.” Unlike the other English classes that do dictations daily, my English teacher only does them occasionally. This brought my class into focus. I told them that they have until 4:15 pm to learn their unit 9 words and to be ready to write down 10 of the words.
I’m learning that sometimes you can’t just be a good friend and expect an automatic return of respect and in turn have a focused classroom. Sometimes it is necessary to ask a student to burn off some energy or to remind the kids that they are wasting their own time by not studying during designated periods.
Every morning, the students have morning reading from 7:30 am to 7:50 am. The students are supposed to read out loud their latest vocabulary words and practice their pronunciation. The topic of the reading period changes between English and Chinese, and the two subjects rotate every other day. Almost all the other classes are in a routine of taking out their books and reading through the words. All the classes, that is, except for mine.
Monday morning was English morning reading. I had just lost my voice and was struggling to control the class. Hopefully, I thought, the kids would take initiative and control of their own learning (My mother always called it “自觉” – on one’s own initiative). I was wrong. I meandered around the classroom for twenty minutes trying to tell students to open their textbooks and read the list of words from Unit 9. After four rounds of struggling to yell over their noise, I realized that perhaps I was at fault for not keeping a calm and orderly classroom. I resorted to tactics that I had learned from my co-teachers. I asked each of the boys who were rowdy to get onto the floor to do ten pushups. If they failed to do them, they would have to do a minute plank. Many of the teachers here use physical exercise as a way for the kids to “burn off energy”. I’ve seen students being told to run laps until the bell rings or stand in the back of the classroom and study. There’s no need to yell or give a long speech about working hard. The teachers simply ask the disobedient children to burn off their extraneous energy. Every child is different, and I’m learning to accommodate my teaching and discipline styles to each one. For some children, positive reinforcement causes them to behave better. For some, discipline is necessary for them to realize the severity of the situation. None of my kids learned very much during that 20 minutes Monday reading period—most of them where too busy doing math homework or talking to their neighbors about their weekends. I stood for 20 minutes trying to talk over them with a raspy, sore throat. I felt disappointed, and most definitely defeated. I told the class that they have to make up for their behavior. Instead of going out to play during the ten minutes in between their classes, they have to stay in the classrooms and study their vocabulary words.
After the class, I went to the classroom to observe my kids. Most of them were furiously trying to complete their math homework from the weekend before the math teacher arrived for class. The few that weren’t copying answers were sleeping. I realized that without having a clear goal in mind, they didn’t have a motivation for studying. I walked to the front of the classroom and wrote on the board, “DICATION AT 4:15 PM ON UNIT 9.” Unlike the other English classes that do dictations daily, my English teacher only does them occasionally. This brought my class into focus. I told them that they have until 4:15 pm to learn their unit 9 words and to be ready to write down 10 of the words.
I’m learning that sometimes you can’t just be a good friend and expect an automatic return of respect and in turn have a focused classroom. Sometimes it is necessary to ask a student to burn off some energy or to remind the kids that they are wasting their own time by not studying during designated periods.