IFO Classroom Management

7 September 2022

Because both the classes I sit in are during senior classes, my mentor teacher does not have to worry about much in terms of classroom management. Most, if not all, the students self-regulate fairly well and, while they can often be disruptive, never escalate. Most students’ behaviors are managed by their own peers, classmates, and friends, who tell a student when they need to calm down and the student often listens. A perfect example of this happened today, actually. It was my first instance of teaching a lesson in this classroom. I could tell one of the students was in a bad mood for reasons I didn’t understand and that I didn’t ask about because it seemed like trying to talk about it would just set him off. Before I presented my lesson, he asked me if he could do his math homework while I taught. This made it seem like he was trying to get a rise out of me, because he could have just done it and not said anything. I told him that I couldn’t do anything about it if he chose not to pay attention, but I would like for him to try to multitask because what I was teaching today would be important in the next unit Mrs. Kendall would be teaching. At the end of my lesson, I gave them an assessment that they didn’t necessarily have to do because I knew I wouldn’t be around to enforce it the following week, but if they did it, it would most likely help them facilitate what they learned. This student said that he would not be wasting his time doing that. Most students, I’m sure, also didn’t want to do it and didn’t have to. For some reason, this student was making it a point to be malicious about my lesson, which was very unlike him. A couple students told him that they would be doing the assessment because they liked me and what I was talking about sounded cool. This student rolled his eyes. He later went by where these students were sitting and tried to harass/bother them. The other students weren’t really engaging with him except for telling him that he had to stop being a jerk. At this point, I did say something to him, and told him that for whatever reason he was in a bad mood today did not have to turn into another students’ problem and that he should return to his desk. He did not listen, at which point another student physically picked him up, and sat him back down at his desk. I did not step in on this, mostly because I trusted the student doing the carrying and the original student who was being disruptive was not struggling to get away from him. The student got back up and looked like he was going to go back to bother his classmates once more, but, after being confronted by the same student that picked him up, went and sat back down at his own desk.

Admittedly, this was a very weird interaction that I did not know how to handle but I thought it went okay. I especially didn’t react too heavily because Mrs. Kendall was not reacting either. I think we both realized that engaging with this student today would not yield great results, and the other students were handling it just fine. I was both impressed and surprised by their odd methods of communicating with one another and keeping each other in check.