In this digital era, where in majority of the student are exposed
to internet, and plethora of information is at each student's
fingertips, a teacher's life is getting too challenging to keep pace
with the students. The classroom discipline is totally at stake as the
children are already well informed on the new concept or subject to be
taught unless teachers show effective leadership every minute while
attending to her students in the classroom.
As so much stressed by Jane Nelsen in her book Positive Discipline - a teacher's A-Z guide, one of the most effective ways to get your class back to control is through conducting regular classroom meetings.
SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) Report of US Department of Labour lists following competencies, skills and personal qualities as vital to the children's future:
*Resources-identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources,
*Interpersonal - works with others,
*Information- acquires and uses information,
*Systems - understand complex interrelationships,
*Technology: works with a variety of technologies.
Each of the above competencies and skills can be accomplished or enhanced through the Positive Discipline class meeting process.
Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence stresses the great need to have greater EQ than IQ for life success. The positive discipline class meetings addresses all of the emotional intelligence skills, and teachers who use this tool of having regular classroom meetings have fewer discipline problems and have more energy to focus on the actual work of teaching.
Classroom meetings can be conducted in a Circle time, which could be very effective for primary and elementary students. The Circle Time is the time when all the students of the class sit face to face making eye contact with their peers and along with their class teacher too.
The teacher can take notes on the topics agreed and discussed, ensuring all in a group to co-exist harmoniously in a classroom. Any misconduct or behavioral problems of any particular student could be discussed indirectly, and the whole class students could brainstorm to come to conclusion on how to solve the problems. I personally have tried this tool of conducting classroom meeting as a teacher, and I have found it the most effective tool ever to get best results in behavior as well as in academics.
The class meetings should be conducted regularly, preferably twice a week to get the maximum discipline and build effective rapport with the students.
As social skills and emotional skills are far more important than the IQ, I believe, this implementation of conducting regular class meetings, in every school, is one of the most effective tool to address all the problems needed to succeed in pursuing goals, to help focus on a task, to cooperate with others, manage anger and resolve conflicts.
So focusing on developing emotional skills through effective classroom meetings will have a great positive impact in attaining effective class room discipline which in fact will reflect on the overall discipline of the school without the child being punished or rewarded.
The teachers must acknowledge the fact that life skills are as important as academic skills and that two must go hand in hand if the student is going to be effective, as an adult, in the working world in the future.
So, class meetings can be held regularly preferably twice or once a week. However a word of warning is that students must not be allowed to use any of form of punishment or blame or to inflict shame or pain on one another.
Nevertheless, the class meetings can only fail when students are not seated in a circle; not holding the meeting regularly; not trusting the process and not going around the circle and allowing every student to speak in a circle or pass.
Though the concept of innovative strategies of giving rewards might help few of the students to motivate and perform better, yet it is definitely not the effective tool to be utilized to maintain positive discipline.
Thus, for every kind of problems faced by a teacher in a classroom like lying, crying, blaming, hitting, clinging, using foul language, the idea of conducting regular classroom meetings is a great tool to maintain an effective and interesting classroom with maximum positive discipline.
As so much stressed by Jane Nelsen in her book Positive Discipline - a teacher's A-Z guide, one of the most effective ways to get your class back to control is through conducting regular classroom meetings.
SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) Report of US Department of Labour lists following competencies, skills and personal qualities as vital to the children's future:
*Resources-identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources,
*Interpersonal - works with others,
*Information- acquires and uses information,
*Systems - understand complex interrelationships,
*Technology: works with a variety of technologies.
Each of the above competencies and skills can be accomplished or enhanced through the Positive Discipline class meeting process.
Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence stresses the great need to have greater EQ than IQ for life success. The positive discipline class meetings addresses all of the emotional intelligence skills, and teachers who use this tool of having regular classroom meetings have fewer discipline problems and have more energy to focus on the actual work of teaching.
Classroom meetings can be conducted in a Circle time, which could be very effective for primary and elementary students. The Circle Time is the time when all the students of the class sit face to face making eye contact with their peers and along with their class teacher too.
The teacher can take notes on the topics agreed and discussed, ensuring all in a group to co-exist harmoniously in a classroom. Any misconduct or behavioral problems of any particular student could be discussed indirectly, and the whole class students could brainstorm to come to conclusion on how to solve the problems. I personally have tried this tool of conducting classroom meeting as a teacher, and I have found it the most effective tool ever to get best results in behavior as well as in academics.
The class meetings should be conducted regularly, preferably twice a week to get the maximum discipline and build effective rapport with the students.
As social skills and emotional skills are far more important than the IQ, I believe, this implementation of conducting regular class meetings, in every school, is one of the most effective tool to address all the problems needed to succeed in pursuing goals, to help focus on a task, to cooperate with others, manage anger and resolve conflicts.
So focusing on developing emotional skills through effective classroom meetings will have a great positive impact in attaining effective class room discipline which in fact will reflect on the overall discipline of the school without the child being punished or rewarded.
The teachers must acknowledge the fact that life skills are as important as academic skills and that two must go hand in hand if the student is going to be effective, as an adult, in the working world in the future.
So, class meetings can be held regularly preferably twice or once a week. However a word of warning is that students must not be allowed to use any of form of punishment or blame or to inflict shame or pain on one another.
Nevertheless, the class meetings can only fail when students are not seated in a circle; not holding the meeting regularly; not trusting the process and not going around the circle and allowing every student to speak in a circle or pass.
Though the concept of innovative strategies of giving rewards might help few of the students to motivate and perform better, yet it is definitely not the effective tool to be utilized to maintain positive discipline.
Thus, for every kind of problems faced by a teacher in a classroom like lying, crying, blaming, hitting, clinging, using foul language, the idea of conducting regular classroom meetings is a great tool to maintain an effective and interesting classroom with maximum positive discipline.
