About Tracy Chatters Expertise I can answer questions related to classroom discipline for middle and high school, student motivation, rewards plans, creating an exciting classroom environment and planning field trips to enhance curriculum.
Experience I am a CA credentialed secondary teacher with 5 years classroom experience. I have designed my own social studies curriculum to include exciting hands-on activities, role-playing and other events that make kids want to learn. I have taken more than 100 students on exciting educational field trips including Washington DC, Ashland OR, and all over California. I currently train new teachers how to create a positive classroom environment.
Organizations CANEC
Education/Credentials CA Secondary Authorization for Social Studies, Spanish and Russian
Question Thanks for taking my question:
I have no problem controlling individual students, but when the entire class starts acting badly, I have a problem controlling them, and they know that and they take full advantage of that -- since I can't punish everyone (by sending them all to the Dean's office). What do you recommend ?
Answer You don't have to control them all, you only have to control the leader. In any group of students, you'll find that one or two are leading the rest. If you can keep those focused, on task and interested you won't have much trouble. Observe, figure out who they are. Then make sure they're separated in class and don't work together. Proximity often works best- stand next to the leader and just hover. You'll usually quickly put a stop to any behavior you don't want to see.
You can punish them all if necessary. I once had a class of students who was very disrespectful to me as a long-term substitute in the class. I told them the rest of the class would be spent writing a letter to their parents describing how they were wasting their educations by disrespecting their teacher and school. I told them that they had to finish the letter, take it home, get it signed and bring it back the next day or get detention duty. Several parents called to thank me because they didn't know what was going on at school. I only recommend something like this as a last resort when you've tried everything else.
