Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
EDES-350
Keith Wilcox
3 December 2017
Having spent a few years learning the theory behind the practices in education, I often wonder
how close a teacher’s personal interpretation and implementation of any given theory comes
to an author’s vision of their theory’s practical use. Even from my limited teaching experience
in one elementary and two secondary schools it has already become clear how unique each
educational environment is. It is, thus, nearly impossible to come up with a concise and
universal theory that would work in any pedagogical situation with its principles applied
similarly to achieve the same results across all contexts. Therefore, in the formulation of my
own theory of learning, I was primarily concerned with the practical value of the accumulated
knowledge. In other words, for me, it is more important to find the classroom management
techniques that can be adapted to a variety of classrooms than to formulate vague statements
about education that might turn out to be completely useless. As a starting point, I have
identified and borrowed from various theorists the following values to guide my approach to
classroom teaching: efficient use of classroom time, building a close personal relationship
with the students, and always insisting on an honest effort. I believe that when those values
are properly enforced in class, students are able to learn the material at an appropriate pace
and gain an understanding of socially acceptable behaviour. There is, nonetheless, one
important aspect that has the ability to ensure that, no matter the circumstance, the classroom
flexibility, there are a few rules of thumb (such as establishing and enforcing rules, being
combination will ensure that all students get something valuable from the time that they spend
in school. The practical aspects of those elements that, together, comprise my vision of
effective classroom management will be explored in more detail in the following essay
through the prism of three educational theorists whose ideas have resonated with me: Doug
time wasting must be prioritized over everything else. This is achieved by establishing and
enforcing continuously a clear set of rules and practice. This is especially important in a
music classroom where students are constantly tempted by the wind instruments that they
hold in their hands for the full duration of the lesson. What I discovered during my most
recent stage is that spending two first music classes with grade 7 students just going over the
procedures and practicing the cut-off (when the teacher/conductor steps on the podium and
shows the appropriate gesture, the class must react by falling silent) is essential for a smoothly
running class in the future. By practice, in music, we mean an act of repetition. That means
that one successful try in response to a cut-off gesture is not enough; when the students are
slow to react to a cue from the conductor, the conductor must go over the expectations and
practice this one cue while insisting on getting student’s full attention. In the moment, it
seems to be redundant, especially because the teacher must make a choice to invest class time
into that – precious time that could be spent learning new material. Yet, this is one of the
classroom management strategies that pays off eventually. Fred Jones, a classroom
management theorist, has addressed the issue of time wasting in his works where he proposed
ways of maximizing time available for instruction. For instance, one of the aspects to
consider, according to Jones, is the class seating arrangement in a way that allows a teacher to
“maintain class proximity and eye contact with students and move among them” (Charles,
2014). This method, of course, is not readily transferable to a wind band classroom setting
that has a long tradition with its own set of rules that exist outside the secondary education
system. However, there are ways to adapt this method with positive results even in a music
room. There were classes where I would choose to move sections around to hear them better;
sections like trumpets, who are used to sitting in the back where they get easily distracted.
Unsurprisingly, I found a lot of mistakes to be fixed, and trumpets had no other choice but to
pay attention because of the proximity to an authority figure. Among the other helpful
elements of the theory, I find the “say, see, do” approach to present material beneficial to
students considering that playing is a very physical process and not everyone is comfortable
in their own body, which means that students need to be made aware of how their body works.
For example, people have a tendency of carrying a lot of tension in certain muscles of their
body that can be made worse by maintaining a poor playing posture. Therefore, the three
elements – making aware, demonstrating, and having explored – are important in teaching
music. Generally speaking, from my experience, many aspects of Fred Jones’ theory make a
lot of sense in their practical application. Classroom rules, outlined expectations, physical
proximity and other elements of classroom management, with some adjustment, are helpful
So far, this essay has been exploring a more technical side of setting up a functional
classroom, without addressing the question of human interaction with students. Keeping in
mind that the Quebec education system has the in loco parentis legal perspective on a
with students based on trust and mutual respect. To better inform myself on interpersonal
through some complicated situations with individual students. Unlike Fred Jones’ theoretical
frame that appeared to fit in with my selected methods in retrospect, Dreikurs’ work had a lot
practicum with an intention to recognize and acknowledge the students’ needs. For instance, I
found that the idea of logical consequences, when executed properly (that means, with the
goal of clearing up students’ understanding of the relationship between a misbehavior and the
outcome), helps reinforcing classroom rules. Losing a point for behaving disrespectfully
during a classmate’s playing test has an inner logic that, if explained to the student, will not
be contested. The struggle related to this concept that I have been experiencing until the very
end of my field experience was with my inability to successfully remove my emotion from the
decision to apply a logical consequence in situations where I sensed lack of respect between
students. Emotion, I believe, can transform students’ perception of logical consequence into
punishment, which contradicts the intent. What is emphasized in Dreikurs’ theory is that the
2008), which means that the teacher must make an effort to get to know their students, thus
making sure they “understand the private logic of their misbehaving students” (Edwards,
2008). To which extent this was true I have only realized a week before the end of my
group that I have been teaching for a couple of months came to talk about her son’s
experience in the music class. He is a very polite and shy boy, the only brass player in that
group with no one there on whom he could rely for correct pitches in some contexts (which is
a brass-specific problem). Sometimes I would see that he avoided sight reading band pieces at
the first try, pretending that he urgently needed to take care of his instrument, and I would let
him do it because there was an enormous pressure on. I told his mother that there are certain
challenges of being the only player in a section, while realizing that I did not have an actual
strategy that could help her son succeed. At this moment, my cooperating teacher joined in
with a comment. She said that the woman’s son is a strong player – he has been starting from
grade 8, yet he does not believe that he is good. Also, he needed to invest more time into
practice at home (the required 20 minutes a day) to start improving exponentially. When the
boy came to class the week after that, he had more confidence and it was apparent that he had
practiced. This brief interaction with a parent made me realize how knowing what a child’s
experiences (and, by extension, the child’s needs) can turn the situation around in a matter of
days.
reaction to students’ successes and misbehaviours during each lesson. Despite having
provided a solid framework for classroom management, Fred Jones’ theory does not actually
address the day-to-day evolution of interaction between a teacher and a student. Sometimes
the way a lesson goes depends on the time of day, how tired students are, the general
atmosphere and mood in class, as well as the room itself (if teaching in multiple locations).
Class rules and eye contact cannot be an answer to every situation. Therefore, for issues
related to this aspect of teaching, I looked for solutions in Doug Lemov’s work that consists
of a collection of techniques that promote success in classroom. Although the work was
designed for inner city schools “that serve students born into poverty and, too often, to a
rapidly closing window of opportunity” (Lemov, 2014), I believe that all kinds of students can
benefit from good pedagogy. One strategy that I try to always have in use is “positive
framing” (Lemov, 2014) that, in my opinion, is essential in music class when giving feedback
for students’ playing – which is always. Because progress in music happens over a significant
period of time, excellence cannot be expected from a majority of class. However, students
should know when they are on the right track and they need to be made aware of the areas that
still require improvement. For these situations, I find “narrating the positive” (Lemov, 2014)
and “drawing attention to the good and the getting better” (Lemov, 2014) especially useful,
because students become increasingly interested in success after receiving positive comments.
When they see that success in music class is possible and is within their reach, they start
paying attention more readily and expect the same from their peers (responding harshly when
someone misbehaves). Another technique that gets positive responses is complimenting the
effort instead of giving praise. Generally speaking, specific feedback helps. When students
know what they did well and what is still in the process of progressing, they know what they
need to keep. Music-making cannot be just a physical activity; the process needs to be
intellectualized so that students can make informed choices. Therefore, when they make an
honest effort, it needs to be communicated to them that the effort is what they should preserve
in their practice. That, of course, means that making a mistake (in fact, many mistakes), is all
right as long as there was a determined attempt made. Normalizing error is another technique
that is commonly applied in a music classroom simply because arts are rooted in exploration,
subjectivity and risk-taking, so there is always an element of trial and error that gives students
an opportunity to see for themselves what works best. This leads to the last important element
of technique, which is “distinguishing between behavior and people” (Lemov, 2014). The
were some groups that I taught this semester where the energy levels were constantly high,
which meant that students often had trouble staying focused. Addressing those groups was
challenging until I started identifying the ‘trouble-makers’ in those groups as high energy
people and not as students who are prone to misbehave. Even though I never spoke poorly of
them as human beings, that certainly also influenced the way the interaction with these
students.
three pedagogical values: efficient use of class time, building a trusting and respectful
relationship with my students, and enforcing the idea of honest effort. The techniques for
effective classroom management then branch out from these values with an intent to make
sure that the students learn at an appropriate pace in a welcoming, accepting, and stress-free
environment. The ideas for the many techniques in my personal approach were borrowed from
and inspired by the works of three educational theorists: Fred Jones, Rudolf Dreikurs and
Doug Lemov. The three theorists are offering useful practical suggestions that proved to be
helpful in a variety of classroom situations. From Jones’ work, I have borrowed his general
vision of a structured approach aimed at reducing time waste, which includes seating
Having observed the positive impact of having a clear set of rules established in classroom
and expectations communicated to the students from the very beginning, I was convinced that
Jones’ methods work in a real-life setting. Rudolf Dreikurs, on the other hand, spoke
extensively about the students themselves and the need to understand students’ motivation in
order to fix behaviour issues. His suggestions were particularly helpful in interaction with
individual students and in building a relationship with misbehaving students. There is,
however, an aspect of this theory that I find debatable. According to Dreikurs, the democratic
type of teacher is the suitable type in our day and age. However, I have been observing an
autocratic teacher with a warm personality who has led music classes to success. I believe that
there is a romanticized idea of student-led teaching that works only in certain contexts, while
the rest of the classroom time students need a strong authority figure who is sharing their
extensive knowledge of the subject. With all the valuable input on the topic of students’ needs
that Dreikurs has provided, there was not much said about the classroom outside the
manifestations of misbehaviour. To fill this gap, I borrowed some ideas and strategies from
Doug Lemov, a classroom management theorist who compiled and elaborated on a list of
techniques designed to help students with disadvantageous backgrounds pass the tests.
Despite this very specific goal that the techniques are pursuing, I found their application in a
regular classroom to be quite effective. Such methods as positive framing, praising the effort,
distinguishing between behaviour and people as well as normalizing error have brought
positive results in the classes where I have consciously implemented those elements.
References
Charles, C.M. (2014). Building Classroom Discipline, (11th ed.) Fred Jones on Keeping Students
Edwards H. C. (2008). Classroom Discipline and Management (5th ed.) Chapter 5: Logical
Lemov, Doug. (2014). Teach like a Champion, 2.0: 62 Techniques that put students on the path