Rethinking classroom management.

As the authors of the text, Natalia Maldonado and Pilar Olivares, say the main thought was until now that classroom management was basically having our students under control by establishing a serial of rules that force them to put in practice some attitudes just not to disturb. But this thought could have become a little rusty nowadays in the 21^st century, so that it’s why these authors promote a new view of the concept of classroom management in which we are not only talking about behavioural issues, but also about being responsible about our own teaching and learning and creating an attitude of responsibility for learning.

In this case the authors offer the possibility of treating classroom management in three interrelated ways that depend one from the other. These are: the organisational issues, the curriculum issues and the social issues.

When we talk about the organisational issues in the text, we talk about all these rights and duties that students have in the class. In this case, we should consider if the rules that we will establish in our class should be selected by the teacher or by the students that form the class too. I think that the fairest point would be that together students and teachers choose which rights and duties will be present in the class not only to keep under control the students mood but also to create rules that allow students take as much profit as possible of the experience of being in class.

Talking now about curriculum issues we should be aware about how students learn. In this point the authors talk about the importance of knowing what we want, as teachers that our students learn. Once we know that we must challenge ourselves to offer our students the activities and strategies that adapt better to the situation we have in our class. In this case, in the text we talk about the importance of offering diverse activities that adapt to every students way of learning, moreover, we should combine individual and group tasks just to help our students develop their social and individual skills. Finally even though every teacher has his/her own teaching style, our main goal should be that our activities are engaging, encouraging and interesting to our students in terms that these activities promote in them a critical thought and let the students have space for reflection and metacognition.

Last but not least, when we talk about the social issues in the text, we refer to the climate of confidence and security that students feel when they’re in class. This issue should not only be related to the social relations that students have with their peers but also with the teacher. Even though students pass most of their time with their equals, and surely it’s important that they have a peaceful relation with their classmates it’s important too that students feel confident when they’re talking with the teacher. Based in my self experience I have learned more and better when I had a good relation with my teacher than when I hadn’t so teachers should pay attention to the classroom environment that has been established in the class.

Therefore and as I said previously once I have read the whole text I think that we should all consider the importance of the three points or issues treated in this entry because they all have the same importance but also they need one another just to make sure that our students could exploit all their potential through their learning process.

Thanks for your attention!