Article 1 Response: Classroom Management Strategies for Difficult Students: Promoting Change through Relationships

This is a very useful article that states that one of the most important aspects of classroom management is building relationships with each and every student on an individual level. I completely agree with this theory and have never really looked at the building of relationships to be an aspect of classroom management, but they completely coincide. An important point of this article states that each student should be treated differently based on their specific learning abilities. Having a different relationship and mind set toward each student will also help with behavior issues, since the students will not feel any mistreatment, because they have their own standards to meet in the teachers eyes. Also, with the teacher having an individual relationship with each student, I feel that this will assist in each student feeling comfortable enough to model the teachers behavior in their own way, thus managing the class themselves, rather than the teacher having to do all the work. In other words, each student will be managing their own behavior and that is because they don’t want to let the teacher down, because they have a good standing relationship with their teacher. Because of this, it is extremely important for the teacher to not let their students down and to always have the right attitude each and every day. After all, the students are looking up to them and modeling what they see. One of my favorite statements from this article is, “…teachers’ actions have twice as much impact as their assessment policies or classroom rules.”

Another important area that this article covered about managing a successful classroom is how to deal with problematic students. Rather than punish a student for being sarcastic or manipulative, a teacher should notice these traits and begin to redirect them in a constructive manner. One way to do this would be to notice them for how quick their come backs are and ask if they have ever taken a debate class or have any interest in politics, due to how quick they are on their feet. This way the student is still receiving attention for what they are doing, which is usually their goal, but you would be giving them positive feedback for it instead of punishment. I imagine that this would be a bit of a shock to that specific student and would probably gain a bit of respect for the teacher through their action of empathy. I was a bit of a “problematic” student myself and was constantly being punished for my behavior. They reason that I gave the teachers such a hard time, was because I didn’t have any sort of a connection with any of them and was bored with their teaching style. Eventually I was lucky enough to have a teacher that realized my situation and made it their personal goal to build a relationship and hold me accountable for my actions. It worked extremely well and my grades and attitude toward school changed drastically for the better. So from personal experience I can attest to the importance of building individual relationships with your students and furthermore, to hold each student accountable on an individual basis, based on their specific and individual abilities.