The AT-Ats are coming!

So there was an ATA session today… you know, I was super tired and just not into yet another three hour session…. But surprisingly the information presented was quite capturing. The workshop was on the topic of classroom management. There was introduced a two dimensional spectrum of Reactionary or Proactive approaches to classroom management. The second dimension to the spectrum was that of a teacher or student centered management. Proactive approaches to classroom management were promoted over reactionary approaches. However, I really don’t think that you can ever get completely away from reactionary tactics… there will be things that will catch you off guard… things that you did not anticipate. An interesting thought was that of using about 3 to 5 days at the beginning of the school year to set down a clear and concise set of rules. The time needed to manage classroom should take up about 50% of the time during this period… but if it is done correctly there should be only about 5%, time, of management for the rest of the school year. Thus at the beginning of the year the teacher should lay in the proactive, teacher centred management… later in the year management should shift more toward the proactive, student centered management. Once you’ve established the rules, enforced the rules, and the students will follow the rules, the students can then be given space to put more input into their own management. Really tired so I’m not gonna do any editing to this writing…

Q