Classroom Management Article Response

The article I chose to respond to is titled “Cell Phones: Rule-Setting, Rule-Breaking, and Relationships in Classrooms” by Anita S. Charles, Director of Teacher Education at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine.

As the title suggests, this article’s main focus is on the use of cell phones on school campuses and in classrooms. A lot of schools are unsure of how to win student attention when battling with smart phones. One teacher had what I believed to be a brilliant resolution to the issue. He had all of the students place their phones on their desks. This puts the phone in eyesight of the teacher so students can’t hide it and text beneath their desks. However, the administration made the teacher stop doing this because it “violated the school policy” (Charles 7).

Another solution that one teacher utilized was to have the consequence of a cell phone in the classroom apply to the entire class. If a phone was spotted, the class had to write a paper on texting, not just the student (Maria 8-9). I believe this tactic to be mostly sound, as long as the students have empathy and don’t want the whole class to suffer for something they did. Of course, there are students who don’t care about that, though.

One issue that Charles brings up is enforcement, especially with regards to school-wide rules. In one of the observed schools, it is required that if a teacher sees a student on their phone, the phone must be brought to the office. Some of the teachers in this school comply with this 100% and send all phones within eyesight to the office. However, there are some teachers who are more compassionate and rather than sending it to the office they have their own ways of dealing with it. For instance, one teacher just tells them to put it away. Others are merely ignorant of the phones or pretend not to see. The issue here is consistency in enforcement. Each class is different based on the teacher’s personality and viewpoint on the issue. A short and sweet quote from Charles sums this up nicely: “Rules are only as good as their enforcement, but the enforcement hinges primarily on relational trust.” This brings us to the next topic: relationships.

Charles’ article brings up an interesting stance on classroom management; one that I haven’t specifically spent time thinking about in regards to management. All of us teacher candidates aspire to create positive and supportive relationships with all of our students. This article points out that those teacher-student relationships can either benefit the management in our classrooms or not. The relationship of the student to teacher should be one of respect, according to Mr. Scott who is one of the teachers Charles interviewed during her observations and research gathering. There is one quote in this article that I believe is truly brilliant and it should be shared with all of my fellow teacher candidates. This quote is from one of Charles’ interviewees, Mrs. Andrews:

“There cannot be hard and fast rules. There’s no formula that says if you do this, that it’s going to work. I think each teacher needs to be open to the possibilities, creative enough to see the implications, and a sergeant in the sense of maintaining control in the classroom. You give your kids parameters, but then you expect them to make decisions within that.”

After seeing this viewpoint, there is something to think about… what is the purpose of classroom management? Obviously, to keep a safe and orderly classroom that is beneficial to learning. But what if management was also part of what students are learning at school; how to self manage. Giving students more opportunities to be responsible for their own actions could be a good learning tactic.

Other than respect, another important relationship aspect in classroom management is trust. Many interviewed teachers in Charles’ article use this word to describe their management.