Teaching is a Craft that has to be.....

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by JBoughton

I still do, and I'm about to enter year #33 of teaching HS math, including at least two at-risk classes a year. I think I'm definitely one of the few at risk teachers who allows students to select their own seats rather than conform to a seating chart.

The first day, I talk a lot about respect and try to get the students to open up about what respect means to them, and what kind of respect they want from a teacher. In turn, I talk about the respect I expect from students. For reasons I don't totally understand, that seems to take care of most discipline problems. Even though I have classes of 15-20 where at least half of the students have substance abuse problems or criminal records, I can count on one hand the number of disciplinary referrals I have to make in a given year.

Bottom line is that you have to teach to the strengths of your personality, and being stern, distant and remote is an act I can't carry off too well.

If I had classes of 15-20, I'd have many fewer referrals too. I have the most referrals (disproportionately so) in my largest classes. You're just so much more likely to have a disruption and often those get other students started.

For example, I had a girl in one of my classes last year who believed that if anyone else did something, she could too. So someone would talk out of turn and she would, someone would get up without permission and she would...I would alternate disciplining one student and her. Her mother accused me of picking on her.

I did not have discipline problems in my smaller classes. My strategy of building rapport actually worked well in them. It was my larger classes where I struggled with that strategy.

I find that the worst classes have a critical mass of disruptive students who often feed off of each other. If I have one disruptive student, I can deal with that easily. Two and I need to separate them but I can still deal with it. Three starts to be an issue. Four and it's hopeless. Three of them will be feeding off of each other at any given time. As class size goes up, you increase your odds of this kind of fueling the fire will happen. I'm glad your strategy works for you but I don't think it will in an overcrowded room of 36 students.

I'm not sure what your program is like. It makes a difference if it's a juvenile program kids are sentenced to or it's a second chance program they choose. Past mistakes might make the latter group more open to what is offered to them.

[JBoughton]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

If I had classes of 15-20, I'd have many fewer referrals too. I have the most referrals (disproportionately so) in my largest classes. You're just so much more likely to have a disruption and often those get other students started.

For example, I had a girl in one of my classes last year who believed that if anyone else did something, she could too. So someone would talk out of turn and she would, someone would get up without permission and she would...I would alternate disciplining one student and her. Her mother accused me of picking on her.

I did not have discipline problems in my smaller classes. My strategy of building rapport actually worked well in them. It was my larger classes where I struggled with that strategy.

I find that the worst classes have a critical mass of disruptive students who often feed off of each other. If I have one disruptive student, I can deal with that easily. Two and I need to separate them but I can still deal with it. Three starts to be an issue. Four and it's hopeless. Three of them will be feeding off of each other at any given time. As class size goes up, you increase your odds of this kind of fueling the fire will happen. I'm glad your strategy works for you but I don't think it will in an overcrowded room of 36 students.

I'm not sure what your program is like. It makes a difference if it's a juvenile program kids are sentenced to or it's a second chance program they choose. Past mistakes might make the latter group more open to what is offered to them.

My classes are small because they're "at-risk" classes. Everyone in there either has special needs, language difficulties or a history of trouble, so there are no "normal students" to serve as role models. I agree that a larger class with the same population would be a recipe for disaster.