My goal as a teacher is to provide a secure environment for my students to feel express themselves while carrying out their potential. In order to do this, my classroom management must reflect my views on child development and guidance. I believe that children learn best when they are supported and secure. I hope that my classroom maintains a balance between order and encouragement. I hope to teach my students to express their feelings of displeasure or anger in a way that is loving, yet effective, and I hope to model that same behavior in my teaching. Gartrell (2004) states of teachers that, “since they are in the business of guiding children to express emotions in acceptable ways, professional teacher need to model the management of anger themselves” (p. 146). I hope to show my students that I am the authority, but that my goal is to keep their best interest in mind—a balance that is very important in the guidance of young children.
I really want my classroom to be encouraging and effective. Through implementation of rules and positive reinforcement, I can make sure this is carried out in my classroom. When the child is familiar with the rules in which they must abide by, they are better able to follow and make these positive actions a routine. My students will be rewarded for positive behavior with buttons. The buttons will acknowledge students who are leaders, who are selfless, and who follow the rules. I believe that these qualities should be rewarded. The students who make good choice will allowed to wear the button to show off their hard work, as well as model good behavior to encourage the other students in the classroom. I do not feel that individual punishment should be recorded publicly in the classroom and therefore should be handled by the teacher away from the other students.
Along with individual behavior management, I feel that it is important that students have something to work for as an entire class. Ultimately, the students should be able to have to opportunity to see what teamwork looks like and encourage one another to make positive choices. I will have a jar in the classroom with a series of lines that mark goal that the kids can achieve. Every time the class is seen working together or behaving positively as a whole, I will put a mini pom pom in the jar. The pom poms will accumulate and once they reach the first mark of the jar, the class will be awarded that incentive. They can start out small, with candy parties and move to popcorn, or pizza. The goal is to get to the final mark by the end of the year in which the students will be rewarded with a day of fun for all of their hard work.