![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, one thing I really struggle with as a teacher is consequences and punishment. It's gotten worse since I started teaching overseas because I don't have nearly the level of behavior and classroom management issues that I did when I was teaching in the US. I had much more outright naughty behavior there. Classroom management encompasses so many areas, but I used to be so focused on managing bad behaviors in order to have a peaceful classroom that I let other areas slide.
I still have normal issues in my international school experience, such as chatty students, bullying (usually not IN class but the effects of it), some arguments. Physical violence is, thankfully, exceedingly rare. Cheating is a big issue, but cheating also has very clearly defined consequences, outlined in the handbook.
My issue is with sort of "soft" behavior issues, especially with the middle school kids. In particular, I have kiddos who don't turn in work on time. In the past, I've had a very strict late work policy because I equated toughness with strength. I thought I needed to be strict so kids learned valuable life skills in a lower stress environment. My views have evolved a lot, due in large part to working for a school with a standards-based, mastery learning philosophy. Basically, grades were based on mastery of skills. If students failed to complete the set number of units and master the minimum skills (as outlined in unit rubrics), they didn't pass on. Now, in execution, this was sometimes a mess, but it did relieve me of the burden of having to calculate point totals and worry too much about deadlines. Unit deadlines were very clear, and students became conditioned very quickly to the pace, at least in my classes.
My current school has a VERY strict late work policy. Students have 3 class days to submit late work, at a penalty of 10% per day. After 3 days, the students earn a zero for the work. This applies to middle and high school students. I think this is extreme. I generally don't accept late work past the 3 day deadline, and I generally take a few points off. There are exceptions, of course, such as illness, or if the student has come to talk to me about the work and we've made a plan for the make-up work. I'm stricter with the high school kids than I am with the middle school kids in deference to their growing independence.
But this is where I run into problems, at least for myself. I have one middle school student who is an absolute squirrel. He doesn't have any officially diagnosed issues that require structured accommodations. Based on my experience, I think he's still pretty immature. He is behind his classmates a bit, a 7th grader in the 6th grader English classes as was in ESL classes last year. He's disorganized, and we've worked on that a bit. I'm not going to arm-chair diagnose him. But he has a lot of trouble getting work turned in on time. Today is the last day of class before the Lunar New Year holiday, so I'm very relaxed, but I also still want to have some boundaries and structure, so I told students they could play card games if and when they turned in a story I assigned on Monday. Kiddo was the ONLY student in class not to turn it in. He left all his work at home, and so I told him he was not allowed to play card games today. He needed to sit at his desk. He could read a book -- I have a ton of graphic novels -- or draw, but his consequence was that he could not play games today.
I felt really bad! Like part of it was my fault for being too lax for too long. I also never want to be the person who turns reading into a punishment. But like, it is part of the job to teach behaviors, and that comes with consequences and yes, punishments. I jsut don't like it.
I don't really have a final point. This is just an area that I need to work on.
I still have normal issues in my international school experience, such as chatty students, bullying (usually not IN class but the effects of it), some arguments. Physical violence is, thankfully, exceedingly rare. Cheating is a big issue, but cheating also has very clearly defined consequences, outlined in the handbook.
My issue is with sort of "soft" behavior issues, especially with the middle school kids. In particular, I have kiddos who don't turn in work on time. In the past, I've had a very strict late work policy because I equated toughness with strength. I thought I needed to be strict so kids learned valuable life skills in a lower stress environment. My views have evolved a lot, due in large part to working for a school with a standards-based, mastery learning philosophy. Basically, grades were based on mastery of skills. If students failed to complete the set number of units and master the minimum skills (as outlined in unit rubrics), they didn't pass on. Now, in execution, this was sometimes a mess, but it did relieve me of the burden of having to calculate point totals and worry too much about deadlines. Unit deadlines were very clear, and students became conditioned very quickly to the pace, at least in my classes.
My current school has a VERY strict late work policy. Students have 3 class days to submit late work, at a penalty of 10% per day. After 3 days, the students earn a zero for the work. This applies to middle and high school students. I think this is extreme. I generally don't accept late work past the 3 day deadline, and I generally take a few points off. There are exceptions, of course, such as illness, or if the student has come to talk to me about the work and we've made a plan for the make-up work. I'm stricter with the high school kids than I am with the middle school kids in deference to their growing independence.
But this is where I run into problems, at least for myself. I have one middle school student who is an absolute squirrel. He doesn't have any officially diagnosed issues that require structured accommodations. Based on my experience, I think he's still pretty immature. He is behind his classmates a bit, a 7th grader in the 6th grader English classes as was in ESL classes last year. He's disorganized, and we've worked on that a bit. I'm not going to arm-chair diagnose him. But he has a lot of trouble getting work turned in on time. Today is the last day of class before the Lunar New Year holiday, so I'm very relaxed, but I also still want to have some boundaries and structure, so I told students they could play card games if and when they turned in a story I assigned on Monday. Kiddo was the ONLY student in class not to turn it in. He left all his work at home, and so I told him he was not allowed to play card games today. He needed to sit at his desk. He could read a book -- I have a ton of graphic novels -- or draw, but his consequence was that he could not play games today.
I felt really bad! Like part of it was my fault for being too lax for too long. I also never want to be the person who turns reading into a punishment. But like, it is part of the job to teach behaviors, and that comes with consequences and yes, punishments. I jsut don't like it.
I don't really have a final point. This is just an area that I need to work on.
