Chaos Reigns In This Classroom

Sept. 2, 2009 - PRLog -- Perhaps one of the most challenging tasks teacher face inside the classroom every single day is classroom management.  Imagine a class of forty students - teenagers in the pink of the their health, with their raging emotions and hormones, and struggling to survive the day to day hassles of peer pressure and their school work.  These forty different personalities will not always want to learn; they would rather make fun of the teacher, talk to their seatmates, scribble in their notebooks or just catch some sleep.  What can a teacher possibly do to maintain and redirect their attention and focus on lessons at hand, for sixty full minutes?  

Classroom management requires having eyes at the back of the teacher's head - monitoring everything and anything which students do, and taking action immediately.  It is about modifying student behavior and facilitating the learning process, free from unwanted distractions, attention or noise.  Rowdy student behavior should be dealt with, so as to avoid disrupting and escalating throughout the classroom.  

First impressions always last, and students generally assess what kind of teacher you will be during the first day - are you the easy type or the terror type?  From the first day of classes, lay out the ground rules, be strict and stick to them.  Once students realize that you mean business, they will try not to mess around with you.  Reward good behavior and punish bad behavior immediately, so students learn quickly about which behaviors are appropriate or inappropriate inside the classroom.

Nonverbal cues or body language is also something a teacher should master.  When a student is talking rather loudly, look at him in the eye to signify that he should stop.  When he does not see you, casually move towards his chair and touch his forearm or back to get his attention.  If they entire class is getting noisy, stop talking in front and then pause for awhile until everyone notices and calms down.  

If students are getting bored, you may use games to redirect their attention, and to stop the chaos.  Use games that allow you to apply the concepts you have taught in class.  Never enter into a power struggle with a student or never let your emotions take control of you when a student angers you.  However, if any student still misbehaves chronically, report the matter to the guidance counselor, and schedule a consultation with the student's parents.  Afterwards, you can always displace your anger by playing Beano Classroom Chaos (http://www.gadgetepoint.co.uk/cat-games.php), an interactive game in which you can rowdy kids and catapult them from behind their desks to score points!

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Paula James is a 25-year-old online marketing executive at Gadget Epoint (http://www.gadgetepoint.co.uk/). The love for gadgets runs through her veins having grown up with a father who is into gadgets himself.