- Education: How to manage a classroom?
Is managing a classroom a difficult affair?
Managing a classroom is a daunting but an interesting task. Students in different grades have different expectations and get bored easily if the classroom looks the same everyday. Also, students in different grades get satisfied by different set of rewards. For example, students in primary grades accept a star or points for their team or individuals as rewards. The same may not work for the students in higher grades. The students in higher grades expect respect and responsibility as rewards.
My technique of managing a Classroom:
When I was teaching a low income private school in North Chennai a few years back, I thought of giving my students, who were in the secondary grade, respect and responsibility as rewards. Thus, the concept of classroom management was born. This idea was borrowed from the book ‘Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire’ by Rafe Esquith. The book happens to be a good read for all the teachers. I tweaked the system given in the book a little bit to suit my condition.
Now, let me give an overview of the system as a whole. The system is also called as Classroom Economy System. To implement the system, the classroom has to be divided into groups preferably small. I divided my classroom into 8 groups of 5 students each. Each group was called as a district. Students in each group were allotted certain roles and responsibilities. In the original form of the system, the roles and responsibilities have to be announced before hand to the students. The students must select the roles, apply for the same and go through a screening process. In my case, to make things simpler, I allotted the roles and responsibilities to the individual students.
Structure of Classroom Management System:
Let me give you an overview of what a role is and what are its corresponding responsibilities. The roles in our classroom were Banker, Police Officer, Homework Monitor, Dietician and Clerk. Let me take an example of Police Officer. The responsibilities include noting down the violations in the classroom in an offense log and reporting the violations to the Class Teacher who will take a call on the penalties or fines to be imposed. On approval of the class teacher, the Police Officer imposes fine on the violations. Similarly, other roles had different set of responsibilities.
I can earn and spend….:
Now comes an interesting question. What do I get out of this system? Each student is allocated a separate bank passbook which has all the income and expenses of the individual students. By this method, the students were able to learn finances in a better way. Now, how do the students earn money? Each student earns a salary each month based on his or her role. Of course, this salary is based on the satisfactory performance of responsibilities. The other way of earning income is through rewards given by the respective teachers based on the quizzes and tests. Initially we tried printing physical currencies but then we encountered fake currencies in circulation, we had to abandon them and go for print format wherein income or expense will be entered in a slip and signed by the relevant authorities. At the end of a week, all the entries will be entered by the students in their respective passbooks.
Now, coming to the expenses, there are 2 ways by which a student may incur expenses. The student has to pay a rent for using the classroom items. For example, the student had to pay a fixed amount for his or her place in the classroom. This made them understand that the classroom belongs to them and any damage to it will reflect on them. The student may incur fines for violations such as indiscipline, incomplete classwork or homework etc.,
Where do I spend the money I earn:
We maintain critical stationeries such as pencils, erasers, notebooks etc., in our class cupboard. What items and how much to maintain? We receive inputs from the students and apply our supply chain knowledge from our work experience such as Reorder Level, Just In Time etc., The money for buying these items comes from our donors and pre-planning helps us to give our donors on how much money we need and where is their money going to be spent.
When a student needs the available items such as stationery, then they can buy these items through the available money in their account. This creates a sense of belonging among the students and in turn the value of the possessed items increases. Also, it sends them a powerful message that ‘There is no free lunch’.
Auction Melas:
Another interesting event which we conduct frequently are the ‘Auction Melas’. I buy essential items ranging from stationeries to dictionaries for the students for the Mela. I will set the initial price at a bare minimum and allow the students to participate in the auctions. We had several interesting stories to narrate in these melas. There were ordinary items such as pencils or writing pads sold at extra ordinary prices as the students who were in dire need went extra mile to fight out with their hard earned money. The students who had very little purse due to their indiscipline had corrected their ways when we progressed on this activity. Initially more disciplined students ruled the roost but gradually many students fell in line.
The students, in my opinion, learnt the ‘Art of Financial Management’ experientially.
The Power of Intangibles:
We also distributed intangible gifts during the Auction Melas. Few examples include having lunch exclusively with the teachers for a specified period of time. To our astonishment, these were the most sought after items in these Melas. We even had students who had bought only these items throughout the auctions.
When the student is ready, learning starts:
The greatest benefit I reaped out of the ‘Classroom Management System’ is a sense of structure and discipline among the students. When the students start enjoying discipline, then it becomes easy for a teacher to focus mainly on learning. This method had helped me greatly to increase the learning levels of students with more rigour and focus. Having said that, this method was a continuous learning process and I had to adapt to changes whenever the system was threatened.
After all, ‘Change is the only thing which never changes!!!’
