Compiled by Elaine Gallagher

           Several items must be emphasized to teachers who want to achieve and maintain excellent classroom management.  The ideas are not new.  They have been practiced for many years by good teachers all over the world.

            Dr. Harry Wong has collected them in his book, The First Days of School.  Here are some major ideas that teachers must remember and practice if they want excellent classroom management.             

12 Important Ideas About Classroom Management:

1.      The most important variable governing whether the student learns or not is what you do in the classroom.

2.      Discipline = Behavior     Procedures = Doing

3.     What increases my students’ achievement level?

• Classroom management
• My expectations of my students

4.    Learning processes that students must master:

• How to take notes
• How to read a textbook
• How to work in groups

5.    Discipline compared with procedures:

• DISCIPLINE: Concerns how students BEHAVE.
• DISCIPLINE:  HAS penalties and rewards
• PROCEDURES: Concern how things are DONE
• PROCEDURES: Have NO penalties or rewards

6.    Remember, teachers, the number one problem in the classroom is NOT discipline; it is the lack of procedures and routines.

7.    An effective teacher MANAGES a classroom.   An ineffective teacher DISCIPLINES a classroom.

8.   Procedures must be rehearsed again and again until they become routines. 

9.   PROCEDURE: What you want students to do ROUTINE: What the students do automatically.

10. Research says that there must be an assignment posted before the students walk in.  The assignment must be posted in the same consistent location every single day.

11. Your very first priority when the class starts is to get the students to work.

12. It is the teacher who makes the difference in the classroom.  It is the teacher who makes the difference in student achievement.

            If teachers follow the ideas presented in the twelve important statements about classroom management, and if they prepare the day’s assignment every night in order to have it ready to post the next morning in the classrooms, the students are going to learn that the teacher means business!  Students are going to have a more positive attitude about the class because every student deserves a teacher who cares enough to be organized and to have high expectations for her/his students’ progress.

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