Critical Thinking/Reflection

As part of my upper-division education classes at Nevada State College, I have developed a set
of rules and procedures to use once I am teaching in my own classroom. I have always viewed
the rules from a macro perspective and the procedures from a micro perspective. The rules
should be more general in nature and the procedures more specific. As an example, one of my
rules is treat others as you would like to be treated. This is very broad and can include a wide
range of behaviors. By contrast, one of my procedures deals with sharpening of pencils. I do not
want students to leave their seats during instruction time to sharpen a pencil, as this will create a
distraction (treat others as you would like to be treated).
As a student teacher, I inherited the rules of my cooperating teacher who presented them to the
class within the first couple of days of school. As such, I have been a little restricted by what
was in place before I began teaching full-time. I have made reference to my rules, although they
are not posted in the classroom, and were not sent home with students as part of the back-toschool packet.
I have found it necessary to beef up my procedures. The purpose of limiting pencil sharpening
during instruction to avoid distractions has been expanded to include all reasons for getting out
of seats. As a parent myself, I know that the bedrooms of my students are far from immaculate,
but that does not dissuade them from getting out of their seats and walking to the trash can to
throw away one tiny piece of paper when it strikes them as necessary. Accordingly, while the
spirit of the procedure was to limit the distractions, the letter of the procedure now includes
pencils, trash, hand sanitizer, tissues, checking posted grades, turning in work, or any other
reason (real or imagined) to get out of their seats.
I have not yet, nor do I intend to have students remain in their seats for one full period. I always
mix in seatwork, group work, activities, labs, etc. which enables them to move around the
classroom. I do, however, require them to remain in their seats during direct instruction whether
that is lecture, discussion, power point, video, etc. They will have ample time to attend to other
needs once direct instruction is completed.
While this example represents my growth in dealing with the class as a whole, I have learned a
lot in dealing with problem students individually. As a retired law enforcement officer, I am no
stranger to dealing with problem youth. The difference has become the consequence. In my
prior life, it was easy to arrest kids and require mom to leave work to come pick up their child at
the police station. Now, I have found that an effective deterrent is to limit their social time
between periods by having them stay after class to clean the table they were writing on, or sweep
the floor after throwing paper snowballs.
The real challenge becomes dealing with what I refer to as intentional disrespect. This comes
when a teacher asks a student to correct a behavior, and the student actively resists, setting up a

confrontation to see how the teacher will handle it. This has occurred in my classroom on
several occasions, and so far, I have been able to adequately resolve the situation.
When I first started presenting lessons, I was focused on the content and missed a lot of the offtask behavior. As I have spent more time in front of the class, I have gotten much better about
recognizing and addressing everything that is occurring in the classroom.