Classroom Management Essay

It is often claimed that teachers who are good classroom managers focus on prevention first.

The preventative approach to classroom management has been my motto since I began teaching and is, to date, the best piece of advice I have received. As stated by Marzano and Marzano (2003) we know today that one of the most vital roles a teacher has is “to manage the classroom effectively, and through our actions we can build a positive classroom dynamic”. From this statement we see that failing to manage our classroom properly can result in a negative classroom environment for teacher and student alike and will inevitably lead to classroom disruption. Elliot (2009) argues that skilled teachers tend not to have to react to problematic situations as often as novices to teaching do. The reasons behind this are not because of their reaction to misbehaviours like some student teachers sometimes think, but because of the subtle and less perceptible behaviours of the expert teacher that reduce the likelihood of such problems happening in the first place. This point is reiterated by Kounin’s (1970) findings which indicate that highly skilled teachers differed from their less effective colleagues in their ability to prevent major acts of indiscipline from occurring and not in their response to such acts. It would seem that with experience, these prevention skills are honed and perfected by teachers, however, there are strategies that the inexperienced teacher can implement in order to use this approach well while gaining experience. In this essay I will discuss the current literature available which support the claim that good classroom manager’s focus firstly on prevention. I will then outline the prevention strategies I have put in place in my own classroom and a minor and slightly more serious misbehaviour issue I have faced during my own teaching practise so far....