Leadership, command, power . . .
A reader forwarded a blog post that touches on one of my books, but is essentially about how to gain leadership without violence, especially when you are seen in a weaker position, whether through gender expectations, age, culture, or simply numbers. (Many students vs. one teacher who doesn't happen to have an automatic weapon in her hands).
This was certainly an ongoing issue during the decades I was a teacher. Especially in the years when this or that director demanded silence at all times in the school's classrooms, and sometimes even (though the experiment never lasted, especially in 100 degree temps) complete silence outside at the lunch tables.
My classroom was generally more noisy than many, as I liked interaction with the kids, and used humor a lot. Finding that balance between informal free for all and pandemonium was a constant balancing act, especially if there was a problematical child (almost always fueled by anger issues) who served as a catalyst for chaos.
Our classrooms were a distance from the director's, and in some years, the director was only an authority to send kids to in mornings, and taught in the afternoons. (When I taught high school, the principal was there, but . . . problematical.) So we were on our own for discipline.
Like the poster, I had terrible days. There were also good days. Generally, a class of hot, rowdy kids, especially boys (and one year I had all boys except for a single girl, and a good number of these boys had been serially kicked out of public schools) coming in from the playground did not want to settle down to an academic subject.
I had various tricks to get them settled down, that mostly worked, tho it took time: I'd have them put their heads down and I'd read something exciting and then stop at a cliffhanger spot for the next day; sometimes I'd have some object or other in hand, which I'd play with, or do something with, until I had attention, then I'd tie it to the lesson. That was when I was allowed to. There were a couple of times when authoritarian principals demanded instant silence, and if I didn't have it, I'd get scolded in faculty meetings, whereas draconian teachers who could still an entire room with one icy word were held up as models of teaching perfection. But I didn't want an atmosphere of fear in my room, and I tried hard to avoid humiliation as a discipline weapon.
Sometimes I think the only reason they kept me on, old hippie that I was, at a conservative school, was because my classroom standardized tests at year's end were almost always high. But to get there meant riding the waves of student chatter, movement, sometimes acting out.
But I thought a lot about leadership, and what it means, and also about power, over those years. And so these ruminations would inevitably make it into stories.
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/982278.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
This was certainly an ongoing issue during the decades I was a teacher. Especially in the years when this or that director demanded silence at all times in the school's classrooms, and sometimes even (though the experiment never lasted, especially in 100 degree temps) complete silence outside at the lunch tables.
My classroom was generally more noisy than many, as I liked interaction with the kids, and used humor a lot. Finding that balance between informal free for all and pandemonium was a constant balancing act, especially if there was a problematical child (almost always fueled by anger issues) who served as a catalyst for chaos.
Our classrooms were a distance from the director's, and in some years, the director was only an authority to send kids to in mornings, and taught in the afternoons. (When I taught high school, the principal was there, but . . . problematical.) So we were on our own for discipline.
Like the poster, I had terrible days. There were also good days. Generally, a class of hot, rowdy kids, especially boys (and one year I had all boys except for a single girl, and a good number of these boys had been serially kicked out of public schools) coming in from the playground did not want to settle down to an academic subject.
I had various tricks to get them settled down, that mostly worked, tho it took time: I'd have them put their heads down and I'd read something exciting and then stop at a cliffhanger spot for the next day; sometimes I'd have some object or other in hand, which I'd play with, or do something with, until I had attention, then I'd tie it to the lesson. That was when I was allowed to. There were a couple of times when authoritarian principals demanded instant silence, and if I didn't have it, I'd get scolded in faculty meetings, whereas draconian teachers who could still an entire room with one icy word were held up as models of teaching perfection. But I didn't want an atmosphere of fear in my room, and I tried hard to avoid humiliation as a discipline weapon.
Sometimes I think the only reason they kept me on, old hippie that I was, at a conservative school, was because my classroom standardized tests at year's end were almost always high. But to get there meant riding the waves of student chatter, movement, sometimes acting out.
But I thought a lot about leadership, and what it means, and also about power, over those years. And so these ruminations would inevitably make it into stories.
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/982278.html. Please comment there using OpenID.