PPLE Post 3

One of the things I really liked about the lecture ‘The Class Revolt’ is that it addressed one of the greatest fears I am sure many future and current teachers have – the ultimate fear of rejection. For many of us in this course, there must be so many good intentions in our minds prior to setting foot in our new classrooms, but as we can all imagine, to bring in so many good intentions to a new class and have them shattered over a period of one day or even weeks, could only be very upsetting. I know that I personally have a great fear of rejection in the classroom.

Being a Musicorp teacher (instrumental music teacher for groups in primary schools), i have experienced this situation many times before upon arriving at different schools throughout the year, where the teacher previous to me did things very differently - in most cases it seemed they had either created a 'fear the teacher' environment, or had no discipline control at all. I found the only way to survive these first days was to lay all my cards on the table. I always mentioned the fact that i respected the last teacher,  but that i may do things very differently. I've never known whether this is the right thing to do or not, it was always a spontaneous decision at the time.  The only reading i found that i could possibily relate to on this was the Fredric Jones article. Although i did find it to be a bit old-school, i did like the fact that the time had been taken to find some physical techniques that could be used for classroom management, like the idea in his 'limit setting' section where he talks about maintaining the cool calm and collectness in teaching, even when being humorous or instructing the kids on discipline.

The main question I found myself asking from this lecture however, was to do with the philisophical relationship the previous teacher had with the kids prior to Steve. Was it indeed a ‘friendship’ that the teacher previous to Steve shared with the students? Or was it simply the fact that the kids were just ‘used’ to the previous teacher (no friendship required)? Personally I would have assumed that it was the latter reason, because adults - as friendly as they can be, are still just role models for the kids.  I think a good role model would of course be friendly, but would still be rational when it comes to classroom direction and control. (A good 'friend' of the students would agree with me.) In general, I don't think kids form friendships with teachers, but rather attatchments. I think when the attatchment is broken, it CAN cause anxiety when a replacement shows up, because a replacement is 'new'. What if this new replacement is a bad guy?


I also really liked Steve's use of differentiating between 'Freedom from' and 'freedom to' in this lecture.
‘Freedom from control of others’ I believe is a fairly irrational philosophy to have because it puts the kids in independent adult shoes – and during the informative years of teenage hood, I don’t think independent adult shoes are going to fit.

Having said that, I feel that it is important always to speak to the kids like adults, even though they are not yet ready for the metaphorical ‘shoes’.

I do think it is a right for the students to have ‘Freedom to do things’, as we do live in an age of acceptance rather than the old-school ‘fear the teacher’ environment. But without the guidance and direction, and indeed some form of balanced classroom management – the provocative ‘freedom from control of others’ would again show its ugly head and create a superficial positive learning environment rather than a real one.

I think Steve rapped the lecture up very well, in saying that 'our ability to survive is what makes us useful for our students.' I couldn’t agree more, and i see this as a very convincing reminder in teaching to survive the attempts at undermining, especially during first days in a new class. The ideals we have as adult humans are firm and for most of us are there to stay, and to combat the pressure to let go of these ideals in the classroom as a teacher requires a definite survival instinct, which I believe we all have in us.

PPLE Post 2

The name is of this subject is a very good one – Positive Learning Environment.  It says to me that future teachers are being taught the right things. Positivity is something I realise should not be taken for granted; to run with it when you are teaching is the ultimate way to keep a classroom yours.

Throughout the lectures this week we have learned that there can be five models of teaching – the diagnostician, the ethicist, the interactivist, and the non-interventionist. For me, the latter model is the one I really can relate to – although it is important to recognise that none of these models stand alone in isolation, e.g. for me it seems that the non-interventionist can go hand in hand with the Interactivist, and great results could ensue. I think of this when I heard the story of Nick. Steve never intervened by telephoning Nick’s parents, with a complaint. Doing this quite possibly would have caused further drama, for what if the parents were the catalyst for Nick’s behaviour? (That leads me to another question regarding kids with serious behaviour problems….is it a bad thing to notify the parents if the parents are the reason for the problems in the first place? I feel it could get really complicated. )

In this case though, Steve avoided any major complication by simply getting Nick involved with the class via a class task. By taking the interactivist approach, Steve became an opening of trust, making Nick feel it was ok to be human.

 From personal experience, when you go with a classroom, the emphasis really is on the word ‘with’. Being a dictator can get you quick results, or even solid results. But working WITH the students on an interactive level, and also not intervening (or not panicking that you don’t have control over your students) in every single little individual who appears slightly neurotic (this refers to every human on earth), then you have a much greater chance of having a classroom that believes in you, as well as having a good group dynamic.

Its very true what Steve said – kids change when they are in groups, (from my experience as a kid and as a teacher), and it’s the group dynamic that can be very flexible depending on how well it can be controlled by the teacher. Including kids into the human circle is so important, if you wish to command any form of trust and respect, and keeping the classroom out of the darkness.  A lot of the stuff I am saying here is quite vague I realise – and am looking forward to going into much more depth and dissecting it throughout this course. I can only speak for what I understand of the lectures and tutorials so far, as well as from my own music teaching experience in the ACT.