During my placement, I noted that some of the children in my class were typically misbehaving during instruction. More specifically, these children were (for the most part) talking when the teacher was talking or not listening to instructions. With this situation in mind, I decided to think back on some of my past field experiences and recall the behavior management tactics utilized by these cooperating teachers. On one occasion, while in a kindergarten classroom observing my future student teaching co-op and her current student teacher, I witnessed the student teacher’s behavior management skills. At the end of the day, a rambunctious time for most students, the student teacher was able to gain control with a simple “One…two…three…” On three, students were all silently listening to her, sitting on their assigned spots on the floor. When I prompted the cooperating teacher about her behavior management philosophies, which mostly aligned with that of the student teacher’s, she replied that she starts off the year by directly stating the classroom rules and scaffolding these rules for the students until they are second nature. From these comparative experiences, i was able to form the question “How can we better use positive reinforcement rather than consequence and punishment to manage classroom behavior?”
With this question in mind, I began my research. I came across a journal publication titled “A Demonstration of the Universal Problem-Solving Approach to Address Children’s Inappropriate Behavior in Head Start Classrooms.” This article discusses the use of an antecedent–behavior–consequence problem-solving process, which refers to the identification of the cause of the behavior, the behavior itself, and the consequence of the behavior. This followed by an action plan developed by the students and teacher successfully minimized student interruptions.
In reflecting on my field experience as well as the article I found, I came to the conclusion that I believe helping students understand the root of their own behaviors will help eventually minimize such behaviors in the future. In order to understand and correct an undesired behavior, one must first identify and take responsibility slitty for the behavior, something that is not possible if the adult in charge of instruction skips straight to consequence and punishment based on that behavior. By having the student identify and better understand their behavior, they can in theory use this information to stop and question these same behaviors moving forward as they arise. I would suggest that any teacher dealing with a student who presents unideal behaviors should first have an open conversation with their student as soon as possible in order to try and remedy the undesired behavior before it becomes more of a problem. openness and honesty goes a long way with young kids without them even realizing it, giving them a sense of responsibility and respect.