CF Observation #2

  CF round two! After having a wonderful experience with my first visit to CF, I couldn't wait to go back this time observing classroom management. I was once told by one of my previous high school teachers that classroom management is one of three most important things in order to be an effective teacher. Our goal for this visit, was to observe how well a teacher has control over his/her classroom. This time entering CF, we knew what to expect.  

  I ended up going back to Mrs. G's class.  We ended up being in a classroom with the same kids as our first visit, which I believe to be very beneficial. A few weeks had passed since our first visit and by now the kids were onto a different book, Lord of the Flies. The class was in the process of group reading different passages from the story. Mrs. G exhibited much control of the classroom. She knew exactly when to cue the next reader. She really makes transition and balancing all these different tasks look so easy.  Mrs. G is also very big into group discussions and I really like how she is able to correlate what is going on in the novel to something relevant to the students. 

  It's amazing to see one person manage around twenty different people at the same, no easy feat. Classroom rules are posted on almost every single wall.  Some rules include, being in class before the bell rings(which many of the students didn't follow coming back from lunch), being respectful, and pay attention. During group discussion, there was one girl who had her head down, trying to take a nap between pages of the text.  Mrs. G was quick to notice and told the girl to put her head up. Obviously, this girl was breaking one of the class rules, and that was paying attention.

  As group discussion progressed, so did the maturity of the conversation.  Mrs G. brought up the pregnancy rate of CF high school to connect it to an issue present within the text. Although, the topic of conversation was of a mature one, Mrs. G was adamant on maintain a clean and sophisticated conversation. There can a point where the topic escalated to talking about sperm (spiraled from the pregnancy topic) and Mrs. G was very quick to shut it down. She stopped and said, "I'll wait until your mature enough to have this conversation." The kids knew she was serious and every single of them respected her and they straightened their conversation. The students really respect; it really shows by the way they respond to her. 

  Not only are there behavioral rules posted within the classroom, there are expectations of how students should act in SSR groups and how students should complete constructed responses. Most of the rules overlap with the major class rules. All the rules reiterate being respectful and being on time.  This is a good way to reinforce the most important rules of the classroom. Eventually, the bell rings and it is time for us to leave. However, before we go Mrs. G again offers us some advice and shows us how she constructs her daily worksheets. These visits are proving to be more helpful than I had expected.