I really enjoyed Colleen's presentation. I found it to be very realistic and useful to our future teaching careers. There were two points she made that resonated with me very much.
1) Behaviour is managed but rarely modified. That's where we fall short
Too often we tell students what not to do, such as "quit talking", "don't get out of your seat", "no running in the hallways". Colleen stated that in order to have a long-term improvement, bad behaviour must be modified. One way to do this is to let students know how they are to behave, rather than telling them how they are not to behave. I loved the idea of practicing recess as well as practicing gathering for announcements. I plan to implement these strategies into my own classrooms. By practicing these routines students will quickly learn what is expected of them and why. By doing so, I believe that over time their behaviour will not only be managed, but modified as well. As Colleen said, it's important to teach discipline rather than react to it.
2) Children do well if they can
I think Colleen made a very good point when she said that you can't motivate skills that students do not have. For example, telling students to study so that they will do well on a test is fine and dandy. However, if students do not have the skills to study properly, it's useless to tell them to go home and study. We must make sure that students know how to complete the instructions that we are giving them. In other words, make sure we are motivating skills that students DO HAVE!
I hopt to implement these ideas into my future classrooms. I feel that they will prove to be very successful.
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Miss G,
I completely agree with your insights about Colleen and the talk she had with us. The idea of "practicing recess" and assemblies was ingenius because it was something I have NEVER seen before- but it should be more common. She was right: how are students to know how they are to act if they have never been in an assembly before? We expect students to know how NOT to act- but not enough teachers show them how TO act.
I think its wonderful that you took so much out of this experience, and I love that you're going to implement her techniques in your own classroom. Good luck! :)
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