July 10, 2012 | Posted At: 04:48 PM | Author: Alexander Russo | Category: Teachers, Teaching, Unions
Charts: The Venn Diagram Of Classroom Management*
I posted this on my Pinterest (Hot For Education 2012) but then I wanted everyone to see it. Via Unlearningschool. [*Orig. posted on Friday but you weren't paying attention, were you?]
That's ugly. What on earth makes you think you know?
I think you don't know what "respect" means, or you wouldn't need a hammer for a metaphor. One pictures some smug jerk, really pleased with himself for asserting his incidental power over a bunch of kids because moral authority is entirely beyond his horizons.
Posted by: Mary | July 07, 2012 at 19:36 PM
I guess I get the metaphor, maybe because I haven't been out of high school for too long. There are some students out there that need the metaphorical hammer brought down because other methods simply don't reach them. Even then, the hammer rarely works. The teachers who did the best in our school simply made it clear that if a student couldn't give respect, he also wouldn't get it, and would be asked to leave that class, head to guidance, and find something else to take that period.
Posted by: Sarah | July 10, 2012 at 07:28 AM
Oh God, no. A kid you "can't reach" is in danger. Maybe you can't reach him/her. Yes, there is a hammer - please, God, don't let it fall.
Maybe she'll go all the way over to psycho, babbling about a condom coming out the wrong place, and be barred from school entirely and get taken away to a locked facility by the police every time she tries to get in. Maybe he'll be in ninth grade again when he turns 18, ashamed he's a retard who can't do anything good enough. Or maybe it's not going to be that bad, maybe you can pull this one back from the jaws. Surprisingly, sometimes you can. It always feels like a miracle.
A lot of the time, the little blows are smaller, you might not notice them as they beat a human child down, a little at a time, into less than he might have been. Please, God, don't let any little one of them fall. Don't give me that, "It toughens them up" BS. If it was toughening them up, they'd be tough.
Where is it written that we adults have to be crass and shallow to prove we're on top of it?
I keep a real hammer in my classroom, the one from my mother's toolbox, in fact. Properties of metals, and vocabulary: no, malleable doesn't mean soft like play-doh. How are they going to learn to beat the swords into plowshares if they've never seen metal worked? It's thrilling. My hammer came with its own metaphor, from long ago.
It's the hammer of justice... it's the bell of freedom... it's a song about the love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land. When I do finally drop it, they'll pick it up.
Posted by: Mary | July 12, 2012 at 01:18 AM
Sarah, when you say they, "made it clear that if a student couldn't give respect, he also wouldn't get it."
The red part of Alex's Venn diagram is missing your formulation.
Posted by: Mary | July 12, 2012 at 18:24 PM
Still nothing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNZTaR5M-2A
Posted by: Mary | July 12, 2012 at 23:33 PM