CHAPTER XVII

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS

The last chapter dealt with the intellectual side of class exercises. The recitation has for its final purpose the conveying and fixing of certain ideas and methods of thinking. But this end can be reached only when the social conditions within the class are properly under control. The teacher is concerned, therefore, not alone with intellectual instruction; he is concerned also with what is sometimes called school government or school discipline. If the class is in a riot, it is impossible to make any headway with history or arithmetic. Young and inexperienced teachers are often ineffective because they do not know the art of social management. They know the subject-matter which is to be impressed on the minds of the pupils, but they do not understand the serious social distractions which are sure to arise at times in a group of immature human beings.

SOCIAL TRAINING GENERAL

The social conditions necessary for successful classroom work are often dependent on the general discipline of the whole school rather than on the momentary situation. If the general social tone of a school building is low, the best teacher is likely to find himself handicapped. If, on the other hand, the social management outside the classroom is efficient, a given teacher who is not skillful in organizing his class may get on without serious disturbance.

There is another sense, also, in which the problem of management is a general one. The effect of class management on the pupil’s life is profound. The school coöperates with the home and often outweighs the home in determining the pupil’s ideals of social life. These ideals are not so much matters of intellectual training as of social habit. The influence of a teacher over his pupils is often due quite as much to the way in which he manages the class as to the subject-matter which he teaches.

TYPES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

A social situation can often be anticipated and conditions can be prearranged so as to direct all the participants into lines of activity which are desirable. In considering classroom organization it is important that we recognize, first, the possibilities of prearrangement. The more experienced a teacher becomes, the more he can anticipate situations.

Second, there are forms of class organization which facilitate social coöperation, such as arranging pupils in line. This is recognized outside the school, and it is a common practice to arrange people in line, when, for example, they are securing tickets. The management of groups of people can best be carried on by the adoption of such forms. There need be nothing artificial about the forms if they are not overdone. The skillful teacher often uses formal routine to keep the class moving as a unit.

Third, there is no social group which does not at times profit by a critical review of situations after they are over. Punishment is meted out by society to those who have failed to conform to social demands. On the other hand, rewards are given to those who have promoted in conspicuous ways the interests of the group. Both punishments and rewards are to be recognized as educative devices, and should be used in the school only when they are such. The future welfare of society is what should be in mind in every expression of judgment on past performances.

Briefly put, social management deals first with conditions before the group comes together; second, with the forms necessary while the group is together; and third, with the rewards or punishments which should follow an act in the interests of future behavior.

SOCIAL CONTROL THROUGH ANTICIPATION

Examples of anticipatory arrangements are not difficult to find. All the material equipments of the school contribute to class management. The division of the building into small classrooms provides for the division of the school into manageable groups. The arrangement of seats and the precautions against the noise and distraction which result from the shuffling about of furniture are further examples of preparation in advance for the management of classes.

In like fashion, the program for the day is worked out in advance by the wise administrator. This program provides for a distribution of work and recreation such that there will be no undue tax on the child. The third-grade pupil, for example, cannot sit still for thirty-five minutes at a time, so the teacher changes the character of the exercise at the end of every twenty or thirty minutes.

Anticipatory measures of the type here pointed out are usually not thought of by the inexperienced teacher as devices of class management. Class discipline is usually assumed to be a matter of the moment. If one will learn to look ahead, it is surprising how far most situations can be anticipated. The first day a teacher meets a class it is possible to foresee that it will be safer to require certain members of the group to sit apart. It is better to arrange their seats at once rather than to wait until an overt act precipitates a separation as a punishment.

The fact is that unfavorable social situations usually grow out of conditions that are remote and cannot be dealt with adequately at the moment. The disorderly boy is often one whose physical condition is unfit. The school is beginning to recognize the importance of proper feeding and proper hours of sleep, and is taking steps to see that pupils receive at home and at the luncheon hour the kind of hygienic attention which will prepare them for the work of the class. The social situation in the classroom is thus anticipated by a whole series of preparatory moves which at first sight seem remote from the teacher’s direct task of meeting a class.

The attitude which is encouraged by a study of anticipatory measures is the same as that which is coming into the practice of medicine. There was a time when the physician regarded it as his chief duty to deal with disease after it had actually appeared. To-day the far-sighted practitioner is an advocate of what he calls preventive medicine. He aims to get the community interested in preparing in advance wholesome conditions which will conduce to health. The teacher’s task ought not to be that of constantly penalizing pupils who have done wrong; it should be rather that of preparing conditions which will reduce disorder to a minimum and promote to its highest degree orderly procedure in the class.

ORGANIZATION OF ROUTINE

The anticipation of social needs passes insensibly into the organization of regular forms of routine to be followed in the class exercise itself. The class exercise is not different in its essentials from any social gathering. It has been found necessary in meetings of any type to require one who would speak to secure the floor. It would lead to social chaos if everyone in an assembly spoke his mind according to his own personal impulse.

The difficulty in applying this analogy to the classroom and the difficulty in general about all fixed routine is that free discussion is often defeated by formality. The teacher is anxious, if he understands his task, to draw out the enthusiastic response of every member of his class. How to do this and at the same time avoid confusion which will disturb the whole group is a nice problem of adjustment. Formal methods should be required and adhered to far enough to insure the smooth operation of the social life of the class, but spontaneity should be prized and conserved.

Another and perhaps more fortunate example of routine to avoid confusion is to be found in an effective beginning of a class exercise. When a recitation is about to begin, it is a matter of major importance that the teacher be ready with something which will attract the attention of the whole class. Some instructors accomplish this with the first question; some resort to such a device as the announcement of the next assignment; some begin with a summary of the last lesson; some have the members of the class write for a few minutes. In sharp contrast with these methods which indicate that the instructor is ready and knows what he wants done are the aimless wanderings of some instructors who look over their desks for a book which seems to be lost in the débris, or the time-consuming roll call indulged in by others.

A third type of illustration of orderly procedure is the systematization of methods of passing in material. If pupils arrange their written work or their books or other material in a regular fashion, there will be no disorder in handling them. The social group will move as a unit, and this common movement will itself make for social solidarity.

There is much sanction in social psychology for this emphasis on routine. The customs of primitive peoples take on the character of sacred rites, so essential are they to the common life of the social group. Even in civilized society the demands of the group are paramount. There is in the family a fixed time for eating meals, not because hunger coincides in its reappearances with the movements of the clock but because the joint activities of a social group proceed better when they are systematized.

The routinizing of school work can go too far. The requirement has been imposed within the memory of this adult generation that pupils sit in their seats through long recitation periods with their hands behind their backs. Marching in lockstep from class to class has sometimes been required. The list could be lengthened indefinitely. The trouble in most of these cases is that the teacher loses sight of the educational motive of all discipline and begins to think of so-called order as an end in itself.

PUNISHMENTS AND REWARDS

Even after a situation has been as carefully organized as is humanly possible, there are sure to come social emergencies. These furnish occasions for a type of discipline which is valuable not so much for the effect which it produces on the present situation as for its effect on the future. Furthermore, there is often very little expectation that the future will bring an exact repetition of the particular situation which has just passed. The discipline is therefore general in its type rather than specifically applicable to the present.

Viewed as a general preparation for the future, the social condemnation or approval of an act is often very important. For example, a boy breaks something through sheer carelessness. Shall the teacher pass the act without comment, or shall the act be made an occasion for punishment? Some people are disposed to determine what kind of treatment shall be given in terms of the value of the object broken. This is evidently to make of the specific act a specific issue. It is better, if it can be done, to detach attention from the specific act and note the general consequences of carelessness. Educationally, the accident furnishes an opportunity to warn, not against breaking that particular object again, but against being careless. If the lesson is well taught, it will tend to keep the boy from rushing about in the future without regard for his surroundings, whatever those surroundings may be.

Commendation, like blame, is useless except as it sets up in the pupil’s mind true canons of judgment. To praise a child for a particular act, merely concentrating attention on that act, is to neglect the opportunity of cultivating a general virtue.

So complicated are the issues touched on in the last few paragraphs that many teachers feel that the safest course is to avoid praise and blame as far as possible and allow natural consequences to open the eyes of children to the virtue or error of their ways. Social approbation and social condemnation are thought of as something highly artificial and to be avoided. Experience does not justify this view. Social life has its rewards and its punishments, and the child will miss a large part of his education if he does not come to understand the importance to him of social values.

Let us consider a concrete case. A group of small boys in the fourth grade hid the rubbers and umbrella of a little girl in their grade one rainy noon, so that the girl was much delayed in starting home for luncheon and was much distressed. What could be done? The range of ordinary school punishments seems very limited. In earlier days there was a form of punishment capable of the nicest gradations and of universal application for every offense. But corporal punishment has gone, and if, from among the remaining possibilities, properly adjusted punishment is to be administered, it must be devised with ingenuity and regulated in quantity. The teacher in the case referred to hit on the plan of making the three little boys serve the girl for a week. They brought her coat and hat to her after school. She sent them on errands to the library. They learned more under the careful observation of the class about how boys should treat others, especially girls, than they could possibly have thought out in long months of freedom from the bonds of service.

Legitimate praise is perhaps harder to administer with equity than punishment. The teacher holds up a child’s drawing and calls attention to its excellences. The danger is that the child will become self-conscious and conceited. A boy is polite and the teacher remarks on the fact. The other boys in the class who have not of late merited such praise make a virtue of their freedom from the taint of the teacher’s praise.

The difficulty of laying down any principles regulating punishment and praise is that cases cannot be discussed intelligently without reference to the general social situations in which they find their setting. It may be said, indeed, that when an act is performed, it is too late to deal with it adequately in any case. The only effective form of classroom management is that which anticipates the act and develops a social atmosphere in which condemnation or approbation is naturally and spontaneously contributed by the whole group.

It is sometimes said that good school discipline is to be found only where there is no discipline. This remark is true only when discipline is thought of as synonymous with punishment administered; it assumes that the administration of such punishment is the chief or only form of discipline. In a larger view of the situation one should recognize that the best school discipline is that which guides the social group at all times and controls its attitudes toward all acts. The spirit of a class is no accident of the moment. That teacher has the best discipline who has planned and prepared the social situation so carefully that a departure from the established order brings an instant and wholesome response from the whole group.

LARGER SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

With this larger view of discipline in mind, one may legitimately introduce into this discussion a reference to those forms of elaborate organization of the school group which are sometimes attempted in the school-city or the school-state. Under these plans the pupils of a school are organized into an imitation city or state patterned after the adult corporation. The purpose of such an experiment is twofold. First, the conduct of a miniature organization prepares the pupils for participation in later life in the duties of citizenship, and second, there grows up a feeling of responsibility for the conditions in the immediate social group. The officers of the school-city are more active than they would otherwise be in restraining their fellows from possible disorder and in promoting acts which redound to the advantage of all.

These elaborate organizations are educational devices which often stimulate great interest and serve their twofold purpose admirably. In general, it must be remembered that a sense of responsibility cannot be cultivated in a day and is not the natural possession of an immature mind. Unless there is constant supervision the school-city is likely to go on the rocks even as a real municipality suffers from the tendency of human nature to backslide. The teacher must bring to the school-city those experiences and those social stimulations which will train and keep alive the community spirit.

It is a mistake to assume that social organization exists only where it finds expression in some such elaborate form as is discussed in the foregoing paragraphs. Social attitudes of some kind are always present. The teacher who leaves the matter to mere chance runs risks. The teacher who overdoes organization suffers from the reaction which commonly follows restraint. The teacher who deals with the situation with plan and foresight may mold the social group into a helpful agency contributing greatly to the work of the school.

ATTEMPTS TO CLASSIFY UNRULY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIAL GROUP

However carefully the social whole has been organized, there comes a time when an unruly member appears. The teacher’s task is then to defend the group and bring the eccentric member if possible under the influence of the social order.

In a very interesting chapter in his volume on “School Discipline” Professor Bagley has supplied the evidence that no classroom can be regarded as free from the appearance of unruly types of students. Even good teachers of long experience who in general are free from difficulties with the discipline of their classes find it necessary to give special attention to the troublesome types. These types are described by Professor Bagley as including the following: the stubborn pupil who makes difficulty because he is constantly refusing to fit into the social order; the haughty pupil who is not merely conceited but in his ordinary performances disturbs the regular social routine by his overbearing attitude both toward his fellows and his teacher; the self-complacent pupil who cannot be aroused to activity by any of the ordinary inducements that are presented by the school. Other types include the irresponsible pupil, the morose pupil, the hypersensitive pupil, the deceitful pupil, and the vicious pupil.

This collection of unmanageables fortunately does not turn up in any single class at one time, but, as Professor Bagley remarks, it would be unwise for us to leave young teachers with the idea that the appearance of any one of these types is due to the teacher’s inefficiency. Many an efficient young teacher is baffled at the outset by the difficulties of dealing with one or another of these types of students. Professor Bagley made inquiry of some of the best teachers whom he could locate, and found that it is inevitable that pupils of these types are to be found sooner or later in every school. The wise teacher does well to plan in advance for the reception of the particular specimen that is sure to fall to his lot with every ten or twelve pupils.

IMPERSONAL DISCIPLINE

The final comment which may be made in this connection is that the teacher must recognize that school discipline is a professional and educational problem, not a matter of purely personal relations between pupil and teacher. The teacher is dealing with a problem of group organization; he cannot allow the fractious pupil to pull him down to the level of a personal controversy. It is difficult at times to keep from the strong emotional reactions which blind the teacher to this objective view of school order, but the efficient teacher will see to it that the group idea and the needs of the social whole guide every act of discipline and reward.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Distinguish between pupils of different ages with reference to the form of discipline appropriate. Does the first-grade child have any sense of responsibility? How far can a class in a high school be trusted to take care of its own order?

A commission in New York City, after studying the cases of disobedient pupils, recommended a return to corporal punishment. What can be said in favor of such a move? What are the evils of corporal punishment?

Society as a whole has taken an entirely new attitude in modern times toward the matter of punishment. The prison policy of modern nations is different from the older policy. What can be said with regard to prison education? What is the relation of crime to physical conditions?

With regard to the matter of rewards and prizes, what can be said for and against exemption from examinations as a reward for good work? Should medals be given for high scholarship? What is the attitude of society at large outside of the school in regard to rewards? For example, what does society do for the painter, the author, the successful plumber and carpenter? Is the example of society at large capable of direct translation into school practice?

BAGLEY, W. C. School Discipline. The Macmillan Company.

MOREHOUSE, F. M. The Discipline of the School. D. C. Heath and Company.

PERRY, A. C. Discipline as a School Problem. Houghton Mifflin Company.

SPENCER, HERBERT. Education. Chapter III on Moral Education. D. Appleton and Company.