The First Days of School
by Harry K. Wong & Rosemary T. Wong
Reflection Ch. 18-20
These 3 chapters brought me back to my Classroom Management class where we created our own Comprehensive Classroom Management Plan (CCMP). I remember sitting in my family room, creating procedures, routines and expectations for my “classroom”. I really enjoyed doing this and I look forward to modifying this CCMP in my future real classroom.
I am glad that I had the opportunity to read these chapters in this book because I agree with having a discipline, routine and expectation plan/procedures in your classroom. I also agree with taking the first week of school to go over and through these things, as I do believe they are an essential part of a teacher’s classroom management and the classroom environment that is created through these plans as well.
In my classroom I will have the students participate in adding more expectations to the ones that I have already created myself. In doing this, I believe that the students will abide by them more if they have a hand in creating them.
The book talks about posting your consequences in the classroom along with your expectations. This is a great idea and one I did not think of right away. I feel this would have come naturally as a next step in my classroom management, but I am glad this book reinforced it. I also found use in the section, which discussed logical and illogical consequences. Excellent examples were given to explain the difference between the two.
I ended the reading reflecting back on all 3 chapters and what they taught me. One definite message that I came away with is to always deal with the behavior, not the person.
