ONTARIO CLASSROOMS
Dr. V. Manivannan, Jarvis Collegiate
“Encouragement is more important than any other
aspect of child raising. It is so important that the lack of it
can be considered the basic cause for misbehavior.
A misbehaving child is a discouraged child.”
- Rudolf Drekiurs
This article deals with the two important aspects of learning in a classroom. Good classroom management and effective assessment and evaluation methods is really the key to the success of teaching and learning in the modern classrooms.
Autocratic versus
Democratic Classrooms
We are moving from a time when adults were considered superior to children and strategies followed to educate the child were autocratic. Democratic ideals have now been accepted as the norm. Teachers are struggling to find appropriate, meaningful and constructive ways of establishing relationships with their students, while maintaining discipline in the classroom. When we look at a teacher in a classroom in Sri Lanka about twenty or thirty years ago, the world he or she lived and worked was a sedate place where things changed at a much slower rate. In that world, discipline was universal. Almost everyone – teachers, principals and parents – agreed on the way to handle disciplinary problems through punishments and rewards. Teachers ruled with a cane on the one hand and, a ready smile for well-behaved and favorite students on the other. This approach was made possible due to the common problems of behavior, which were nothing like ones being faced by today’s teacher. Some of the words and concepts such as gangs, drugs, eating disorders, video games, computer addiction, school shootings, high divorce rates, materialism, ozone depletion, AIDS, child pornography, violent entertainment and political correctness not known in the past are of great concern now to teachers and parents. There has been an exponential growth and change in the social and classroom environment in which today’s teachers are called upon to work. Changes have now become a day-to-day reality. It is not that all of the changes have been bad – advances in technology and science have the potential to greatly help the learning of students if used appropriately. The difficulty is that they occur with such increasing speed and regularity causing unsettling and stressful effects. The unavoidable result for teachers is that they have an infinitely more complex, difficult and demanding sensitive job. Teachers are called up to become tutors, mentors, coaches, collaborators, consultants, guides and even student themselves.
Making the change from an autocratic to a democratic philosophy of discipline is bound to produce some feelings of uneasiness. If you have been teaching for a number of years, it may not be easy to accept the changing roles of a teacher and student. It may be even harder if you feel you have had some measure of success with the old method. There are several negative effects in the autocratic (teacher-led) classroom. The students in this classroom are expected to follow rules without question, turn to the teacher for solutions to all problems, seek approval and validation from authority, and in general to do the right thing in order to avoid punishment. This may produce some obedient students, but unfortunately students do not develop skills required for problem solving and taking initiatives. Since they are accustomed to being told what to do and they are not being asked about the group, they become passive and as a result they are unconcerned about the welfare of others. The autocratic system does not cultivate the ideals such as caring, compassion and social involvement. Instead it produces followers who are taught to obey.
Participatory (democratic) classrooms, on the other hand, focuses on teaching students to do the right thing not only in the classroom but also elsewhere, and for the rest of their lives, even when there is no one prompting them to do so. It creates an atmosphere in which leaders, not followers are produced. The democratic classroom nurtures youthful enthusiasm, fresh thoughts and ideas as compared to the resentment a teacher-led class could generate. The trick, of course, is getting your students to understand and appreciate, and agree to cooperate. Ultimately, the true test of a well-disciplined class is when you leave the room for five minutes. A well-functioning class would continue to work, demonstrating that you are on the right track, and that the students have developed internal controls. With the autocratic method, however, very often the students look up to the teachers to provide the discipline or the reason to behave. In their absence the discipline falls apart.
Assessment and
Evaluation
Primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning. Observing the students perform, and providing them with useful feedback is a critical teaching skill. It is a strong feeling among educators that the students must be provided with numerous and varied opportunities to demonstrate their skills and achievements. Evaluations should be distributed over the school year and linked to classroom learning activities. Student tests, assignments, lab reports and projects are evaluated in the following categories:
Each evaluation should include at least two of the above categories. For example, a lab report could be marked for the concepts (category #1) and the method of writing (category #2). This would help the parents and the teachers to determine the strengths and weaknesses of students and help them accordingly. In Ontario high schools, 70% of the grade is based on evaluations conducted throughout the course. The balance 30% is based on final evaluation administered at the end of the course, which usually includes a written examination and a performance in writing an essay or doing a project. In science, the performance-based evaluation is achieved by conducting lab-based activities.
The understanding of the Canadian classroom reality is indeed a challenge, particularly to new immigrants such as the Tamil community who are used to the autocratic methods of class management with great success, and who have been thrown into an alien social and work environment made worse due to language difficulties. They are called upon to manage and help their children facing different and conflicting environments at home, in the classrooms and outside the classrooms. It is very important therefore the parents and children realize the need to have proper understanding of the structure and functioning of the school system, channels of communication with school authorities and teachers, and facilities available for guidance and counseling when required. They also should try to identify problems of common concern to all parents and try to find solutions through community associations and joint efforts. Above all, the parents should try to understand the classroom challenges facing the teachers and work with them very closely.
I would like to conclude this article with one of my favorite quotation:
“The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.”
-William Ward
(Reference: Stan Shapiro, “Discipline without stress”, Practical Parenting Inc., 1997.)