Today while paying close attention to the communication within the classroom I noticed that the students were very respectful for the most part. The students knew that they needed to put their hand up to talk or else they wouldn’t be acknowledged. I also appreciated that when the students would come to interrupt the teacher while she was talking to someone else, she would nicely remind them to use their manners and say excuse me or else they wouldn’t be acknowledge. I think that to often kids don’t learn this, as adults just allow them to interrupt by giving them immediate attention. I also observed that the students gave the same respect to any adults that came in the classroom, not just their teacher and as a guest to the classroom I really appreciated this.
One thing that caught my attention today was a student mimicking the substitute teacher in a bossy tone after she had explained the instructions to another classmate. I thought that the substitute handled the situation well as she too caught the student doing this and she calmly explained that that behavior was not polite and wasn’t accepted in this classroom. I am wondering if she handled this properly or if she should have dealt with it differently?
It is good that you noticed the consistency of student behaviour as a result of teacher expectations. At the beginning of a school year, setting these and consistently requiring specific responses sets the tone for management in a classroom.
The response of the TTOC was just right. Calm, kind and firm was the way she handled it and the child responded.