Personally I feel that Curwin and Mendler’s idea of building students’ sense of dignity is a great idea that should be encompassed throughout the whole management plan. This is central to building confidence in a student and should be a universal focus to any plan. Similarly, Glasser’s ideas should be universal when it comes to classroom management. I feel as though the basic needs of students should always be considered in the classroom and I agreed with many of the quality teacher characteristics. This same idea relates to Canter as well.

I feel as though both Canter and Dreikurs hit on the same idea of classifying teachers, each with its own classification groups. I feel as though these management plans were more focused on the teacher and how they can change themselves as opposed to the other styles where students were the focus. One thing I really enjoyed from Jones is the 3-Be’s that must be done in under 20 seconds. Be Positive; Be Brief, Be Gone. I hope to remember that and use it in my classroom. I might have to write it down somewhere where I see it often enough to remind me to do it.

Another idea that I will take from this segment is a more personal one. Many of the management styles discussed types of teachers, such as Dreikurs who discussed Autocratic, Permissive, and Democratic. After thinking about the types of teachers I had and considering what I know about the age-group of the kids I want to teach, I have a better sense of how I want to manage my classroom. I don’t want to be the dictator or the pushover. I want to give the students a say in what the rules are, and then hold them accountable for abiding by them. I want to establish my classroom as one where I am in control, but I don’t want to flaunt that or use it against my students. It should be something that I establish and make known, and then let the students create a little self-discipline. I want my role as a disciplinarian to be the maintainer of the rules and the source to go to if problems do occur. I don’t want to be hanging my power over the students’ heads constantly.

I also plan on injecting humor into the classroom and using it to keep the class calm and relaxed. I feel that humor, even corny humor, helps to maintain order and discipline in the classroom because the students realize that you are human. Otherwise I might come off as being some uppity stiff who can’t take a joke or enjoy life. I want the students to realize that I am human and I know that they are, too. This will help with things like why homework needs to be done, why math is important, why there are days when we just can’t work and have to take a day off.

Finally, as for my own teaching segment. I feel as though things went very well, considering my time constraint. Something that made it easier is the overlap of all the styles we studied. Many times things that were being said were just a repeat of a previous speaker. The one thing that was difficult in Gordon’s style was the Behavior Window, but I think I did a great job of explaining that to the rest of the group. The other thing that I enjoyed was the types of Authority that he discussed. Many of my group members found this interesting. I had never had someone classify it for me before now and I learned a lot from it. I have a better sense of how not to discipline my students.

In summary, this subject was very informative and will prove to be very useful. I wish we could have spent more time on it. I know that the members of my group had LOTS of information, but I know that our class time is limited. This topic is definitely one that all of us will learn from and use everyday as we go out into the teaching world. Hopefully I can implement all the things I liked and turn my classroom into the well-managed one that I have envisioned.