management pains

Classroom management has been an increasing struggle each day this week. The first week, I am now realizing, allowed for such good behavior because the students were excited and eager to please. Now, as they develop friendships with each other and have a better sense of community, the chatter and lack of focus on the task at hand is increasing. It seems that our positive reinforcement of good behavior isn’t enough to keep them focused on what they should be doing anymore. We introduced one negative consequence this week, called a “boo-hoo room 82” which resulted in one minute off of recess. For some reason, this didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Is it because we haven’t introduced classroom rules yet?

Are there not enough individual consequences and too much group reinforcement/punishment? I am really interested in studying the behavior of my students and seeing as time goes on what is going to work. Maybe this method of management won’t work for our group of kids when it would have worked with another group. Or maybe it’s just an adjustment period and the students will fall into a routine and learn the appropriate behaviors eventually. They are good kids, but it’s just the little interruptions that can take up so much time away from instruction. I want to be able to say that we don’t have to spend the majority of our time using verbal prompts to keep up appropriate behavior. I guess only time will tell, but I’m excited to find out!