Other than the classroom rules written on a
poster and placed in the front of the classroom, I had only seen my mentor teacher discuss classroom procedures to the students once before March 3, 2015. She had
a strict procedure on how to sharpen ones pencil. If a student wanted to
sharpen his or her pencil they were expected to raise their hand and wait to be
acknowledge by the teacher. They would then hand their pencil to the teacher and she would sharpen their pencil for them. Basically, students were not
allowed to sharpen their own pencils while in the classroom. On March 3rd, the
students who are normally well behaved were very off task. I observed my mentor teacher asking her morning class to put their pencils down. After some
students don’t listen, she tells the entire class to put their index fingers
together, by saying “Fingers!” All the students follow my mentor teacher's
directions. She then asks for every one to show her “Code 1” and “Code 2”. Code
1 means to sit straight up in their seats. Code 2 means to be quiet. One
student violates the code by continuing to talk and she puts him in timeout.
She makes the student stand facing the door for about 4 minutes while she
continues moving onto the next lesson and then tells him that he can return to
his seat.
Later
that day I asked my mentor teacher how she went about creating the rules for the
class. She explained to me that at the beginning of the school year she explains
what “Code 1” and “Code 2” mean and then demonstrates it to the class and has
them demonstrate it back to her. She also says that right after the students
learn the codes, she says “Code 1. Code 2,” much more than usual as a way to
reinforce it and make sure that they understand the purpose behind the codes. When
I asked, “How do you teach new students the codes considering that they were
not present when the codes were first presented to the class?” my mentor teacher responds by saying, “They usually can pick up on them after a while.” However
on April 25, 2015, I observed a new student in my mentor teacher's afternoon class
unable to pick up on what “Code 1” and “Code 2” meant. This particular student,
Student C, has an IEP and is labeled as having ADHD. The class was becoming
very disruptive and as a result, Mrs. Rodriguez says, “Code 1! Code 2!” All the
students respond accordingly, except for Student C who was clearly unaware of
the procedure. Once my mentor teacher realized that Student C wasn’t following
instructions, instead of yelling at her, she asks for the class to demonstrate
to Student C what code 1 and 2 mean. After the demonstration, my mentor teacher repeats herself by saying, “Class! Code 1! Code 2!” Student C and her
classmates respond accordingly andmy mentor teacher moves on with her lesson.
It was refreshing to see my mentor teacher demonstrate the codes to the student because the student could've easily felt embarrassed because she didn't understand what was going on. But instead my mentor teacher turned it into a teaching moment and did not spend a lot of time on it.
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