A New Way of Thinking about Classroom Management

In the textbook "Managing Diverse Classrooms", the first chapter speaks about how someone's classroom culture (organization and management) is directly related to the culture the teacher grew up in. This is important to not because not every student in your classroom will have a similar culture s you, evenl if they were born in he same country or even state as you. The text describes that, "In order to make good decisions about classroom organization and management, teachers need to understand the role of culture in human development and schooling" (Rothstein-Fisch, Trumball, p.1). To me this quote is relate to understanding more about your students, where they come from, and how to incorporate that into your daily intruction and interaction with those students.

Every decision a teacher makes about organization and management reflects on their cultural outlook whether they realize it or is visible to them (Rothstein-Fisch, Trumball, p.2). To me this idea means that alot of teachers do not take into consideration the needs, cultures, or attitudes expressed within their own classrooms enough to change the way they do things. I know that i can relate to this as I look back at my own school days. It was an uncommon concept to think that my teachers tried or even considered changing the way they did things to meet the needs or cultures of the new students that came into their classroom each year. The first way to altering your classroom management and organization to meet your students is by becoming aware of who they are as people and what their background is. For example, I see that alot of the hispanic students within my intership do not call out often in class or look you in your eyes when you are directly intructing them. At first, I may have came to conclusion thaat their behavior is due to their lack of speech ability in the English language. After reading this text, I realize that this may not always be the case. These students are probably more used to listening than speaking to their elders and may see it as a sign of respect to not look adults in the eye when they are being reprimanded. Now this certainly isn't the case for all my Hispanic students, but I can definetly see that it is a part of many of their cultures after reading his textbook.

In the text, it talks about how different cultures have either an indivudualism or collectivism value system. In collectivist cultures, the main idea is that you learn how to be an effective group member and participate in society (p.12). For the individualist perspective, its about focusing on your own self-achievement rather than the group's. Not every culture is fully one way or the other and this doesn't take into consider people's personally choice or circumstance, but I think that realizing this witihin the broad spectrum of understand culture is vital. If you understand that some students are used to the idea that they have to work by themselves or in a group, this can better help you set up your instruction, organization, and management. The idea is never to try to change a student's culture, but accomodate for it. Making room for not onoly the physical aspects of their ways of life but also the unseen rules and traditions shows the ability to take everyone truly into consideration and make them feel welcome and appreciated within the classroom. It could be as simple as group certain students together who believe in group effort and allowing for others to work alone or not seeing certain behaviors as a negative but rather part of their culture (like the hispanic student's not looking in the eyes of their elders). "Effective classroom management requires knowledge of cultural backgrounds" (Rothstein-Fisch, Trumball, p.2).