Classroom Management

Classroom Management: Hands on or Hands off? Introduction The issue of classroom management is a complex one in today’s world, especially as the issue of how to educate has taken on so many different dimensions over the previous decades. There are so many different schools of thought on the best way to educate that managing the classroom and instilling discipline is also impacted by these myriad voices and perspectives.

This paper will focus on the issue of classroom management at the high school level and address the problem by examining whether character education, praise and relationship building can be facilitative types of classroom management approaches that can serve as effective strategies to classroom management.

Problem The problem of classroom management and whether or not teachers should adopt a hands on or hands off approach to discipline has largely been impacted by the philosophical underpinnings of the modern era, which have largely been rooted in ideas of liberty, fraternity, equality, and other novelties (Koonce, 2016).

The problem has been compounded by the fragmentation of political and social perspectives in the modern era, with relativism taking a larger and larger portion of the pie of perspectives so that there is little uniformity or universality in terms of how people approach the concept of discipline in the classroom.

In nearly every case, it appears that discipline and classroom management are topics that are commonly left up to the individual whim of the instructor—some of whom might prefer a preventive strategy while others might prefer a corrective disciplinary strategy while still others might prefer a liberal strategy that is distinctly “hands off” in the idea that allowing students to express themselves without restraint is best (Hinchey, 2010; Bayraktar & Dogan, 2017).

While the personalized approach to classroom management may work for some teachers and administrators who prefer to let educators adopt whatever approach to classroom management they like best, the myriad approaches can send confusing signals to students who may feel frustrated, confused, perplexed or exacerbated by so many different approaches to classroom management and discipline, with each teacher seeming to have his or her own strategy and every student having to adjust from one class to the next.

This can be especially true for students of different ethnicities who may encounter more or less prejudice from one teacher to the next (Gregory et al., 2016). Instead of a uniform approach to classroom management that is universally accepted, there is a whole host of approaches—some of which are effective and some of which are not when it comes to managing a classroom and promoting discipline and positive, healthy relationships between educators and students (Aydin & Ziatdinov, 2016; Ersozlu & Cayci, 2016).

The idea that character education, praise and relationship building can be helpful in promoting self-management, as Aydin and Ziatdinov (2016) have shown is helpful, could have dramatic effects in establishing a more common sense, universally accepted approach to classroom management and solve the problem of whether educators should be hands on or hands off once and for all.

As Kristjansson (2014) shows, by simply re-introducing the concept of character education at an early age, students can be trained to develop self-management skills that help them to be more oriented towards pursuing the transcendental values identified by classical philosophers and educators like Plato and Aristotle.

By pursuing such a path, the problem of classroom management and the clash of so many different ideas and techniques could finally be put to rest and a single, common and effective approach to discipline adopted across the board by all educators to help students be better adjusted, confident and able to develop positive relationships with peers and teachers from one class to the next.

Classroom Management Types The Hands Off Approach Fransen (2013) showed that when teachers take a more hands off approach to classroom management and discipline and allow students to moderate themselves more or less, the students respond with more demonstrations of maturity and self-regulation than might be expected.

The basis of Fransen’s (2013) argument is that if educators want students to show maturity and good behavior teachers must be willing to trust them, allow them to make mistakes but ultimately be willing to tone down the aggressive approach to discipline that more restrictive and punitively-minded educators might prefer in order to keep tight control on a classroom. What Fransen (2013) found was that when teachers give fewer deferrals for discipline, student achievement actually increases because students are more willing to engage with the material.

Instead of simply sitting silently and waiting out the clock in order to get through the class without at least being punished for becoming animated or lively in response to taking a heightened interest in the subject, students whose teachers are more phlegmatic in their approach to discipline—i.e., who allow students to express themselves so long as student engagement is occurring—are more successful at meeting academic goals overall.

If the aim of education is to acquire knowledge and skills, it makes sense that the hands off approach to classroom management would facilitate engagement and therefore help to engender better scores and better achievement of academic goals overall: after all, the more respected students are and the more they are permitted to be themselves while simultaneously taking part in the active learning process, personalizing the experience and taking ownership of their own education the more likely they will be to accomplish tasks, learn from mistakes, and acquire knowledge.

On the other hand, not every attempt to be hands off ends positively: in some cases, too much freedom can lead to lawlessness and abandon especially if there are no clear parameters or expectations that are communicated to students who, ultimately, require some guidance in terms of knowing what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior—which is where the idea of character education comes in to play (Kristjansson, 2014). The Hands On Approach Character education.

What makes character education so enticing in terms of classroom management is that it is subtle and reinforces the parameters and expectations without obliging the educator to come across as an enforcer, as an authoritarian, or as an aggressor.

On the contrary, the instructor can come across with the same love and affection as was demonstrated by Socrates towards his peers and pupils in ancient Greece, or by Plato or Aristotle towards their students—primarily because the approach is based on education of the mind and will and not on the implementation of the rod or whip as the main intervention (Kristjansson, 2014).

Instead of trying to enforce an arbitrary code of rules or ethics in the classroom, the character educator adopts a policy of explaining why students should engage in self-management, what transcendental ideals they should pursue—i.e., beauty, truth, oneness, and so on—and why virtue is something to be cultivated in the students’ daily lives (it is the true path to happiness, according to Aristotle).

As Kristjansson (2014) shows, the more that students are able to recognize the virtue of good behavior and the more they are able to identify what constitutes good behavior, the more accustomed to behaving appropriately in the classroom they will become. This hands on approach to character formation and therefore classroom management ultimately allows teachers to adopt a hands off approach to classroom management because the groundwork has already been laid so to speak.

In other words, if students are trained to behave virtuously and properly from the beginning, there is less need for educators to be authoritative, punitive, or aggressive in terms of discipline because the students will already be used to monitoring themselves and managing their own behavior effectively. The students will, additionally, have more confidence in themselves, will demonstrate greater facility in terms of engaging in healthy relationships with their peers and teachers, and will generally reflect more positive social demeanor overall (Kristjansson, 2014).

This finding corroborates the findings of Ersozlu and Cayci (2016) and the idea that self-control is an effective means of promoting classroom control, as shown by Aydin and Ziatdinov (2016) in their study of educational concepts from Turkey. Using praise. The idea that praise can also be effective in promoting effective classroom management has been shown to be supported by evidence in the study conducted by Floress, Beschta, Meyer and Reinke (2017). Floress et al.

(2017) showed that when teachers use praise to promote self-worth in students, students reciprocate by conforming to behavioral norms and expectations promoted by the instructor. The idea behind this approach is similar to that at the root of character education and at the root of the concept of respecting students so that they can have the wherewithal to manage their own feelings and actions effectively. The more confidence and esteem that students are able to cultivate, the more responsibly they are likely to act.

Praise from teachers is helpful because it gives students one of the basic needs that they require according to Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs and motivation theory, which posits that there are various levels that human beings must go through before they can reach the ultimate level of self-actualization—the level at which maturity and ability co-exist so as to allow the individual to make good and right decisions independently of any authoritative person. Praise is a motivating factor in Maslow’s paradigm Relationship building.

Teachers who demonstrated a greater capacity to build relationships with students were found to have a higher level of instructional quality overall and a better ability to manage classrooms effectively (Kwok, 2017). By developing a positive relationship with students, teachers who utilized this approach implemented a strategy similar to character education in the sense that these teachers were helping to develop the students’ characters by first developing good relationships with them.

Relationships serve as a strategic entry point for educators with students in terms of gaining trust, which can then be leveraged to impress upon students behavioral expectations that students should embrace and strive to meet. Relationship building can facilitate academic achievement as well as self-management and disciplinary objectives because in the end students and teachers must have good relationships in order for the educative process to prosper.

Without a mutual appreciation and respect, even at a simple, basic and modest level, there can be no transference of skill or knowledge from the teacher to the student. The student must be open to what the teacher has to give and the teacher must be willing to meet the student in a manner that is not viewed as antagonistic by the student. One method of relationship building that has been shown to be helpful in this way is the strategy of making home visits (Stetson, Stetson, Sinclair & Nix, 2012).

When teachers make home visits to the homes of students in their classrooms they can really develop positive relationships with the families of their students and in this way strengthen their own relationships with the students themselves. Most students see their teachers as people that they only see between the bells—that is, for one class per day or so many times a week while sitting at a desk. The teacher is not really seen as a real person or seen outside the classroom times.

There is little opportunity for the students and the teacher to meet up in a social way, where they can connect in a real way so that trust and empathy can be built.

When teachers venture outside the confines of the classroom and actually call upon students at their homes, get to immerse themselves in the surroundings of the student, meet their families and put themselves in their students’ shoes to see if there is anything they can do to facilitate the student’s trek towards academic success, teachers are able to show a human face that students might otherwise never get to see.

When students see their teachers in such a light, it is as if a light goes off in their own minds and they are able to register the teacher as one who truly cares—as a person who can be counted on and looked to for an example (Stetson et al., 2012). This is the main idea behind making home visits and why this strategy is one of the most effective ways of building relationships with students in order to better achieve excellent classroom management.

Being Hands On so as to be Hands Off The majority of research shows that when teachers take a hands on approach to classroom management that allows them, ultimately, to be hands off in the end, the outcomes in terms of student self-management and academic achievement are positive (Aydin & Ziatdinov, 2016; Floress et al., 2017; Fransen, 2013; Kristjansson, 2014; Kwok, 2017; Stetson et al., 2012).

The reason for this positive outcome is that the essence of the hands on so as to be hands off approach is that teachers are aiming to build and develop the students’ character so that the students themselves end up governing and managing themselves. The more self-actualized learners become, the less time teachers have to spend serving as disciplinarians and authoritative figures: the students act as disciplinarians of themselves because they have been taught to live virtuously according to the discipline engendered in them through character education.

The process of character education is the “hands on” part of the process of classroom management and it can take a variety of forms. Teachers can use philosophy to educate the hearts and minds and wills of students (Kristjansson, 2014). They can use praise to boost the esteem and confidence of students so that students learn to respect themselves and their teachers and thus conform to behavioral expectations that they know will make themselves and their teachers proud (Floress et al., 2017).

They can engage in relationship building, both in and outside the classroom in order to help students to have a sense of self-worth and to have the support they require to make good decisions for themselves (Kwok, 2017; Stetson, 2012). Once the “hands on” part of the process has been conducted, the teacher should be able to adopt more of a “hands off” approach to classroom management by the time students are at the high school level.

The students will have been taught to manage their own behavior, emotions and will power by then and the teachers will be able to show them the kind of respect and autonomy that the students desire at that level. Additionally, this approach can be universally applied by all teachers so that there is less confusion for students about what to expect from one class to the next.

Conclusion The problem of classroom management and discipline is one that has gone on for many decades as a result of various different philosophical approaches to education. Some teachers have preferred a hands on approach that is rooted in preventive discipline or in adopting an authoritative or aggressive demeanor that can make students fearful or less inclined to be engaged with the coursework. If the ultimate aim of education is to facilitate knowledge acquisition, engagement is of particular importance.

A hands on approach, therefore, should be one that promotes learner engagement—not the opposite. Some of the ways that researchers have identified as being positive hands on approaches are those that in the end allow teachers to be hands off—i.e., that allow students to be the managers of their behavior. These ways include character education, praise and relationship building.

By teaching students how and why to be virtuous, why they should have self-esteem, and why teachers care by making home visits, educators can be hands on for a while and end up being hands off as students take ownership of their own actions and education process. References Aydin, B., & Ziatdinov, R. (2016). How Students Acquire Self-Control: Primary School Teachers' Concepts from Turkey. European Journal of Contemporary Education, 18(4), 390-397. Bayraktar, H. V., & Dogan, M. C. (2017).

Investigation of primary school teachers’ perception of discipline types they use for classroom management. Higher Education Studies, 7(1), 30. Ersozlu, A., & Cayci, D. (2016). The Changes in Experienced Teachers' Understanding towards Classroom Management. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 4(1), 144-150. Floress, M. T., Beschta, S. L., Meyer, K. L., & Reinke, W. M. (2017). Praise Research Trends and Future Directions: Characteristics and Teacher Training. Behavioral Disorders, 43(1), 227-243. Fransen, S. L.

(2013). A Study of Student Engagement Activities, Discipline Referrals, and Student Achievement in Reading First Schools (Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood.