Classroom Management Is One of the Greatest

¶ … Classroom management is one of the greatest stressors American teachers cite with respect to their jobs.. Teachers feel pressured by the demands of increasingly stringent curriculum standards and results-oriented, high-stakes testing. Many believe they could teach much more effectively if they did not have to deal with so many behavior problems. For these reasons, it is interesting to explore behavior problems from the perspective of Chinese elementary school teachers, who work in an environment Americans perceive as more highly structured and strict.

Researchers surveyed 527 elementary school teachers in five Chinese provinces. Although their perception of time spent on classroom management was lower than reported by teachers in the U.S., 34% compared to more than 50%, Chinese teachers reported frustration with the amount of time wasted in addressing behavior issues (Shen, Zhang, Zhang, Caldarella, Richardson & Shatzer (2009, p. 187). The researchers began by interviewing a small group of teachers to construct a table of the most common types of behavior problems teachers experienced. Behaviors were then sorted into ten categories and included the following: non-attention, laughing at others, over-active, talking out of turn, uncooperative, not following the task, disruptive, non-compliance, emotional disturbance, and withdrawal (Shen et al., p. 192). The researchers surveyed their selected population and tabulated the results, taking into consideration factors about the school -- class size, geographic area, students' grade level and genders, and overall school quality -- as well as factors characterizing the individual teachers, including their years of experience and level of expertise.

The results of the survey indicate Chinese teachers believe non-attention is the most difficult problem to solve and is one with the greatest negative effect on student development. Talking out of turn was considered the second greatest problem in terms of classroom management, although teachers believed it ultimately had limited consequences for student learning. Teachers cited inattention as a difficult problem to solve, although it was not cited as an irritating or troublesome behavior in the same way as talking aloud or laughing at others, two behaviors that teachers believed required immediate intervention.

Cultural differences play an enormous role in perceptions of bad behavior; school culture also makes a difference. Class sizes in China are generally much larger than they are in the U.S., often with fifty students or more. Talking out of turn may be less of an issue because students, as part of their culture, are raised to be quieter and not call attention to themselves. Also, because of the lecture format in most classrooms, it is easier to daydream than it is to call out. Teachers reported fewer problems in the upper grades, particularly with respect to over-active behavior. This is likely attributable to the fact that younger children naturally have more difficulty sitting still. Large classes and lecture format do not work as well with this population, whose members would thrive, as they often do in American schools, with hands-on activities and more teacher-student and peer interactions. By the time these Chinese students transition to the upper grades, they are more indoctrinated into the ways of school and less likely to misbehave in the same ways.