The Problem Class (1973)

have you ever had a nightmare when you were a teacher in a classroom that you couldn't control where nothing you did worked where the kids were out of order and you didn't know what to do about it and you couldn't do anything about it every teacher's had that feeling at times and often just before school starts a teacher has that kind of a nightmare and wakes up exhausted and discouraged while you may think about it at different times there always certain things that happen in that dream first of all kids aren't listening they're talking and they're out of order they may be singing or dancing or even rolling on the floor secondly they're not doing their work they're not even trying or attempting you're always relieved to wake up and come to the real world but sometimes in some classrooms the real world is that way reality turns into a nightmare when children aren't ready to learn and that classroom isn't under contr control we're going to show you such a classroom where in spite of what the teacher's doing things aren't working now it's not that way all day long there are parts of the day that are just fine but too much of the day goes to unproductive disorderly behavior and an exhausted teacher and unhappy children go home after school now not only aren't these children learning but they're having a difficult time developing a good self-concept a self-concept is based on a feeling of confidence and when you don't learn you're not feeling confident and self-concept is based on a feeling of selfworth and when you're not acting well and when the teacher is having to scold and be cross you just don't feel worthy let's take a look at such a [Music] classroom that's not [Music] after [Music] [Music] lunch hang let's make our little taller even though that's perfect that [Music] Capal I can sing I got you like not right now we're doing handwriting you don't have to stand up again just stop talking young man you better sit down we lost another a minute ladies you better sit [Music] down Felicia I'm asking for the last time Anthony we're waiting for you to sit down right we waiting now for Dawn all right Kevin will you get the ball I'm waiting for Don and Anthony [Applause] [Music] stop put him away sit down SP get in the room everybody we got to do it over again all boys and girls go sit down right now every one of you we are going to go sit down right now we are all going to go sit down right now [Music] be quiet y' what do you do with the class that is in Disorder so much of the time too often a teacher's given such generalizations as make the class more interesting give the the children more choices be more strict while that's all very well and good it doesn't tell her what to do tomorrow morning so we decided to come down from our Ivory towered Theory and put one of our lab school teachers in that classroom to translate the theory into practice we had no right to expect a teacher to do something that we couldn't bring off ourselves so we put one of our teachers in that classroom he was scared to death he was a competent teacher he was a good teacher educator but never before had he taken over a classroom where since September those children had been practicing this kind of behavior and already it was March we proceeded on two assumptions one that if you expect children to do learning tasks they must have the skills to do them and so his job was to teach them those skills so they'd be able to complete their work and feel competent as a result of it the second assumption was that we were going to accentuate the positive he was going to use positive reinforcement and he was going to pay attention to things that were going well do something about a child who was finishing who was behaving rather than only doing something about a child who wasn't he was going to use social reinforcers of words from the teacher notes to parents phone calls to parents even sending the child to the principal with a good note which was a real about face for them extra privileges dismissal a few minutes early all of these things were going to happen when children were doing the right thing now when they weren't doing the right thing he was going to try to ignore them to use the principle of Extinction and not make a big deal out of something that wasn't that important but when he couldn't ignore it when he needed to do something about it then he was going to use the principles of negative reinforcement and for negative reinforcers he might keep a person in to finish his work he might occasionally he only sent three but occasionally send a child to the principal or if he called a parent he was sure to always follow up that call with productive words to say what the child was doing well now those first days were awful the very first day was a real nightmare for him I saw him at the end of the day and he looked like he'd been hit by a locomotive the second day he spent all of his time stopping fights getting children in their seats they didn't mind him they didn't like him the third day began to be a little bit better where he was trying to get children to do work and we're going to show you what it looked like the fourth day was far from perfect he was still having trouble but things were beginning to work let's look at it those people that really did a good job all day yesterday I gave them a note saying something about how how well they had done and I also made a chart and so for yesterday those people who got notes have got uh Little Red Star by their name I'm going to start a list there were people who came in right on time and started right in with a book or working on their folder without needing any help from me and they were on time and so this is the start of the list of people will be on the honor Ro for today some people who aren't on here yet may still get on here as I see they're really working well some people that are on here now may not be by the end of the [Music] day 11 [Music] 123 f e e [Music] no great you're really working hard you're done a nice job okay that's good word that's good [Music] s start at the top of the [Music] page start let him start at the top of the page Neville [Music] the [Music] St what is that for Mark same for you you only go out if you get it finished boys and [Music] girls gra come on look up here Dina [Music] I'm uh going to give you some directions about PE if you're ready I can give them to you sit up and look doie we're not going to have time for PE if we don't uh don't get ready real quick James I'm going to ask everybody to put their put their things on their table stand behind your chair and I'll you [Music] right everybody sit [Music] down long you going to stay's one over here [Music] you cut up up all right well everybody please stand behind their chairs girls will you go ahead and line up please people [Music] go materials down they're sitting up then we'll get ready for PE [Music] okay thank [Music] you [Applause] what oh really Al are you finished yet no as you can see this teacher with all his skill is still having trouble in fact the children are having almost as much trouble getting ready for physical education as they ever have but now they're beginning to live in a predictable world they know what's expected of them they know how to do it and they know they're going to get rewards of being praised being on the honor rooll and so forth when they do it they know they're going to be held accountable have to stay in and finish if they don't do it but it's a very very difficult job these kinds of changes just don't happen overnight this teacher continued to work with this class work hard to get them to work with him to get them to begin to do some of the things that would make them feel competent make them feel worthy make them feel respected he continued to phone parents and let them know when their children were doing well in fact one parent that he phoned said it's the first time I've ever heard anything nice about my girl he continued to do all the things that were necessary to to try to help this class get itself together so that they could be a group of happy competent Learners he worked hard for the next two weeks and it was beginning to change but it still wasn't perfect we'll see how the work can now begin to get more difficult because the children know how to do it we can see that more freedom can be given in the classroom children can get up and sharpen their pencil children can go get a piece of paper because they still are able to control themselves while they're doing it but the teacher still can't relax and have fun with the children all the time he's working his eyes are moving like a radar screen to be sure that everything is going to stay in order and we can proceed with a good day of schooling let's look at what's going on two weeks later in this classroom [Music] [Music] there people the circle people are doing a beautiful job this morning getting ready to go after a weekend of being away fromo [Music] and don't spil James you're doing a good job Monica put your book away please okay this morning I'm going to give you a little bit harder language assignment [Applause] because these are all going to be sentences that need to have a comma in them but I haven't written all the words before we get to the comma and Kathy if you need to move around where you can see that's okay in the first one I wrote all the words you you need up to the comma if I had a horse and then you put the comma in and finish the sentence on this next one I didn't finish all the words to the comma after I oh oh I'll give you a chance to come up with some ideas after I then don't forget your comma and then finish it up now that's going to make it harder let's see if we can get some examples raise your hand without saying anything and I'll call on some people to say what would you put just to the comma not finishing the whole thing but just to the comma right okay now you got to you got to do this one over again then too because of the same thing right that one is that one is yeah you're off to a good start right you those two right let's see that one is right um that one's right great you're on the people in March group you're going to have about three four more minutes to work and then I'm going to call you up for just a short short time in circle oh an addition equation add [Music] you should have that down [Music] next and then you [Music] have no how many sets are [Music] three set of 10 I mean four 12 that's right now do the same thing for number two with four bags with two of each one if I take if I take a rub rubber band off and put these down here as loose sticks please leave the curtains alone show me how many tens I have how many bundles of 10 and how many loose ones there should be you just cross out and mark up that one number you already wrote down there are still 34 sticks but I've changed it so it looks different I want you to change it on your paper so it looks different how many how many bundles of 10 do I have now don't don't erase it you're going to cross it out okay look up here before you had three you had three bundles of 10 get your paper and you had four loose ones now how many bundles of 10 are there two all right [Music] Dan do you need some paper James you need paper okay here we go yeah that's right exactly right okay I'm going to give you some more of these tomorrow and we're going to do them real fast you may give me your papers go back and finish up back Kevin you've really been working hard don't tell me about it I'll watch and I'll see it Ren you've been doing a great job Felicia Felicia are you finished completely done okay all right yeah you can go ahead and make a choice Cara you were doing a good [Music] [Music] job if you're going to run on down then I'll have to keep you in wait a minute but when PE is when recess is over I want you to be one of the first ones back in here okay I'm ready to go to work okay you're not quite finished are you if I [Music] were that's right you can stop there put your date on here and then put them away you can go out at the end of three weeks this was quite a different class the whole day wasn't perfect there were still rough moments but by and large things were going very well and children were happy at the very first they resented this strict man with the stern face with his checklist that kept them accountable for everything they were doing now they were beginning to feel so proud of themselves and he now could relax and laugh and joke with him so at the end of 3 weeks rather than resenting him and wishing they had their old teacher back they gave him a party as one of the nicest teachers they'd ever had now while he was working in this classroom the children's teacher was over at our lab school learning those same techniques of how to use positive reinforcement how to ignore things that were too important how to use negative reinforcement productively and not be demeaning to a child when it happened and now we were faced with a problem of phasing her back into that classroom At first she observed and then gradually the class was turned back over to her while the man teacher monitored in the back of the room to see that things went well and the children had a very smooth transition from one teacher to another where now their own teacher was using those S very same techniques of an honor rooll of you did very well of asking children to think let's look and see how that fourth week looked during the transition and one more good you corrected yourself you had the correct answer but I want to go step by step James there are people that still [Music] all right let's see Neville may go be quiet James may go be quiet how you I think you better stay here okay Kevin may go if he's go now will you girls move up take the folder back there gentlemen you need to take your chair my you were late getting up here okay where do we have to [Music] go where do I have to go if I can't take five and four okay what do I have to do okay now what's one from [Music] one all righty now what's one from two oh that's what's that number you took away how you get that good very good job now we have a classroom where boys and girls are in charge of themselves most of the time where their own teacher is back using the techniques that she's learned where she now has time to work with groups of children and will be ready to take over by herself because she no longer needs the other teacher some of you check the honorable see I added a few more stars this morning and I told who is it Kevin everything isn't just perfect but now when work is finished there's time for fun time for Teacher to enjoy children time for them to display their talents to dance their way out of a classroom that now they're not anxious to leave [Music] throwing me [Music] way you [Music] Tracy all right [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] everybody knows Dan your way out [Music] the good pretty good job goodbye goodbye pretty good today the day this is something I think that they need to have I think it makes School fun to have some things that you like to do you know but I think you have to earn the right to do them and I think they have to improve in their behavior to get a lot more of it I don't allow too much of it that's for sure but they it shows that they have talent you know they have rhythm they've got musical ability that they never show up in the music session of the formalism so uh but it's just fun it's fun to let them let their hair down it's like having a game when they're out there having fun to play we learned a lot from being in this classroom we learned there's nothing more productive than good Theory but nothing is sterile until it's put into practice we learned that when children are taught how to do tasks and then expected to do them they feel confident we learned that when they received social reinforcers they felt worthy they felt respected and their whole school day was better we didn't solve all the problems of education but there were a lot more today that were good guys