I am a kindergarten teacher working at the Early Birds Kindergarten, Nursery and Childcare Centre. This kindergarten provides children with the highest quality of care and education to focus on their personal development and offer a well-balanced curriculum to meet their needs. It provides service for children aged 2 to 6 from different background and ethnicity. There is a large garden surrounded by lush greenery, providing children with a spacious environments to promote their gross and fine motor skills. Environmental cleanliness and personal hygiene have been focus to ensure the healthy growth of children. Because we want to shape an all-rounded children, we not only focus on their learning, but also provide children with additional courses to help them open up their minds, such as robotics, music and art classes. Therefore, the quality of equipment and facilities and quality of teachers provide a good learning environment for the children.
To create a productive classroom environments, effective classroom management and clear discipline planning are critical. Classroom discipline is the actions that teacher undertakes to help establish classroom order and end indiscipline behavior by training children to comply with certain set of rules (Lopes & Oliveira, 2017). I believe that positive guidelines and procedures can establish clear expectations and prevent children misconduct. The purposes for which I will use discipline is because I want to teach children to be self-disciplined. Rules and limits are set to let children know what they should and should not behave to help them learn values and shape their character. Developing self-discipline can provide an experience for children to discover the world around them, express their feelings, and develop their own ideas (Tarman, 2016). Therefore, the purpose of using discipline is to help children develop self-control and exhibit acceptable behavior. My main duties is teaching children follow classroom guidelines and procedures to help them become responsible learners. I will explain that guidelines and procedures are to establish boundaries and maintain classroom in an orderly manner, not for punishment and control. However, kindergarten student main duties is to follow classroom expectations and rules. When teachers is teaching, students should pay attention to the teacher without interfere others learning. Thus, student’s duties is to focus and participate and learn.
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An effective discipline system contains some necessary components to manage student’s behavior. Teachers and students must maintain mutual respect. When I respect students, I will also experience reciprocal respect from them. To change students into appropriate behaviour, I will choose specific behaviours to focus on until the desired behaviour is achieved then only focus on other inappropriate behaviours. It can help to control a class to achieve desirable behaviours and guide students to behave in an appropriate manner (Onderi & Odera, 2012). When student misbehave, I will give them a chance to explain why they behave in that way and listen carefully what they say to understand the reasons behind the behaviour, instead of blaming and scolding unreasonably. Positive reinforcement is also an integral part of an effective discipline system that encourages students to learn and motivate them to develop good behavioural habits. Based on Skinner’s operant conditioning theory (1953), positive reinforcement is a form of praise and reward that reinforce good behaviour from occurring again. I will praise student when they perform well in class, and it will become the goal of another students, which make them more willingness to exhibit positive behaviour. The purpose of each component is to teach student’s responsible behaviours and self-control.
I am playing an important role in helping students succeed in the classroom. The professional and ethical demeanor I display will show I take my responsibilities seriously. If I failing to act professionally, it may cause me to lose the trust and respect of students. Thus, I have to make sure my appearance is neat and clean. I should wear appropriate clothing and skirts for the classroom. Also, I should not be using foul language or acting inappropriately in front of the students because they can learn and imitate by observing my behavior. I will treat my students and colleagues fairly and honestly. Not only that, but I also avoid saying or doing things that hurt other’s feelings, because this may reduce their desire to learn and cooperate. Moreover, I will establish positive relationship and build trust with students, colleagues, and student’s caregivers. Consistent with my words is important to win the trust of students. What I say to the students should be consistent, if not, then my words are worthless and they will no longer trust me. I will never humiliate children when correcting their misbehavior, but use direct instruction to teach them how to behave properly. When working with colleagues, I will spend time to get to know them and seek common interest so that both of us can contribute our strength and skill equally. I will also provide help to my colleagues when necessary. Also, I will communicate with parents about their children in-class performance and discuss the problems together so that we can exchange information to help students improve their learning. Building parent-teacher relationship can make them trust on me, which will have a positive impacts on the child’s education.
Furthermore, I will promote some behavior in classes. I will communicate with children with clear expectations and set appropriate boundaries to make them aware of behavior within and outside of the classroom. Consistent approach can be used for reinforcing positive behavior, which is based on behavior and not the children, giving equal praise and punishment. Luangrath and Hiscock (2011) pointed out that the use of rewards and sanctions must be balanced, praise will be given to children who behave well to motivate and encourage them, while penalties with be given to children with poor behavior. I will create rules based on children’s needs to help them understand how to behave in class. Classroom rules can help to support the desired behaviors, for example, children must prepare supplies and complete homework when they come to school, raise hand before speaking, and treat teacher with respect. To prevent misbehavior influence my class, I should maintain a positive attitude to deal with children who misbehave. I will tell children that I am willing to support them, but I need them to support me in return. I will give clear instruction to teach children how to behave and cooperate with me. I will take actions before children misbehave, but not what I do when student misbehave.
Moreover, learning how to speak with children is a key to build relationship with them. I believe that the word of encouragement after the mistake can help children learn from the mistakes, so I should encourage children more than scolding them. In addition, I will use I-messages to communicate with children because it has less offensive compared to you-messages, which makes them more willing to make suggestions (Darrington & Brower, 2012). To ensure children know what is expected of them, I will use modeling to clarify the procedures and let them practice the routine through rehearsal. Besides, play is an effective way for children to acquire basic knowledge and skills (Colliver & Fleer, 2016). Thus, I will prepare some activity to get children engage in learning activities, such as alphabet playing card, so they can learn through play. When children are doing independent work, I will look at their facial expression to see if they need help. I will use visual instructional plan to provide step-by-step instructions for children so they can do it on their own. Standing close to the children who are not paying attention in class can also help them get back to work. According to Huang and Lin (2014), teacher’s charisma is a key factor to improve the teaching progress, so I will show a sense of humor, because when I integrate humor into teaching, children are more willing to learn. I will also show positive personality traits, such as friendliness and enthusiasm. To improve the quality of children’s work, I will teach children to abide class expectations and procedures. I also monitor children’s productivity and provide ongoing support for their proper behavior in class.
The positive tactics for influencing children is to use non-verbal cues to redirect children when they misbehaves. I make eye contact with misbehaving students to show my commitment to discipline or put my finger on my lips to keep them silence. When children behave properly, they will be provided preferred activity time (PAT), which is the activity they especially enjoy. To prevent children misbehave, omission training is useful for children whose repeatedly ruin PAT for the entire class (Jones, 1987). If the children keep disturbing in class and unwilling to complete assigned work, I will taking away his extra time from the fun activity, but not for the class. However, when the children behave in class, he himself and the class will be rewarded. Thus, omission training can help to stop student undesirable behavior. Small backup responses can help deal with minor misbehavior, such as talking or distracting others, which I will convey low-key messages to children privately; medium backup responses will be used to deal with more disruptive behavior such as disrespect and abusiveness, so I publicly conveyed warnings, reprimands, loss of privileges, and parent conferences; while large backup responses can help with repeated disruptions or other intolerable behavior, which require at least two professionals involvement (teacher and administrator), and include in and out-school suspension and occasionally placement in special classes (Jones, 1987).
I will communicate my discipline plan to children during the first few days of class. Provides children with guidelines, expectations and rules so that they know what I expect of them. Children will receive positive consequence when they behave well, and will receive negative consequences when they misbehave and do not follow the rules. Besides, I will clearly inform my administrator of my discipline plan to seek support on my program work. I will try to handle discipline problem on myself and I only need their help as backup when children violates the rules. In addition, I will also communicate my plan to children’s caregivers. At the parent conference, I will discuss with the caregivers about their children who misbehave in class and what action I will take to deal with this problem, for example, 15- minute detention. I will explain the rules to the caregivers and I am willing listen to their feedback, in order to help change children’s inappropriate behavior into appropriate behavior.
References
- Colliver, Y., & Fleer, M. (2016). ‘I already know what I learned’: young children's perspectives on learning through play. Early Child Development and Care, 186(10), 1559-1570. doi:10.1080/03004430.2015.1111880
- Darrington, J., & Brower, N. (2012). Effective Communication Skills:' I' Messages and Beyond. Families and Communities. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/extension_curall/791/
- Huang, Y. C., & Lin, S. H. (2014). Assessment of charisma as a factor in effective teaching. Educational Technology & Society, 17 (2), 284-295. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/jeductechsoci.17.2.284.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cntents
- Jones, F. (1987). Positive classroom discipline. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Lopes, J., & Oliveira, C. (2017). Classroom discipline: Theory and practice. In J. P. Bakken (Ed.), Classrooms: Academic content and behavior strategy instruction for students with and without disabilities (Vol. 2, pp. 231 -253). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
- Luangrath, A., & Hiscock, H. (2011). Problem behavior in children: An approach for general practice. Australian family physician, 40(9), 678. Retrieved from https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=343121461143639;res=IELHETarman, B. (2016). Discipline or classroom management. Journal of Learning and Teaching in Digital Age, 1(2), 37-44. Retrieved from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/209496/
- Onderi, H. L. N., & Odera, F. L. (2012). Discipline as a tool for effective school management. Internal Research Journal, 3(9), 710-716. Retrieved from http://www.interesjournals.org/ER
- Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York: Macmillan.
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