Collaborating With Different Personality Types

In class last week, we were split into groups, given scenarios of students who misbehave, and had to figure out ways to manage the behaviour of the particular student we were given. My group came up with a lot of very interesting ways of managing the misbehaviours of the particular student we had. Ideas such as tokens for positive reinforcement of positive behaviour, making classroom space comfortable, and raising awareness towards one's individuality came up as we tried to manage misbehaviour with each child having different personality types.

For me, recognizing individuality is very important. Even though I generally don't believe in classifying all my students into their particular personality types, I feel that each individual in a classroom should be free to express their personalities and feel safe to play a role they feel most suits them. Through the group exercise, I realized that misbehaviour can happen from a lot of different reasons. This got me to think about some of the values that I believe should be known in my classroom (hopefully in the near future).

Root of the problem - At times, some children might act out due to their own playfulness, but most of the time, there is probably an overarching reason as to why they are misbehaving. A teacher can punish the child for misbehaving but it probably won't make the problem go away. A professor once told me that even though sometimes it is wise to punish the child for their misbehaviour (because sometimes it is the child that is causing the problem), it is crucial for the teacher to be able to differentiate whether it is the child or the child's behaviour that is causing the problem. Therefore, the teacher should punish the behaviour rather than the child if it is the behaviour that is not being tolerated.

Establishing Trust - I believe that trust is very important because without it, a safe learning environment cannot be established. In order for a child to feel safe at school, they probably need to feel trusting towards the teacher. Also, if it is a misbehaviour that is causing the student to not do well in school and or not getting along with friends, then trust would come in handy. With trust, the teacher can sit the student down and have private talk with the student to figure out the source of the problem and try to fix it before it worsens.

Lorna also emphasized the differences between "hearing" and "learning" and how teachers must learn to listen and teach students the appropriate time to hear and the appropriate time to listen. I think that in order for a classroom to function properly as a good learning environment, both "hearing" and "listening" play a big role. As a teacher, teaching students to listen will help students pick up the important points they must learn in order to be successful. On the contrary, teaching students to hear helps to take some stress off of listening constantly and put a little bit more fun in school (as I am sure every single one of us has been at school before and has needed some time off in class to daydream or take some time to doze off into another dimension)!