Sara's View on Contracts

In thinking about contracts in the classroom as something used for classroom management, like many of my classmates have already voiced, I feel that it is a very potent issue. While there are many different learning types as we have found in our readings, every student would respond differently to the demands of a contract. While this is true however, I do not disagree with the use of them.

The way in which I feel that a contract would be effect, is the utilization of this on an individual level between each student and the teacher. In creating a contract interpersonally, I feel that each student would be able to communicate his or her needs, as well as allowing their teacher to point to behaviors, issues or strengths that a student can work on or correct.

While I understand the implications of this sort of activity within the classroom (time consumption, notions of specialized treatments viewed by other students, etc.) I think that the pros outweigh the cons. In creaking individual contracts, the classroom environment that adopts this practice would already have a feeling of acceptance of differences and changes—much like an interdisciplinary classroom. Where I have mentioned before, this sort of classroom fosters the acceptance of differences in the classroom and encourages not only diversity in teaching methods and structures, but also learning and communication. Alternately, a classroom that utilizes one classroom contract for all students would be seen as a more traditional value holding class.

Granted, this is all in theory and not in practice, and perhaps my fellow bloggers could help in fleshing out this idea, but in my opinion it seems like a logical solution for those teachers that require the use of contracts in their classroom in order for their likings in classroom management.