School Culture Recharged by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4811347
Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Clip Up, Clip Down: A Classroom Management Strategy

There have always been and will always be a plethora of classroom management strategies. Assertive discipline, Class Dojo, red-yellow-green, students' names on the board, and multiple versions of each of these will regularly fade in and out of education. Heck, if they all work, then do all of them at the same time! But always remember, programs are never the problem and programs are never the solution. Any weak teacher can make a potentially good program look bad.

One popular approach to classroom management in many elementary classrooms is clip up, clip down. If a student misbehaves, the teacher moves a clip with the student's name down on a board, and if the student behaves appropriately, the clip is moved up. We find it interesting that some outstanding teachers use this approach, and so do some who are not so outstanding. If a teacher regularly engages students so that behavior-related disruptions are minimal and she resolves such occasional disruptions with a calm downward movement of the clip, we have great faith that the approach will work masterfully for that teacher.

Why do we mention this approach? Because it is an example of how something can be misinterpreted and misused. If a principal observes teachers successfully using clip up, clip down, he may think the reason the teachers are effective is because they use this approach. He may even mandate it for all the teachers in the school, or at least require it for all new faculty members.

If a teacher does not start the class in a professional and appropriate manner and then tries to use clip down as a threat, we have great faith the approach will not work. The teacher will be so busy moving clips there will not be much time to do anything else. Then the principal may find out about this issue (a weak teacher struggling with a new approach) and outlaw the use of clip up, clip down. The same thing happens with the next strategy, and the next, and so on.

Rather than individually addressing teachers who are struggling or ineffective, it is much easier to mandate or eliminate ideas, depending on how they are used by ineffective teachers. How often do principals, districts, or even entire states issue new rules or mandates because someone, somewhere, handled something unprofessionally or incorrectly? Have you ever had to complete an incredibly complicated form just to order a new stapler? The form is probably the result of someone, somewhere, at some time misusing funds—or even worse, someone hearing that someone, somewhere, at some time had misused funds. Thus we all suffer the consequences of ineffective leadership. Rather than deal with one person's transgression, a new process is put in place that everyone is now required to follow—and the person who caused it probably isn't going to follow it in any case!

In some schools, this is how things are done, and nobody thinks it is weird. The new teachers may look around in disbelief for a few moments, but they soon learn to be quiet and go with the flow.

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