Democratic classroom m anagement – Day one!!! Woohoo!!!Winter MIT 2006: Weaving the Web of DemocracyGoal: Set up quarter. Frame the nature of democratic classroom management. Broaden people’s conception beyond classroom discipline. Use Dewey to introduce the idea that aclassroom that is focused on relevant work (by, with, for) will manage itself, but that the relevant work and support for it depends on the careful preparation of the teacher: that inmy mind is the work of classroom management. Students will: - Brainstorm and adapt their brainstorm of the characteristics of dem. Class. Man.- Use Cohen’s film on status in group work to elaborate schema of characteristics of Democratic Classroom. . - Articulate ways in which their thinking about DCM has grown and what questions still have. Part one: Brainstorm characteristics of democratic classroom management (students involved in decision making, 1. Brainstorm (Think: 5 minutes pair 5 minutes share with another pair 5 minutes)2. My point while we will focus on Friday’s a lot on discipline strategies… know that’s not the whole picture. Throughout the quarter be it in curriculum development, seminar, group work, field, or Friday afternoons, notice all the dimensions that help to purposefully shape contributing to an inclusive learning centered classroom 20 minutesPart two: pulling out principles of democratic classroom management for group work1. For example: What would group work look like when it’s working really well? What does it look like when it isn’t? What does the teacher need to do to help structure, support productive group work and the development of group work skills? (Think pair share – 5 minutes +2 minutes) 2. The video we are about to see examines how status plays out in groups and as a result who has access to learning. Situation (from video handout): “These three boys are working on a task that requires them to rank objects in the order of their importance for a pilgrimage to a shrine in medieval Japan. They have just read a story in which pilgrims were set upon by samurai and attacked with swords.” - Who is the highest status person? Who is the lowest status person?- What specific behaviors lead you to this conclusion?- What might be the consequences of the way status plays out for the high/ low status students? - What could you as a teacher do to proactively address the issues occurring in groups such as this. ( 10 minutes explain and show. think pair share)3. Show whole film. Take notes on:what Cohen says contributes to and causes low status behaviorwhat teachers need to attend to what teachers can do.(30 minutes explain and show)4. Discussion – - What did you learn? - What questions are raised for you? - What does this suggest for your role as teachers in setting up democratic classroom management?(20 minutes: small group 10 minutes report out 10 minutes)5. Reflection: What did you learn to day about democratic classroom management? What question are you left with? (5 minute paper)6. Closure: Dewey quote(5 minutes)Situation as described by Elizabeth Cohen: “These three boys are working on a task that requires them to rank objects in the order of their importance for a pilgrimage to a shrine in medieval Japan. They have just read a story in which pilgrims were set upon by samurai and attacked with swords.” - Who is the highest status person? Who is the lowest status person?- What specific behaviors lead you to this conclusion?- What might be the consequences of the way status plays out for the high/ low status students? - What could you as a teacher do to proactively address the issues occurring in groups such as this.Dewey (1938) on Social Control “…let us note some examples of social control that operate in everyday life, and then look for the principle underlying them. Let us begin with the young people themselves. Children at recess or after school play games, from tag and one-old-cat to baseball and football. The games involve rules, and these rules order their conduct. The games do not go on haphazardly or by a succession of improvisations. Without rules thereis no game” (p52).Principles: ∙ Rules are a part of the game- If someone gets angry about rules, “he is not objecting to arule, but to what he claims is a violation of it, to some one-sided and unfair action” (53).- “Rules are …fairly standardized. There are recognized ways of counting out, of selection of sides, as well as for positions to be taken, movements to be made etc.” (53)“The control of the individual actions is effected by the whole situation in whichindividuals are involved in which they share and of which they are co-operative or interacting parts. In all such cases (cooperative or competitive games) it is not the will or desire of any one person which establishes order but the moving spirit of the whole group. The control is social, but individuals are parts of a community, not outside of it. I do not mean by this that there are no occasions upon which the authority of, say… (teacher) does not have to intervene and exercise fairly direct control. ButI do say that, in the first place, the number of these occasions is slight in comparison with the number of those in which the control is exercised by situations in which all take part. And what is even more important, the authorityin question when exercised in a well-regulated (classroom)… is not a manifestation of merely personal will; … the teacher exercises it as the representative and agent of the interests of the group as a whole…” (54).“…I do not wish to refer to the traditional school in ways which set up a caricature in lieu of a picture. But I think it is fair to say that one reason the personal commands of the teacher so often played an undue role and a reason why the order which existed was so much a matter of sheer obedience to the will of an adult was because the situation almost forced it upon the teacher. The school was not a group or community held together by participation in common activities. Consequently, the normal, proper conditions of control were lacking. Their absence was made up for, and to a considerable extend had to be made up for, by the direct intervention of the teacher, who, as the saying went, “kept order.” He kept it because order was in the teacher’s keeping, instead of residing in the