What really happens in the classroom!
More often than not, the Foundations in Education courses teach the new teacher wonderful behavior management plans for their students. Do they work? Yep. But...if the students are made of gold, have no pressures to attend colleges, take advanced courses, compete with each other (re: looks, intelligence, money, friends, etc).
As a first year teacher, I remember yelling quite a lot. At the time, it seemed like the best classroom approach. The more the kids' din of spoken word would rise, the louder my voice got.
Now, with 16 years in, there's nothing wrong with yelling except when you don't have a voice to raise. I have found, through the years, that raising your voice isn't half as effective as the use of the "look". And silence? Oh boy, silence and the "look" are lethal combinations. The kids are left wondering, "is she gonna blow?", "who got in trouble?", "what did we do wrong?". And they turn on each other too. "Shut up, she's really mad." "Be quiet or we are gonna pay for it". And all because I don't raise my voice.
Call it a lesson learned. Call it manipulation. Call it what you want. It works. And I find that I can actually speak at the end of a day and I don't need to take any excedrin for a headache from the swollen blood vessels feeding my head and larynx.
I walk the halls and I hear the new teachers, yelling to get the attention of their students. If only they knew.
I am hoping some pointers, in the future, will help them reach the goal of being the most effective teacher.