When I started my high school teaching career in a working-class community in northern Kentucky, my biggest obstacle was classroom management. At the time, I had high expectations for my students, but a laid back teaching demeanor; I did not want to be a disciplinarian like my male colleagues. Yet the consistent message I received from my students was: “If you write more referrals, we’ll respect you more.” This made no sense to me. After considerable reflection and consultation with principals and peers, I realized I must adapt my approach. I learned on the job how to be sterner, structured , and consistent with my students while retaining my high expectations and semi-laid back approach; but I wished I had been better prepared with those strategies before entering the classroom. With the classroom management strategies I developed in Kentucky, upon returning to New York City (NYC) to teach in a small public high school , I had no problem commanding a class that maintained this balance rooted in high expectations , a caring environment, and incorporating the students’ cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. I articulated this realization to the student teachers I mentored, to my peers who struggled with student behavioral problems, and as social studies department chair, to my colleagues. I realized classroom management was a critical part of teaching, but that it was more than management—it was finding ways to engage students in a structured environment.
I came to this realization on my own and not from my teacher preparation program, where I only received 30 minutes of off-the-cuff instruction on classroom management. But what if I had not figured it out on my own? Like so many other teachers, I likely would have burned out after only a couple of years. Therefore, when I entered teacher education, I worked tirelessly to help my students be prepared for classroom management, despite every student I worked with (from multiple major teacher education programs in NYC) never having any instruction on building and facilitating these skills.
The more I encountered pre-service teachers with no classroom management preparation , the more frustrated I became—and I realized I needed to do something about it. I kept coming back to the same questions: (1) How can we redefine classroom management so educators can understand—and then apply—the multifaceted components of this critical pedagogical skill?; (2) Why are teacher preparation programs on the whole not providing classroom management coursework for their students?; and (3) How would it make a difference if it was introduced? And thus, I came to this book project focused on determining the impact of integrating classroom management coursework into teacher preparation programs.
Defining the Problem
When new teachers enter the classroom for the first time, they must know their content; develop strong curricula; prepare students for school, state, and/or national assessments; and learn how to navigate school and district politics. However, all these skills will be for naught if they are unable to maintain order in their classroom and create a positive learning environment; it does not matter how prepared new teachers are in all the other elements of their teaching—classroom management is indispensable for learning to occur in a classroom.
Studies over multiple decades confirm that classroom management is beginning teachers’ greatest fear (Balli 2011, Dinsmore 2003; Martin 2004; McCarthy and Benally 2003; Reupert and Woodcock 2010; Weiner 2003) and a primary inhibitor to effective instruction and learning (Wang et al. 1993/4). This fear , which follows pre-service teachers into their first years of teaching, frequently leads to destructive power dynamics in the classroom (hooks 2003) and/or beginning teachers burning out and leaving the profession (Allen 2010; LePage et al. 2005; Martin 2004; McCarthy and Benally 2003; Oliver and Reschly 2007).
Pre-service teachers’ fear of classroom management often comes from inadequate training about classroom management in teacher preparation programs (Seibert 2005). Many of these programs claim they teach classroom management skills, but in reality, most do not provide any or adequate training in how to establish productive and positive classroom environments (Oliver and Reschly 2007). This lack of training can be attributed, according to Arum (2003), to teacher preparation programs not acknowledging “that a crisis in the legitimacy of school discipline and related problems in youth socialization are the central issues facing American public schools today” (p. x). Therefore, if teachers hope to address these central issues, they must be prepared and trained to do so.
This chapter begins by exploring four aspects of the relationship between classroom management and teacher preparation programs: (1) the lack of classroom management courses in teacher preparation programs; (2) why classroom management is not taught in teacher preparation programs; (3) why it is important to integrate classroom management coursework into teacher preparation programs; and (4) why it is so challenging to integrate classroom management coursework into teacher preparation programs.
The Lack of Classroom Management Courses in Teacher Preparation Programs1
Many teacher preparation programs across America have consistently neglected to provide their pre-service teachers with adequate training and support in classroom management techniques. Jones (2006) compiled a number of studies to illustrate this point:
Additionally, Stough (2006) found:Results from a survey completed by 900 graduates of fifth-year teacher education programs in California indicated these educators believed their programs should have placed a greater focus on classroom management. … A survey of Florida teachers indicated that 43% of first-year teachers felt they were “minimally prepared” or “not prepared” to manage their classrooms. … A study involving 176 secondary school teachers indicated a vast majority of these teachers felt classroom management was very important, and yet 72% of these teachers were dissatisfied with their preservice preparation in the area of classroom management. Indeed, only 18% of the respondents stated they had learned valuable classroom management skills in their preservice education program, and the majority of these stated they had learned these skills during their student teaching experience. The remainder stated they had learned the skills they needed while on the job. Not surprisingly, 95% of these teachers stated they thought a course in classroom management would be very beneficial to new teachers (p. 888).
Stough (2006) added to these studies by examining the inclusion of classroom management coursework in the 2004 U.S. News and World Report top 50 education schools. She found that 22 of these schools had no course in classroom management while the remaining schools might contain classroom management courses based on the course title (though determining this information was difficult without access to course syllabi).In a 1989 survey, over 80% of 1,388 teachers indicated that their university program did not offer an undergraduate course that focused on classroom management strategies at all. … In addition, in an in-depth examination of 27 teacher preparation programs at the secondary level, they found that only 16% of these programs offered classroom management as a separate course. … Blum (1994) surveyed the 467 existing colleges and universities that were then accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Results received from 266 of these institutions found that, although 51% of these institutions offered a specific course on classroom management and discipline at the undergraduate level, only 43% of preservice teachers at these institutions were required to take such a course … [though] this number should be interpreted with caution, as these are data were reported by the teacher preparation programs themselves (p. 910).
Analysis of the 2012 U.S. News and World Report education school rankings showed the numbers did not improve. By examining the top, middle, and bottom five schools in the rankings, I found that more elementary education programs provided required classroom management courses than secondary education programs. However, even among elementary schools, fewer than half provided such a course. Additionally, Hammerness (2011) and Boyd et al. (2008) studied the inclusion of classroom management courses in teacher preparation programs in New York State—as part of the Teachers Pathways Project with Teacher Policy Research—and found that only 11 of the 26 college recommending programs required coursework in classroom management.
Christofferson and Sullivan (2015) reinforced findings from previous decades with their nationally representative study: “The most common sources of classroom management training were supervised fieldwork...