A teacher’s primary responsibility is to take charge and manage the classroom and display a great degree of instructional leadership and gain the respect of her students. A teacher who refuses to do this is apparently not a good choice for students who want to achieve and parents who want the best for their children.

Chaos

Without proper instructional leadership in a classroom, confusion and chaos will most likely be the norm for the entire school year. Teachers who just place books in front of students and expect them to do UN-discussed textbook assignments cannot possibly care about the education of their students. In order for a student to learn effectively, a teacher must provide direction and meaning regarding the subject. Otherwise, mental chaos and confusion will manifest. Teachers who refuse to lead their students are abusing the possibilities of the next generation.

Parental Trust

Teachers must take charge of the educational situation in their classroom in order to maintain the parental trust. The public (including parents and community) expect teachers to equip their children with a quality education. Teachers who are indifferent and don’t adequately prepare lesson plans for students don’t really care about what others think of them. Many do just enough to get by and receive another paycheck. Some give up on challenging students long before the semester ends.

Knowledgeable

The most significant reason a teacher must take charge of the classroom is that she is the only one knowledgeable enough (not the students) to meet the educational requirements and standards set forth by the school board. Knowledgeable teachers are able to research and interpret new trends in education and translate this knowledge to her students. However, to go this far, a teacher must be dedicated to the progress of her students. Bad teachers do not have this commitment.

Growing Insubordination

When students get a sense that teachers are unwilling to provide instructional direction in the classroom, insubordination will be the result. Many will simply stop listening to such a teacher. The Students will not respect a teacher who refuses to respect their need for a quality education. Lazy teachers will soon find themselves out of a job soon. Students, as well as parents, will most likely protest a teacher’s lack of competence who doesn’t deliver a quality education to her students.

The Bottom Line

Students and parents must be aware of such teachers. A good idea for parents is to visit the classroom often to observe the strategies and tactics used by the teacher. Weak strategies involve little or no engagement with the students. Student and teacher engagement must be a high priority for effective learning to take place.

Passionate, knowledgeable, motivational and organized teachers thrive in the educational field because they understand the critical responsibility of instilling in the next generation a sense of excellence. These are the teachers that parents and student should pursue.

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Learning and Development

Competency-based reading skills can be acquired through various educational avenues such as apprenticeship, on the job experience, training, and development, as well as self-improvement programs. Training usually involves the use of visual and audio techniques along with the printed materials of your profession or area of study.

The employee or student needs to know the vocabulary, word-sentence relationships, text types, structure, and content of a chosen field of study.  Understanding Section headings, diagrams, and photo captions are indeed necessary for measuring reading competency in your career.

Competency Types

Mastering competency based reading skills involve recognizing and applying the different type’s competencies.
For prose competency, you must be able to recognize and understand written prose in order to research, interpret, and use instructions.
For document competency, you should have a good understanding of how to read and analyze documents such as maps, guidelines, menus, schedules, and brochures.
For quantitative competency, you must know how to read, understand, and compute quantitative data that is required on the job or in your major. No matter what profession you are studying mastering competencies based reading skills is a must for excellence in most professions.

Rewards of Mastery

When you have acquired the necessary competency based reading skills needed to master the high standards of your profession, you are absolutely ready to excel. This means that if you are an accountant you possess a good knowledge of what it takes to be one of the best accountants. If you are an engineer, you will be ready to be the head engineer. If you are a science teacher, you are ready to be the top science teaching in your school.  Mastery of competency based reading skills is a reward in itself.

Your performance proves you worth time and time again. If you are a student majoring in chemistry, you will be able to identify and understand the formulas, theories, and diagrams to establish yourself as an excellent student of chemistry. You may even have the potential to stumble upon a great scientific discovery.

Determination

You must mentally desire to excel in competency-based reading skills in order to perform adequately in your profession. Don’t expect anyone to push you forward. It all comes down to attitude. You should be motivated and committed to being the best you can be.

 Opportunity for Promotion

Without competency based reading skills, many of us will always remain a few steps from the unemployment line. For this reason, we should seek to improve our reading skills to the utmost. A competency-based reader will most definitely have the greatest opportunity for promotion in his or her profession than those who don’t

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However, a successful solution involves bringing the knowledge and experience of the whole village or community to bare upon the problems of discipline.

Discipline

Effective discipline is highly instrumental to the success of the  classroom. There are several reasons. First, an undisciplined classroom interferes with the learning of  students. In the classroom there are students who are committed to learning. Instead of disrupting the classroom they would rather acquire knowledge about history, science, and the social-economics of a changing world. Teachers must not allow these students to become frustrated and lose hope in the classroom or the value of attending school.

The Force of Disruption

Second, an undisciplined classroom disrupts lesson presentations and knowledge deliveries essential to a successful learning environment. When teachers have to hesitate in the beginning or stop in the middle of a lesson to redirect a student, the focus of the classroom is thrown off course and must be regained. This activity wasted time and energy and eventually lead to exhaustion.

Consequences of Poor Teaching

Teachers may find it hard to continue with the same momentum and excitement as in the beginning. As a result, the whole classroom is cheated out of quality teaching and learning.
Third, a school filled with undisciplined classrooms develops a bad reputation. Parents often pull the good students out of chaotic learning environments. As the result, the enrollment of new students dramatically decreases. Eventually, if the school doesn’t improve and continually loses students, the district may think about shutting it down.

Old Way

The old ways of discipline such as isolation, suspension, humiliation, extra work and withdrawing privileges must be changed, according to Kohn’s book, Beyond Discipline. These reactive activities do very little in curving discipline and actually creates more aggression in some students.

New Way

The new ways of discipline must involve all participants relevant to the student’s education, including teachers, parents and communities. Students must be convinced that they are valuable and instrumental to the future and growth of the country.

Recommendations: The Players

Schools

Schools with excessive classroom discipline problems must create a collaboration team consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, students and community representatives. Together this team must brainstorm ideas, using a variety of experiences and knowledge, and produce a package of extraordinary teaching practices that can excite and capture the student’s imagination.

Students

In an effort to reduce discipline problems, student involvement must be a priority. The choices of students must be maximized in order for them to feel they have a hand in shaping their future. The classroom must be an environment where caring, sharing, deciding, planning, and reflecting must be the order the day. The greater show of support for excellent behavior and achievement from all sides, the greater the chances for positively reversing the reputation of a troubled school.

Administration

Administrators must be dedicated to providing the best teacher training and practices. Teachers must be committed to the progress of all students, willing to encourage the academic growth of the most unreachable students.

Parents

Parents must be committed to showing an uncompromising care for the academic and psychological success of their children throughout grade school, and beyond. Students must be motivated and enthused about their academic achievement and take full responsibility for their future. Community representatives must communicate the great leadership and entrepreneur opportunities that await students who value education and achievement.

Conclusion

A well- disciplined school or classroom presents a safe learning environment where children can thrive in the joy of learning and where academic achievement is the focus of everyday. Whether teachers call it a village or a community, educating today’s students will take the whole team.

Kohn, Alfa, Beyond Discipline: from compliance to community (1996/2006)

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