School Behavioral Analysis

The school that I observed was an elementary school in Whitewater,

Wisconsin called Lakeview Elementary. At Lakeview they have children from
4k up to fifth grade. There is one 4k classroom, two kindergarten classrooms,
one first grade classroom, there is one combined classroom of 2nd and 3rd
graders, and three combined classrooms of 4th and 5th graders. The day that I
went, I got to observe the two kindergarten classrooms, along with two of the
4th and 5th grade classrooms. In each of the classrooms that I went into there
were the school wide rules posted which are be safe, be respectful, be
cooperative and be responsible. The school even had them posted in the
hallways. Another things that was almost a school wide behavioral program
was a clip system. Which was only used in kindergarten through 3rd grade.
The clip system was a board on the wall that had different levels on it. The
levels are listed from bottom to top as; parent contact, teachers choice, think
about it, ready to learn, good day, great job, and outstanding. I noticed that
the clips system had really worked, that the students really liked moving up
in the board and they also would get very hurt when they had to move down.
The students can have the chance the move up when the teacher catches
them doing something nice or helping out another student. This was the only
behavioral program that was used school wide. The next thing I got to
observe was the lunch room and recess.

First, all the children line up for lunch. The first, second and third
graders are the first ones into the lunch room. They are asked to stand
against the wall in line, and wait to get there food. At this point they were
starting to get noisy, so one of the lunch room supervisors came over and
asked them to please keep it down. The students each had to take at least
two pieces of fruit, two servings of vegetables, and a meat. The students are
told to quickly find a seat at a table. Once they choose a spot to sit at they
have to stay there. Then at a certain time there is a purple bag off of the wall
and then the students know that its time for recess. So, it shows that they
are ready to go outside the students raise their hands and the supervisors
come around and let the children go if they have eaten enough of their
lunch. Then the children go off to recess.
As the children are going off to recess, they have to make sure to grab
their recess card if they want to use any outside toys such as: shovels, jump
ropes, and footballs. The students are outside with one other supervisor for
the first 20 minutes and then the other supervisors come out. The students
were well behaved for most of recess. But there was an exception to this and
when a child misbehaves there are dots that the student has to sit for as
long as the supervisor thinks fit for the misbehaviors. Which is normally
around five minutes. So when the recess is over the students are whistled in
at different times for the different grades. But when the students are in line
to go inside they were very noisy and it took the students about five minutes
to quiet down to go inside.
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Upon entering the classroom, the first classroom that I went into was a
kindergarten classroom. In the classroom the teacher has four rules posted
at the front of the classroom and when I asked about the rules the teacher
said that at the beginning of the year she said that the classroom would go
over the rules almost every day until they knew what the rule was. This is
something that I can relate to the university 475 class because we talked
about going over the rules and making sure that the students knew what
they were and not just springing the rules on the students. I thought this was
a good thing that the teacher did. While observing the classroom, I saw that
the teacher really gave praise to the students that were nicely raising their
hands and answering questions. Also the teacher will ask the students to
raise their hands to answer questions. She also would give the student
incentives, one of them being that if they are good listeners that they will get
a book put into their book box. One the wall was the clip system that is used
school wide. Then next to the clips system was a list of the students jobs for
the day, they change every day. This is also something that we talked about
in class as being a good thing to do because it makes the student feel like
they had a responsibility in the classroom and it made them feel important.
The teacher also assigned a line leader for each day, this also is a good thing
to use in the classroom because it makes them feel like they are in charge.
So, while I was observing there wasnt any misbehaviors that happened, so I
asked the teacher what she would do if there was a misbehavior. She said
that it depends on the misbehavior, but for the most part she would pull
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them to the side and talk to them about their misbehavior. Also, she said that
if the misbehavior could be used as a whole class lesson she would talk to
the whole class about why it is a misbehavior. I didnt really like when she
said this because I felt like that would really make the child that acted up feel
very bad and that would make the child feel ostracized. But when the whole
class is having a bad day, she said she brings out little orange cones that
have encouraging saying on them and when she sees a student behaving
she will put it on their desk. She said that this really works and that when the
other students see that a cone has been placed, that they will all be quiet
and want to have a cone also. She also mentioned that if the whole class is
very well behaved in the hallway she may even give them a whole class clip
up, but she said that doesnt happen often. This is how this teacher handled
her classroom.
The next classroom that I observed was another kindergarten
classroom. Which in this classroom there were really no rules posted for the
whole classroom, there was only small rules posted by the door and one at
the front of the classroom which were: I can line up without talking, I can
raise my hand for permission to speak, and I will look up at the speaker when
they are speaking. I thought this was okay because they are very specific
and not vague. She also had guidelines posed for when they are done with
their writing which was: read my story, add to the picture, and add to the
words, add a new page, or start a new story. She also gives the students
classroom jobs just like the last classroom. When the students were lined up
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to go to the bathroom, she would turn the lights off to get them quiet and get
their focus on her. Once again, there was no misbehaviors in the classroom
at the time of my observation. So I asked the teacher what she would do if a
student misbehaved. She said that she would give the student one warning
to stop what they are doing and then if they do not stop she would make
them clip down. Also, if they are talking while doing independent work she
would simply just move them from the table and place them somewhere
else. Also, while the teacher was teaching, if the students would start to talk
she would just stop what she was saying and just wait for them to stop
talking. While this is how a teacher would handle a kindergarten classroom, it
wasnt much different in the first grade classroom.
In the first grade class I observed, there were no real classroom rules
posted. There was only the school rules that were posted. In this classroom
the main thing that the teacher focused on was the clip system. That was the
main way that she dealt with behavior problem and controlling her room.
While I was in the room observing there were quite a few children that got to
clip up and they were so excited to clip up. But there was also a student that
had to clip down because they were not listening to the teacher and the
student just kept talking while it was supposed to be silent reading time. But
just like I n the kindergarten classrooms they had different jobs that the
students were assigned each week. Which ranged from milk runner, to pencil
sharpener. This is something that the students take a lot of pride in and were
so excited to tell me about. The students also had different things that they
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had to do each morning in order to keep them busy when they get right to
school. Some examples are that they had to move a clothes pin to whether
they were going to have hot lunch or cold lunch. Also they had a journal they
had to write every morning about a different topic. I thought that this was a
good thing because it helped them get into the grove or being in class every
morning. So the kindergarten classrooms and the first grade classrooms are
all ran about the same but the fourth and fifth grade classroom is a little
different.
The third class that I observed was one of the mixed classrooms of
fourth and fifth graders. In this classroom there were rules posted all over
the classroom. There was a main set though that was posted at the side of
the classroom. Which every rule was drawn out on a piece of paper by the
students, so they were clearly rules made up by the students. The rules
were; turn in work on time, play safe, do your best work, follow directions
carefully, be kind, be responsible, dont use put downs, be respectful of
others ideas, do your own work, listen, and respect school property. I thought
that this was too many rules for the classroom, we were told in class that the
limit on rules should be seven. But other than that I think that these rules are
specific enough and that since they made them they take full responsibility
for them. There was something that I really liked that was in the classroom
and that was a list of conflict resolution steps. Which are calm down, talk,
listen, and identify the problem, brainstorm solutions, and agree on a
solution that everyone accepts. Then all the students signed the bottom of
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the poster with the rules on it. I really liked this because it is something to
remind the students that they dont always have to run to the teacher when
there is a conflict between two of them. Also why I was observing it was work
time, so the teacher would kindly remind them to stay on task and that they
had a lot to do. But, she would also walk around the classroom and sit with a
few of the students and engage with them about the book that the student
was reading. The students seemed to really like that and would get excited
to tell her about the book they were reading, there was even a couple
students that came up to her and wanted to tell her about their book.
So from my observations at Lakeview, I have learned that each grade
level has to have it own fine-tuned set of rules that will work for that class.
Also that the class needs to have a set of actual rules in order to function
properly. Also I have seen about the same kind or teacher in every
classroom. Which is a teacher that has a set of rules and makes sure that
they know what will happen if they step over the limits. Besides just doing
the observations I feel that I have really learned a lot from the class and
going to the observations has really shown me what a good teacher is.