Mana(gement) from Heaven

Some of the classroom management articles I read are just plain insane. For example, there is a school of thought out there that says _________ graders (insert your personal grade level) will act however you allow them to act.

Pardon me while I ponder my analysis of that assertion. Here it is. I’ve got it: In the immortal words of seventh period, “That’s gay.”

With that line of thinking, every misbehavior, every jack-a-ninny thing a student does instantly becomes the fault of the teacher because the teacher “allows” this type of behavior.

I have never, in a million years, implicitly or explicitly expressed to my students that it is okay or acceptable, for example, to shout at the top of their lungs, while the class is quietly working, “I love coochie!”

Never, ever. Ever.

Yet, somehow, due to my poor classroom management skills, this little bundle of, uh, energy has acted on the uncontrollable desire to express his love for, ahem, “coochie.” I guess it is my fault that I didn’t, at the beginning of the year, properly model how to express one’s innate desires and passions, but I won’t forget to make that part of my “Week One Orientation” next year, right after I hand out my syllabus.

Or how about during an oral reading of “Rip Van Winkle,” Mr. Funny Butt decides to blow a fart that would raise the dead?

Yes, clearly, this is my fault. I must have somehow implied in my facial expression between the words, “Rip” and “twenty years,” that I really meant “rip one to tears.”

Here’s one more. I never, ever allowed little Johnny Rockett to play the “Penis” game during group work either. (Never heard of it? Let’s see who can yell “penis” the loudest without getting caught.)

The idea that students only act the way you allow them to act is ridiculous. What do you think? That I long for them to make jackholes out of themselves so I can call their parents and explain to them why they were farting and screaming “penis-coochie” during class? Not even you would make that phone call.

And it’s not as if it stops when they graduate and grow older. In the real world, we don’t allow people to do jack-a-ninny things, yet I still see people doing things all the time that make my little bundles of learning look like saints.

Hey world: Stop allowing things like Enron, 9/11, and Pee Wee Herman to happen. You have terrible classroom management.