Assignment 2: Management /
Transition Techniques
Describe
the classroom discipline/management/transition techniques.
When
we had an intellectual discussion on this issue in the Child Development III
class, I contributed the idea that some transition techniques are not done by
actively asking for a transition, but by stating instructions on how to
transition clearly and slowly enough so the students can understand them. By
using instructions that the students can understand, the students transition
effectively. You don’t ever actually see Mrs. Nelson use the word “transition”
in her classroom, though she still effectively makes transitions.
This is similar to what happens in the kindergarten
room. Mrs. Shapiro never actually uses the word “transition” in her vocabulary,
but she is able to provide instructions that the students can understand to
tell them where they need to go. When it is time for the students to sit in
rows, she tells them, “Come and sit in your seats.” Those “seats” are pieces of
masking tape, taped on the carpet with scotch tape (so the students cannot take
them off the carpet), with their names written on them with a permanent marker,
and a name with an afternoon student as well.
When it is time for the students to sit at their
tables, Mrs. Shapiro tells them, “Go to your tables.” On those tables are
assignments that she has given them that she has often just described during
“row time.”
When it is time to line up for a class (or “special”
as the teachers call them), like art, music, or the library, she says to the
students, “Line up for ___ class,” and then tells the line-leaders to come to
the front of the line. The line-leaders, like the bell ringer, change weekly.
But not all transitioning involves verbal
instruction. One transition in particular is partially nonverbal—the transition
between free time and clean-up time. In Mrs. Nelson’s room and Mrs. Shapiro’s
room, a bell is rung to signal the end of free time. In Mrs. Nelson’s room, Mrs.
Nelson will ring the bell, but in Mrs. Shapiro’s room, a student whose job is
the bell ringer always rings the bell, and this job changes every week. Then,
Mrs. Shapiro tells each student that it is clean-up time, and helps students
who are having problems cleaning up.
So, like the idea I proposed in CD III, transitions
are made by straightforward requests and commands that the students can
understand. However, Mrs. Shapiro sometimes has to go further than state the
command. Sometimes she will need to motion certain students to follow her
instructions who have not followed them, and explain to those students what to
do with hand motions. Because the attention spans of the kindergarteners are
extremely low, sometimes she will have to spend so much time telling a few
students to follow an instruction that this will be enough time to get other
students sidetracked from her initial command. Then Mrs. Shapiro will have to
go and restate the command for them. Mrs. Shapiro often talks about the need
for assistants in her class, and relies on the observing occupational
therapists to help her when she needs it during transitions, and I often will
repeat commands that Mrs. Shapiro has. Interestingly, the attention span seems
to be much less for the kindergartners than for the preschool students that I
work with in Mrs. Nelson’s class.
Of course, there is one requirement to most
transition techniques that would result in the failure of the technique in
question if not met: obedient students. Most of the students are willing to
obey Mrs. Shapiro. One student, Julia, is extremely obedient. But periodically,
there are a few students who do not obey Mrs. Shapiro. When I was in her class,
I would refuse to obey her on a few issues—especially being quiet in the
hallways in line. I never was quiet, and never obeyed her, to the point where
she truly gave up. Ironically, I often have to enforce rules that I myself was
unwilling to follow when I was in their shoes—such as being quiet when in the
hallways!
And that is where discipline comes in. I vividly
remember some of Mrs. Shapiro’s discipline strategies, as a student who was
disciplined myself. She basically kept telling me it was important to have a
“quiet cotton” line in the hallway, and would just be more and more stern and
forceful about it. But no matter how many times she was forceful about it, I
still did not comply until it was time for the Letter Parade. Only then did I
deliberately dressed up as Mr. Quiet in order to be quiet that day, and finally
comply with the request she had given to me for the past year. I have heard an
oft-repeated theory that kindergartners are naturally obedient, and it is
abnormal for kindergartners to be disobedient. This applies to me—as a little
boy with autism, I refused to obey this rule because I just didn’t understand
why it was so important.
However, Mrs. Shapiro will sometimes use basic
punishments as a way of motivating students to follow the rules in the future.
On Day 7, Ken and Peter did not stop playing a game they had started playing
during free time. Because they were unwilling to clean up when asked, and
continued playing, Mrs. Shapiro told them that they would have to stop free
time earlier the next day as punishment. However, Mrs. Shapiro later informed
me that in retrospect, that was a poor discipline solution because that relied
on her remembering to enforce the punishment, which she might not do. Should
she not do it, those students will not learn that lesson.
Later, I was informed that Mrs. Shapiro had remembered to enforce the punishment, and wrote a special note to her in order to make sure that she did.