Classroom Mangement: Teacher Interview

Teacher Interview video

I had the pleasure to interview a true veteran teacher, Mr. Delwyn Essig. He is currently a special education teacher at Argo Community High School and is in his last year before he retires. I have had the pleasure to work for him these last two years and I was glad that he had agreed to help me.

Right off the bat, Mr. Essig explained a bit on his personal philosophy. He said that it is about treating others the way you want to be treated. This golden rule is the basis for his classrooms. Starting on the first day, he tells the students that he will give them the respect they deserve, and that they should reciprocate that respect back onto him and the other teachers. He did say that he has little to few rules in the interview. From my time with him, he does go over the two rules he expects to be followed every day. I will respect and pay attention to you and I expect that you respect me back. The other rules is that when he is talking, students should be listening. These are very similar to the rules for secondary school listed in the Woolfolk book, "Respect and be polite to all people," and “Listen and stay seated while someone else is speaking" (478). These rules, I believe are a great foundation for establishing and maintaining a positive learning environment. By setting these rules early on he lets the students know that there are rules to be followed every day. 

In the interview, Mr. Essig describes himself as "lucky" and "even keel" in his time as a teacher. I believe that his luck is attributed to being an effective classroom manager. According to Woolfolk, "effective managers focus on establishing rules, procedures, and expectations on the first day to students and consistently enforced during the first week of class" (484). By setting the stage from day 1, Mr. Essig's classroom has a set environment. The students know what is expected of them and distractions and disruptive behavior is limited. They know better than to go against the culture set by the teacher.

I talked to Mr. Essig about a few punishments and reinforcement techniques he has used in the past. He explained that when dealing with a student, he prefer to talk to student, privately and calmly. He feels and the Woolfolk text agrees, "Private reprimands are more effective than loud, public reprimands in decreasing disruptive behavior" (261). His approach is to remove the student from the classroom and have them step aside in the hallway. Then, he would talk to them and explain what had happened. This can give the students, and the teacher, some time to calm down. 

As a reinforcer, Mr. Essig does what he calls a Pay Day. Every two weeks, he brings in chips and drinks and the students get to eat them halfway through a Friday period.  Since he teaches a vocational special education class that focuses on employment skills, a lot of the work is hands-on. They do landscaping, build and maintain woods projects, and wash cars. So they have a pay day as their reward for the work they have down. This is a bit a similar to a token reinforcement system and group consequences (264-265). The students are working together, usually in groups, and they complete the unit in that time. As a reward, we teach them about getting pay and earning the right to get their food. There have been times when he has threatened to take away the pay day and that has worked as well. He also talked about giving praise to students for their good behaviors. This he feels is a great way to keep a student motivated and to reinforce those positive behaviors. Woolfolk has a list of behavioral approaches for teachers. One of them being, "praise must be a sincere recognition of a real accomplishment" (275). Since we have concrete projects, both the teacher and the student can see the work done praise can be given sincerely. Also, during a project, criticisms and encouragement can also be given. 

One thing that I really liked was when Mr. Essig said that making a connection to the students is important. Just getting to know them and becoming interested in them is a good way to make a connection with them. With this connection a student can become more interested in school, "warm encouraging relationships with teachers are related to many valuable student outcomes. including higher participation in class, greater critical thinking skills, lower drop-out rates, higher self-esteem, increased motivation, less disruptive behavior, and better attendance" (Woolfolk, 487). The students seem to like Mr. Essig's personality and they enjoy being in that class. He is fair and he treats everyone as fair as possible (or as he said in the interview, he tries to). I believe this is helping the students like school a little bit more. I also believe this is affecting students in their other classes. The behavior and expectations being taught are so that they can use them in the school and the real world.