Should teachers reason with students or should students be expected to comply with all rules and expectations without any reasoning at all?
According to Singapore Education Consultants, the lack of reasoning effectively helps to kill student curiosity. Part of the argument posed is that “making an effort to reason with the students and coming to a common understanding with the students helps students to take responsibility for what happens in the class.”
Every teacher would agree that having students help students, students taking responsibility and common understanding in the classroom are all huge factors that will help with any management plan. Many teachers misunderstand the focus behind reasoning with students, though.
Reasoning with students is not pleading with a student to understand the teacher’s viewpoint, or even trying to convince a student that a particular viewpoint is correct. This type of reasoning will only earn the teacher the reputation of being a push-over and create more out-of-control behavior in the classroom.
Instead, teachers need to use circumstances that come up to teach reasoning skills. When a student gets mad, it is vital that the child learns how to handle that anger in appropriate ways. Simply following the class rules to not hit or throw things is not enough. But then again, nor is following the law enough in the real world. Teachers need to be taking steps to teach students how to handle their emotions in appropriate ways while staying within the confines of the class rules or state laws.
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