Adam Hayes Adolescents Paper 1

Adolescents paper

Adam Hayes

MUSE 353

Kevin Gerrity
Adam Hayes Adolescents Paper 2

Classroom Management

Classroom management is something that will always prove to be a challenge when

working with adolescents. These students are at a pivotal point in their lives, so having

classroom management strategies that are advantageous to creating a favorable learning

environment is incredibly important. Through this writing I hope to share some of the causes of

common classroom management issues, as well as provide some specific teaching strategies that

can be employed to help combat them.

An important thing to know, in regard to behavioral issues, is that not all issues one will

experience in class are going to be due to things that we as educators have control over. One

factor that commonly influences students is their home life. Its makes sense that a student who

comes from a loving, and supporting family is more likely to exhibit those same traits in class. In

recognizing this, though, who also have to recognize that the opposite is true. A student who

comes from a less supportive home is also often going to model their behavior after what they

have experienced in their home life (Amato, 1990). Its not always something as biting as a

students home life that can affect them negatively, though. It is not uncommon for it to be

something minor like them being genuinely tired, or that they just have a lot going on in other

classes. Overall, a students behavior is influenced by many things that are out of our control.

This leads us to how you should respond when a student acts out in class. Your response

should take into account not only what went on in your class, but also the big picture. For

example, if you have an otherwise good student that occasionally sleeps in class, it might not be

because they just dont like your class. It could easily be because they had a rehearsal/practice

the night before that caused them to be up late doing homework. The sleeping obviously still
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needs to be addressed, but your response should differ to that which you would have given to a

student who sleeps every day because they just dont care.

Classroom management practices also come into play in the ways in which you find out

this background information. The easiest way you can go about finding some of it out is by

simply talking to your students. Something as simple as being at the door and starting a dialog

with your students as they come in can open up a countless number of other opportunities for

discussion later on, which can help you learn even more. Having your class set up such that there

is a healthy amount of discussion can help as well. Although the intent of these discussion will

generally not be to learn about your students, you can still learn a lot. If you, for example, were

discussing with your students what music genres they like best, its important to take note of not

just what music genres they liked, but who liked them. Using strategies like this will go a long

way to helping you learn about your students, allowing you make classroom decisions

accordingly.

Something that can go a long way to helping you be a successful teacher is using

classroom management strategies that set you up for success. These strategies can help you to

solve problems before they happen, as opposed to after. A good place to start with this is having

clear expectations for your students, with deliberate consequences (NAfME, 2017). If they know

what is expected of them, and what the consequences would be, they will be less likely to act

out. Giving clear, unambiguous directions can go a long way as well (NAfME, 2012). Confusion

on what they are supposed to do can often lead students to misbehavior. Some specific strategies

are also prevalent in the different areas of music education. In a general music class where you

are bucket drumming, for example, having your students put their drumsticks on the ground

anytime they arent playing can greatly reduce the amount of shushing you have to do over the
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course of a lesson. In an ensemble class you can do something similar, but in different way. If a

student is playing their instrument during instruction, you can set the precedent that they will

have to stand up and play the most technical excerpt from whatever piece you are working on.

This isnt a perfect strategy because it does take up class time, but its also an excellent

opportunity to assess that student. So, there is some give and take. Preemptive strategies like

these can be found for the majority of disciplinary issues, and when implemented properly they

can greatly impact the flow of your class in a positive way.

One of, if not the most important things we can do to help make our classes run smoothly

is making sure that our students actually want to be in there. This doesnt mean that you have to

help each and every student develop an inextinguishable passion for music, but rather you just

have to keep them engaged. As Gerber says, it is rarely the music per se that adolescents find so

boring, but rather the way in which it is presented (Gerber, 1992). So, for whatever musical

concept you are presenting, they will get more out of it if you present it in a manner that they

will be more receptive to. A good example of this can be found in the choices of songs we

choose to use in class. There are many excellent pieces that the great composers of history have

given us, but these often will not be the best choice in, for example, a general music class where

you want to show an example of a concept. Instead, using a popular song, that the students know,

to demonstrate the same thing will have a much greater appeal to them. If implemented properly,

student engagement will be much higher, and situations like with Eric in Linda Perlsteins book

Not Much Just Chillin when he says, Im just not interested, and when Im not interested, I

dont do the work will be much lower (Perlstein, 2004).

In the end, there are many different classroom management strategies that we can use to

help create an environment that is more conducive to learning. As detailed above, many of them
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come down to simply listening to your students. So, if nothing else, listen to what your students

say, and try to make things better for them in whatever way you can. It could be something as

simple as dimming the lights a little because they are just too bright, to completely changing

what activities you have planned because they dont resonate well with your students. Regardless

of what it is, though, every small change that you make to your classroom will (may take some

trial and error) help your students in some way, and thus make your class more successful

overall.
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References

Amato, P. R. (1990). Dimensions of the family environment as perceived by children: A

multidimensional scaling analysis. Journal of Marriage And The Family, 52(3), 613-620.

doi:10.2307/352928

Gerber, Timothy. Meeting the Challenge of Middle School Teaching. Music Educators

Journal, Feb. 1992, pp. 3741.

Perlstein, Linda. Not Much, Just Chillin: the hidden lives of middle schoolers. Farrar, Straus and

Giroux, 2004.

Six Music Classroom Management Strategies. (2017, April 20). Retrieved November 28, 2017,

from https://nafme.org/six-music-classroom-management-strategies/

Teaching Students with Behavior Problems. (2012, August 13). Retrieved November 28, 2017,

from https://nafme.org/teaching-students-with-behavior-problems/