Class Calm

A cornerstone of this blog is psychology. On the main page there is a tab with books on psychology that contain ideas helpful for classroom management. In this post I would like to bring up the concept of self-esteem. The term was coined by an early American psychologist named William James in 1890. In 1965 social psychologist Morris Rosenberg both defined the term and invented a questionnaire to measure self-esteem that is still in use today. I remember self-esteem well because in my K-12 years one would often hear something like, “Johnny acts up because he has low self-esteem.”

Although some still cling to this term to explain student misconduct, I seldom hear it in the circles I travel in. For those who still insist on the usefulness of explaining behavior by citing self-esteem, let me say that no, in spite of my interest in reading books on psychology by the more established names in the field, I have no formal training in the subject. However, there are some excellent videos on self-esteem by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Here is a short explanation and here is a longer lecture. Clearly, some qualified psychologists have long ago discarded the self-esteem card and I am in their camp.

Yet some still use this as a crutch to explain much student misconduct. At the first school I taught at there was a memorable experience in the teachers lounge. It was the end of the term, we were finalizing our report cards, and the name of a particularly troublesome student came up. Although I was not really involved in the discussion, one of the other teachers asked me about ‘Johnny’ and how things were going with him in my class. I remarked that ‘Johnny’ would be getting a conduct grade of 1 in my class. This was on the conventional 4-1 scale with four being excellent conduct and one being the worst.

Immediately one of the other teachers of ‘Johnny’ interjected that I could not do that because such a grade would be ‘damaging’ to the student’s self-esteem. She implored me to reconsider. This was a teacher with whom I had a cordial relationship so I was not going to debate her. And although I was slightly taken aback, I almost immediately disregarded the advice without actually saying so aloud.

Self-esteem? No. That is not it. If ‘Johnny’ had heard this exchange he would have surely laughed and lost whatever remaining amount of respect he had for this teacher. At that time I lacked the skills to deal with this type of student but I certainly was not going to let him get away without a ding on his report card. Teachers are already limited in the ways they are allowed to control their classes. Now we cannot give a low conduct grade because it might damage the student’s self-esteem? In a word, ludicrous.

But it goes further. In the unlikely event that an issue comes up later with such a student, the student, parent/guardian, or other advocate (attorney?) can point to a generous conduct grade as evidence that he is well-behaved in class, further undercutting your efforts to get things on track in your classroom. You pat yourself on the back for being the kind and enlightened teacher but then are stuck with having sanctioned the behavior on his report card. And this does not even get into the issue of the morale of the other students who are on-task. When word gets around, what are they going to think of the judgment and evaluation skills of a teacher who gives a passing conduct grade to a chronically disruptive student?    

On the subject of conduct grades, most students in my classes end up with fours. The reason for this is that I am fortunate to be at a school where teachers are allowed to dock students on their participation grade for infractions such as talking out of turn, not following directions, or other forms of misconduct. This device alone keeps the problems to a minimum. In my view, they have already been issued a consequence for their misbehavior so it becomes a bit of a double-jeopardy situation. As well, because classroom management is my specialty, I seldom have the type of problems that warrant a reduced conduct grade.

But you can be assured that I do from time-to-time issue a one. An example would be for willfully damaging school property. It needs to be established that a student cannot get away with such things. What works for you? Is a conduct grade of one draconian? Is it a matter of fairness to the good students? Please post a comment and weigh in.