Group Culture as Group Management

Classroom teachers spend a lot of time, and a lot of energy, devoted to the all-important task of classroom management. This time and energy is well spent, as an unruly and undisciplined classroom can be, and often is, a nightmare. You can plan the most profound and enlightening lesson that you want, but if you have 30 adolescents running amok, it will be a waste of time. 

One of the first lessons that I learned in the ways of managing a classroom is to keep the students busy. Down time is disruption time, as they say. Dozens of students come to mind when I think about those who needed

constant work ( often busy-work ) in

front of them so that others around

them weren’t subjected to their distracting

behavior. 

This filling of the time, coupled with a variety of tricks of language and pacing and positive rewards (candy), is the foundation for managing large groups of young people in the modern classroom. The teacher is in charge, and you must constantly remind students of this through threats of discipline coupled with the chance at a sugary reward if the behavior is acceptable and the basic classroom expectations are met. 

But what if the students were in charge? What if the learners in a group were so accustomed to a positive and productive environment that any aberration of that norm would be squashed immediately by the students themselves? What if a disruptive student received feedback directly from their peers about how their behavior was impacting the group? This feedback might not always be kind, and it might not always be within the bounds of what a teacher would do, but as anyone who works with young people knows, the opinion of peers is worth exponentially more than the opinion of any adult (especially a teacher). 

This is the culture that we work to create and maintain at Forge. We allow our students to work and play together, often without active adult supervision, because we trust them to hold each other to high standards. They push each other to use their time productively, and to regularly elevate the quality of their work. Through this self-reinforcing culture, our students regularly gain both technical and interpersonal skills from one another. 

As I am writing this, I am (fittingly) watching two students, ages 11 and 13, read to each other stories they are working on and exchanging thoughts and feedback on each other's work. This was not a “peer feedback” assignment or even a suggestion, it is just the culture of Forge. As an educator, it is this culture that allows me to teach and not just manage. 

The job is much more fun this way.