1. While working as a Manager at Taco Bell I decided to take the advice of a District Manager and participate in a “Crew Management Training”, which consisted of allowing one crew member to take the reins and be in charge for one night. I liked the idea but I felt it would be more of a learning opportunity if I delegated the responsibility to multiple crew members in order to teach them all the management responsibilities at one time. I made a raffle of who was to take what responsibilities and allowed them to get their roles randomly, after each got their role I explained what I expected from them—be it paperwork or overseeing food—and then I left them to their roles. I went back to the office and prepared the paperwork for the next day, allowing them to come to me with questions as needed.
It went pretty well, as I continually checked in on each of them and coached them on the responsibilities I had delegated to them. I went around with a checklist of what was to be done through the night and went over it with them, made sure everyone was getting along and just generally supervised. The entire night went well and I think due to the constant coaching I gave them they were able to complete their tasks in a timely and cooperative manner.
2. Personally to me management is all about mutual respect. I thrive on managing people who are able to see the glass as half-full and I enjoy working in a relaxed environment where I try to act more as a mediator than as an enforcer. To me a classroom should be a safe place, where all people involved feel comfortable and at ease—rules should be simple and easy to follow, of course with fair consequences for their violation.
I would implement this by starting the first day of class with a break down of what is expected, to simply put all of the rules in a clear understanding—as well as their consequences. I would also outline what I expect from students in terms of work, that I want them to put their best efforts into any assignment—if it doesn’t look good enough to them, then they should work on it again. Strongly I would try to suggest the idea of mutual respect as a building block to a good education, the better they cooperate and trust me, the better I can reciprocate and we can work to make their future brighter.
3. While substitute teaching a third grade classroom I worked with a young male who was incredibly resistant to the assignment I had. He was unresponsive and insulted the material left by the teacher as being unnecessary and unrelated to anything that he cared about. At first I felt like there was no way I could get through to him, I felt that he would just be behind on the lesson due to stubbornness.
I decided to turn it into a measure of progression, I asked him to pull out the folder of his work for the past few weeks and show me what scores he had gotten previously. All of them were average or slightly better than average. I told him that I felt he was able to do more than that and wasn’t taking full advantage of the opportunities he had. I felt that by making it a personal challenge to him he would be more motivated—and he was. I told him that if I was able to notice improvements from his work I would leave a notice to his teacher that he was working above the level she expected and that he deserved more rewards in the classroom (free-time, etc).
The use of incentive based teaching was what pushed him to do the work; I simply tried to motivate him to admit that he himself knew he was capable of higher functioning work than what he was producing at the moment and gave him the incentive to work toward it. By the end of the class he had finished his required worksheet and even went ahead doing more of the work—beyond that the work all correct and neatly organized.
4. When teaching a sixth grade classroom I noticed a student had a phone out and was texting while I was giving them instructions on the work they were required to complete that day. Instead of directly calling the student out and creating a larger problem I walked toward the student and tried to use proximity as a way to discourage the behavior.
It quickly became apparent that the student was not paying attention to the fact that I noticed their misbehavior and continued to text during my speaking. Again, instead of taking offense or calling the student out I just walked around the room trying to engage students in the speaking by asking questions to random students. Eventually I made my way back over to their desk and asked them a question regarding the reading, when they were unable to answer it I asked them if they could recall anything from the text—they replied with a no—so I let someone else answer the question and asked the student one on one to please pay attention to the materials.
That in combination with keeping proximity kept the student from removing the cell phone again to text. Alone proximity wasn’t enough, but in conjunction with questions and engaging the student in a non-confrontational manner I was able to ensure the situation did not escalate and that the conflict was resolved smoothly and without either party even feeling that they were in a conflict.
5. To me the state of Education in not only Florida but the United States is very interesting. To me it’s a bit of a “proceed with caution” state right now. Personally I fear the lack of control that unions now have in Florida, whereas before Teacher’s Unions were one of the most powerful forces in the state—now with new legislation and changes the concept of tenure and due process in removing a teacher have been changed drastically. I also fear for those entering the field and the pay rates that many are now noticing have become stagnant. It has been several years without a real raise for instructors and it could be many more and suffer through many more hiring freezes before the economy picks up enough for teachers to receive a real pay-raise.
Personally these concerns don’t really sway my opinion as an educator, I am glad that I am aware of them and educated on the topics but they do not change my thoughts on education. I have taken into account the low pay rate, the loss of tenure and other small changes in the field—and I still feel as though it is my calling and is what I am meant to do in life. I will try to stay in good understanding of these changes and others as they develop to help me plan how to be a more effective teacher when I start my first year, but it will not change my decision to teach.