Managing Student Behavior: A Means towards a New Perspective

After attending the Managing Student Behavior course I discovered a new land where my teaching and coordination ship should embark to settle. It is thanks to the course and its objectives that I have gained a new philosophy and approach towards managing disruptive student behavior. The course gave me a new perspective on student behavior; it taught me effective tools for facilitating positive student change. It provided me with a developmental framework through which I seek to understand what the students are trying to tell throughout their behaviors. It helped me improve and change the way I look at problem behaviors. It also assisted me to develop my classroom management skills and reduce stress and anxiety, starting with myself, to reflect and assimilate it to the students, in the classroom. Feelings of ineffectiveness or hopelessness were reduced while dealing with disruptive behavior, thanks to the course. Not only did ‘Managing Student Behavior’ change my philosophy of managing behavior in the classroom, but also it transferred a change in my behavior as a means for causing (influencing) student behavior. I now believe that I can never control anyone when hardly can I control myself, however, all what I can do is influence students to act and behave. The perspective of influencing others gave me a source of power and proved it to me that I am effective, I can always make a change, but all what I need is practice. Furthermore, throughout this meaningful course, I learned intervention strategies and creative solutions that re-mediate disruptive behaviors and behavioral problems, reduce power struggles while increasing classroom control, and reduce work load. Last but not least, Managing Student Behavior enabled me to be effective in dealing with students with special needs, students who have serious behavioral problems, like the chronically disruptive and challenging students, even more, the ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’ students, the ADHDs.

Analyzing and Evaluating: A Grade Nine English Language Book Critique

            Working for a life as a teacher and an English coordinator, the “Lebanese Educational System” course was very provoking and appealing to my needs and desires, since compared to the experience that I once had, I usually felt falling within the cracks, especially when I had to work in a new field of curriculum, standards, and design, being unacquainted of prioritizing concept, its integration, and understanding. When I first read the title “Lebanese Educational System” in the list of offered courses I instantly found myself clicking the ‘Register’ button, I believed that the course will effectively answer all my guesses and that it will add significance and meaning to the understanding of what might best work in each and every classroom; as to me each and every class reflected and resembled a whole new explicit world. I proudly admit it, the course was of great influence and it did meet my expectations, now I see myself more confident to choose, especially when it comes to standards, curriculum, and books, what best works for my students, their level, their need, their culture, and many others. To get a clear knowledge of where I now stand, that is to set it on ground, I prepared a critique of a Grade Nine English Language book which not only did I previously study when I was a Grade Nine student, but also taught, during my teaching career. This critique analyses and evaluates the book from two different angles; the first focuses on structure and appearance (form), and the second uses a microscopic lens to surf content (i.e. meaning and function).