A few years ago, I read the book “The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher” by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong. At that time, I was a first year English Teacher in South Korea, and while I had taught university students as a Teaching Assistant at Sonoma State University, I had little background with effective classroom management. 
(For some reason, the students at Sonoma State didn’t get too unruly in class… unless we were studying early Robin Hood literature.)
If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. The chapter on classroom management is practical and helpful. Yet, I also learned about more than classroom management.
Another important concept this book touted was the use of research-based teaching practices. Literally, their advice was to “Beg, borrow and steal!” Mind you, they aren’t literally advising teachers to steal. The point is this: education is like a wiki; it’s supposed to be shared. Education is a field in which people share their ideas and create new ones as a collective. Unlike the private sector, where everyone is eager to place a trademark on a new technology, education is supposed to be a collaborative driving force for society.
So, who can we “Beg, borrow and steal” from?
Colleagues
The ideal school involves teacher teams that can aid each other in professional development, creating consistent teaching and assessment practices, and problem-solving classroom issues as they arise. One example here is Duclos School in Bonnyville, Alberta: this nationally recognized school has grade level teacher teams that meet regularly and share information about the execution of learning objectives in their classrooms. They also hold professional development seminars when another teacher has undergone training. These seminars enable the teacher who has learned something new to share their knowledge with the other teachers at the school.
Students
A lot of people forget that their students might have some ideas about how they want to be taught. I like to ask my students for feedback after doing a new exercise or teaching them a new concept. What helped them understand the learning objective? Is there anything that could help them more? Sometimes their feedback will give you more ideas about how to better reach them. And, after all, the more meaningful the learning experience they have, the better chance there is that they’ll enjoy learning and remember the material.
Your Favorite Teachers
Okay, so hands-down, this has been my favorite method. When I teach my classes I can’t help but find myself “channeling” my favorite teachers and professors who I’ve had over the years. One in particular is Mr. Robertson, my seventh grade Language Arts Teacher from Silverado Middle School in Napa. What made him so special? He had a sense of humor, he showed enthusiasm for the material that infused the students with an urgency to learn in the classroom, and he had the gall to pull out ping pong tables for students to play in his classroom at lunch. He was one of those teachers who students admired so much that they wanted to impress him. He did this not by showing his authority, but by giving students the treat of trying to put a dart in his face at the center of his dart board, with all of the other students’ faces surrounding his, if they did exceptionally well on a test. Maybe sometimes it isn’t so difficult to get middle school students engaged in classroom material.
So, ask yourself the following questions. Who are the teachers you know who are doing something really neat in their classroom and what can you learn from them? Have you asked your students for feedback? What teachers can you channel? You never know where your curriculum planning and teaching practices can go if you steal collaborate with others.
Whitney is a proud MAT@USC TESOL student. Learn more about how this exciting program can help you earn your Masters in TESOL online.
