Having a strong classroom management plan is extremely important to having a smooth functioning, and effective, classroom. Using the Villa, Thousand, and Nevin's idea of the self discipline pyramid, I have created my own classroom management plan. This plan is based on the levels of the self discipline pyramid: Building a Caring Community, Recovery, Life Long Skills, Somewhere Else Plan, and Wraparound Support. In my classroom, my philosophy is based upon perennialism. I want to be able to teach the great literature works and the famous philosophers and authors to my students. I want to be able to connect to every student in order to understand how to make English relevant to their lives so they can love reading and writing as much as I do. I feel that it is extremely important to have a clear view on how you want your classroom to run. The self discipline pyramid helped me to think of ways to create community along with developing healthy learning skills for all of my students, including those who are language incompetent and those with mental/physical disabilities. The following sections above are titled Community, Recovery, Life Skills, Somewhere Else, and Wraparound. These sections outline how I would like to implement the self discipline pyramid,and how it relates to my philosophy of education..Perennialism, as described in our Sadker and
Zittleman text, is a philosophy that is similar to Existentialism in that it
puts a great deal of importance in structure, rigidity, and adhering to the
standards.However, Perennialists put a
great deal of importance in teaching the Great Books, which are “works by
history’s finest thinkers and writers, books as meaningful today as they were
when they were written”(Sadker/Zittleman 186).Being an English teacher in the making, I too feel that students will
gain the most knowledge through the examination of these Great Books; a passing
down of great tradition and information.The reason I feel that I am most drawn to this Perennialist philosophy,
is through my own schooling I have read a great deal of literature that would
be considered the Great Books.Authors
and books like Plato, Aristotle, medieval anonymous British authors; the
Bible/Koran/Torah, etc. are all books that have changed my way of
thinking.This knowledge I find deeply
important to mankind, and I feel that it is something I would be very
passionate to teach to others.I also think that it would be impossible to
teach English without emphasis on these Great Books and authors.I hope to teach the great works of early and
recent American literature to my high school grades 9-12 students, as well as
throwing in some international literature here and there to make my students
well rounded and informative about the Great Books around the world, with an
emphasis on Great American literature.