Classroom Management: Teacher-Child-Peer Relationships

Most teachers spend little or none of their teaching time in concentrating solely on an individual student, whether for academic instruction or behavior management.The reality of the classroom demands that teachers instruct and manage students in groups.Moreover, research indicates that the most effective instruction typically occurs in small groups, with the teacher requiring both group and individual responses (Stevens Wallace Strain, Odom, Hobbs, 1966;Rhodes, 1967Rhodes, , 1970)).Research based on the ecological principles of mutual influence and interdependency has clearly established the fact that every person in the classroom-adult or child-influences the behavior of every other individual in that environment (Kauffman, 1985).Thus, classroom management strategies must take into account not only the teacher's influence on children but children's influence on the teacher and on each other as well.Relationships among teachers, children, and peers suggest looking for mutual influences in the causes of misbehavior; they suggest also an array of strategies, including direct management by the teacher, self-control techniques, and peer-directed interventions.We will briefly examine potential contributions to misbehavior on the part of teachers and children; then we will describe possible interventions.