The Chattery Bunch

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Home : 2004 : October : 10

The Chattery Bunch
By Amy

I am a student teacher in the last term of my education program. I am teaching in a 2nd grade class and our class is quite chatty as well. My mentor teacher tells me time and time again that she has never had such a chatty
bunch. Some of the techniques we've employed include rearranging desks and letting them know that they have just been way too noisy and if they can prove that they can be less noisy they can choose who they sit by. We have also had students line up for recess or lunch and of course they get out of control and so we have them sit back down and put their heads on their desks. We explain

that we hate doing things like this, but they have choosen to talk at inappropriate times. We have also had them miss a few minutes of recess if their behavior has been unacceptable. We also try to reassure students who were following directions by telling students that we know some of you were following directions and we thank you for that. My teacher also really stresses learning life skills in her class such as patience, respect, perseverance, responsibility,...etc. We also stress what active listening is and have students demonstrate what active listening should look like eyes on me, voices off, and nothing in their hands. My teacher also explains to students the different levels of talking 0 = no talking, 1 = quiet whispering, 2 = talking with quiet voices, 3 = talking with normal voices, 4 = talking used outside (never used in the classroom). We model with students the different levels and have students emulate the different levels with us so they learn what they sound like. So during different activities we ask students to use different talk levels. It still can get noisy, so we simply remind them that this is a __ level talking time. Also my mentor teacher closes her eyes and says when she opens them voices should be off, she should see students working on their assignment,...etc. It's difficult to expect kids to be quiet all the time, so just gentle reminders really go along way and when you do have to give them consequences let them know that they choose to make the unwise choice and therefore they choose the consequence. Also remind them that you don't enjoy giving them consequences and that you hope next time you won't have to. I've learned that a combination of all these actually works very well and recently when the kids come in for lunch and if we aren't quite there yet they are quiet and waiting patiently which is such a delight. Let me know if this helped you at all. Sorry I wrote so much there's just not a simple solution.