Structure vs. Control

Have you ever wondered why some teachers have great classes and others maybe should reconsider their profession? It all stems down to the idea of structure vs control. Structure is about having a schedule, a routine, and making a great learning environment. It also has to do with the placement of furniture and how discipline is handled. Sometimes teachers can go beyond this and make it about being in complete control.

Complete control is when a teacher has to tell the students how to do exactly everything that they do. For example in a Preschool Classroom the teacher tells the students what they have to do at each center during center time. When the students don't follow the teacher's directions the teacher ends up getting very upset and loosing control.

A teacher that has to be in complete control of the classroom looses sight of what matters and that is teaching the students. It turns into all about them. They get very upset when things don't go their way. They get upset when their order is disrupted. These teachers refuse to take help from others. When they get into trouble they are apt to blame others for the problems.

A Preschool Teacher had the nature to have to be in control of everything and everyone. He planned the day of herself, each of his students, and his aide down to the very second. At Center Time he gave assignments of what to do at each center. He even made the students sign in to each center by putting up sticks on signs. At inside recess time he made the students sign into the centers with sticks. He was so obsessed with being in control that he  wrote down everything that the aide was to do at every second of the day.

This continued to happen for awhile until parents got concerned that they not receiving their children academic work each day. Parents called the school to complain about the fact that it seemed that the teacher was more concerned about  doing art work than doing academic work. An investigation was done and it was decided that things in the room would have to change. This teacher got very upset because what they had decided was going to happen suddenly had to change without their control.

The teacher took it out on the aide. In the end it cost the teacher their job. You see the teacher had lost focus. They were so fixated on being in control of things that they forgot what their job was. They forgot to teach. They were more concerned with control than they were anything else.

Having classroom structure is one thing, but when it becomes a need to be in control then it is out of hand. No teacher should have to control everything that goes on in their classroom every second of the day.

If a teacher has to control every second of the day in their classroom then they need help. They need also to find another line of work.

So please if you go into the teaching profession please make sure you know the difference between structure and control before it is too late.