"The Silent Classroom": A Study of One Classroom Management Strategy on Disruptive Ninth Grade Classrooms
Graduation Date
Spring 2000
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program Name
Education
Program Director
Grace Grant, EdD
Abstract
The following thesis explicates the effects of a classroom management strategy, the Silent Classroom strategy, on several ninth grade, English, urban-suburban classrooms disrupted by undisciplined students. Silent Classroom is a reactive strategy for K-12 multicultural, heterogeneous classrooms where a majority of students are engaging in various forms of both long and short term disruptive behavior interfering with the teacher’s, their own and other’s classroom teaching and learning. The Silent Classroom treats all students equally while modeling respect for one s classmates. The strategy imposes immediate total silence on the class while positively reinforcing on behavior. The strategy accomplishes two goals: 1). Enlightening all student teacher expectations necessary to succeed in the classroom, and 2). Allowing s self educate in a democratic, student-centered, safe whole class environment grounded in ‘he philosophies of Dewey, Skinner and Plato and guided by state and district learning standards.