Welcome to the official blog of Honorable Character. Here you will find articles and posts concerning Classroom Management. Feel free to join the conversation by leaving comments. Check back regularly to keep up to date.
Respect in the Classroom
May 10th, 2010
A quick Bing search for “classroom teachers respect” turned up 14.5 million hits and adding “parents” to the query still brings in 10.6 million.
Parents complain that their students aren’t respected. Teachers complain that they aren’t respected by students or parents. There’s a reason why respect is the first trait on the Honorable Character Chart – it [...]
Tip of the Week: Ending the Year “Positively”
May 5th, 2010
There are still a few weeks left before summer, depending on your school district, but as you begin your usual end-of-year routines, take a few minutes to note trends.
You’ve noticed the positive character in your classroom for months now. Probably you’ve awareded 100s of Responsiblity marks to students who returned papers on time. Maybe there [...]
Traditional Classroom Management
May 3rd, 2010
Last week, one of my coworkers recommended that I look into Wong’s First Days of School. She described the book, because we would like to have a similar guide for using Honorable Character in your classroom (good idea?).
One of the things that struck me in Wong’s Classroom Management chapter was the importance of greeting your [...]
Tip of the Week: Consistency
April 26th, 2010
I’ve heard many new users say of Honorable Character that it is hard to implement the program consistently. Or, conversely from a principal, “The program is working well in the classrooms where it is being used regularly. The teachers who are not consistent with Honorable Character are struggling.”
This is true of any solution to [...]
Tip of the Week: Avoiding capitalistic character
April 19th, 2010
We received a question once from an HC user who wasn’t sure how to navigate the waters of disciplining students on the same day as rewarding them for good behavior.
What happens if you tell a child that they were so respectful and they go and put an R and 10 minutes later they hit [...]
Ideal Class size
April 19th, 2010
I read Ranting Stan’s blog this morning and was fascinated by the points he made about class size. According to this passionate Brit, the solution to effective learning is not to decrease class size. Instead, teachers should be free to discipline their class when necessary.
Stan cited as his examples both his own experience growing up (class sizes [...]