Among School Children

This section discusses the music class and how it is much more chaotic than Mrs. Zajac’s normal classroom environment. The music teacher doesn’t command the same attention from the students, but the class is supposed to involve more exploration and freedom. It is a good opening to a chapter on school discipline practices. Physical punishment was the standard in schools dating back to Ancient Greece, and even in the 1980s, there were States in the United States that allowed corporal punishment. Managing a classroom is more of an art than a science, and it is more difficult than most people imagine.

Mrs. Zajac has developed skills in paying attention to multiple areas of the classroom at once; she knows which students are doing their work, and which are out of their seats or not behaving appropriately. She can discipline a child or end a distracting behavior without pausing in her lesson. Pam, the student-teacher, often struggles with classroom management, and the students take advantage of her lack of experience.

Pam’s story examines the process of becoming a teacher. Pam teaches some lessons in the fall, and at the end of the semester, she teaches for three days straight. This time in a real classroom is the only on-the-ground training Pam will receive before finishing her degree and getting a classroom of her own.