Classroom Management Profile: Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire

The laissez-faire teacher places few demand or controls on the students. "Do your own thing" describes this classroom. This teacher accepts the student's impulses and actions and is less likely to monitor their behavior.

Mr. Jones uses a laissez-faire style. He strives to not hurt the student's feelings and has difficulty saying no to a student or enforcing rules. If a student disrupts the class, Mr Jones may assume that he is not giving that student enough attention. When a student interrupts a lecture, Mr. Jones accepts the interruption with the belief that the student must surely have something valuable to add. When he does offer discipline, it is likely to be inconsistent.

Mr. Jones is very involved with his students and cares for them very much. He is more concerned with the students' emotional well-being than he is with classroom control. He sometimes bases classroom decisions on his students feelings rather than on their academic concerns.

Mr Jones wants to be the students' friend. He may even encourage contact outside the classroom. He has a difficult time establishing boundaries between his professional life and his personal life.

However, this overindulgent style is associated with students lack of social competence and self-control. It is difficult for students to learn socially acceptable behavior when the teacher is so permissive. With few demands placed upon them, these students frequently have lower motivation to achieve.

Regardless, students often like this teacher. A Middle School student says:

This is a pretty popular teacher. You don't have to be serious throughout the class. But sometimes things get out of control and we learn nothing at all.

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This document was last updated 6/1/97 by Chandra Hawley.
Copyright1996 Indiana University - Center for Adolescent Studies, all rights reserved.
Kris Bosworth - Director
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Kris Bosworth - Director
etri dish

2 Drops of blue food coloring

Procedure:

Place the 9-volt battery in the empty 35mm film case.
Make two small holes in the lid of the case for the battery clip wires to go through.
Connect the battery clip to the battery and replace the plastic lid.
On an acetate sheet, piece of waxed paper, or petri dish, place several drops of water (A petri dish filled with water works well, if placed on an overhead projector. More students can observe).
Connect the alligator clips to one end of each pencil. Make sure both ends of the pencils are sharpened to a fine point.
Place the other sharpened ends of the pencils in the water. Bubbles of gas may come from the ends of the pencils in the water. These are bubbles of oxygen gas and hydrogen gas.
Place a sheet of white paper under the acetate sheet
Place 20 drops of water on the acetate sheet. Dissolve several crystals of table salt (sodium chloride) in the water. A toothpick may be used to mix the salt in the water.
Place two drops of blue food coloring in the salt solution and mix.
Place the two sharpened ends of the pencil in the solution.
Gas bubbles form at the end of one of the pencils which causes the blue food coloring to fade and finally become colorless. This is chlorine gas. After a short period, one can detect the aroma of the gas.

An electrolysis apparatus from a supply company may cost about $100. It may require thirty volts of electricity and the students must watch while the instructor performs the experiment. The procedure above is an inexpensive way to show the process. The equipment costs about $1.35, and the students get to do the work!

Jack Young, Chemistry teacher, Columbus East High School, Columbus, IN

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The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail

This multi-faceted activity examines the idea of civil disobedience and the notion of personal responsibility vs. government control. Students of all abilities, in grades 10-12, enjoy the readings and learn a lot from the projects.

The readings include The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, a play by Jerome Lawrence, an excerpt from Annie Dillard's The Pilgrim of Tinker Creek, and a newspaper article about a local political activist. Students also read the essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" and selections from Walden, both by Henry David Thoreau. The students learn Thoreau's views on: education, conformity, the war with Mexico, slavery, the duty of a citizen, nature and the environment; what the Walden experiment was, and why he went there. They also reflect on the readings, write in journals, and share their insights with classmates.

Over two nights, students read the play and then discuss it during class. During the next few days, students read the related articles and excerpts. Then, they explain the connections between these works and those of Thoreau, in a paper.

The major assignment for this unit is a collaborative effort in which small groups of students prepare scripts for a trial of Thoreau. Each script must include roles for the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the judge, Thoreau, and the witnesses. The remaining class members serve as the jury. Students hand in the script and then perform a play, based on the script. Historical accuracy and oral presentation skills serve as the basis for student s evaluations.

In creating the script, students select one of three cases against Thoreau:

Thoreau has been arrested and charged by the State of Massachusetts for tax evasion. The state accuses him of failing to pay hi s poll tax.
Thoreau has been arrested and charged with violation of the Fugitive Slave Law in the Henry Williams Case. Thoreau is accused of aiding and abetting Williams, in the slave's attempted escape to Canada.
Thoreau, school master in the Concord Public Schools is charged with insubordination and violating the constitutional separation of church and state by permitting his students to discuss theological questions in his classes. The Concord Board of Education seeks Mr. Thoreau's dismissal.

Students like The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail because the issue of civil disobedience is relevant to them. Also, in "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" students like Thoreau's display of compassion toward his cellmate and the assertive style of Emerson's wife when she tells Emerson, in the student s own words, "Take a chill pill and get real." This activity gives students a sense of this historical period and shows them how the pressing issues that existed then, still exist today.

Pat Wilson and Joanne Frye team-teach an interdisciplinary block of U.S. history, health, and literature at Bloomington High School North, Bloomington, IN

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This document was last updated 6/1/97 by Chandra Hawley.
Copyright1996 Indiana University - Center for Adolescent Studies, all rights reserved.
Kris Bosworth - Director
the class identifies the common ones. A committee of students goes through the lists and tries to find themes which connect the questions. Eventually, the students vote on them and pick the first theme (i.e. the environment or conflict).

Another committee is formed to find the original questions which fit under this theme "environment". Later the class works together to brainstorm for activities to answer their questions. The students then go through a process of deciding on activities, re-identifying questions they have (or changing them), and actually planning out the activities. Students find this very engaging. After an activity, we go back to the initial questions and ask, "How are we doing?"

The entire school day is not devoted to this at first, as it would be too much, so we do work on other things. The point is students are involved in a process where classroom learning is student-directed and democratic. We also allow for re-evaluating of the questions, themes, and activities.

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This document was last updated 5/30/97 by Chandra Hawley.
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