The 3 C’s of Classroom Management
Classroom management – act of managing relationships, behaviors, and instruction for learners.
Discipline – the act of teaching students how to behave appropriately, not just punishment.
Classroom management can be defined as so many different things. The definition that I would like to offer is a definition that forms an understanding of a classroom management model used by Annette Iverson (2003) in her book Building Competence in Classroom Management and Discipline. The model consists of three classroom management domains and is sometimes referred to as the “3 C’s of classroom management.” The first “C”, covenant management, is for relationship concerns; the second “C”, conduct management, is for behavioral concerns; and the third “C”, content management, is for instructional concerns. Therefore, one can see where the definition of classroom management comes from: the act of managing relationships, behaviors, and instruction for learners. Notice how the word discipline refers only to one part of the 3 C’s model (behavior). And has nothing to do with punishment. Discipline is the use of specific strategies to instruct students on the how-to’s of behavior that are socially acceptable or valid. Discipline is instructive and rehabilitative. It results (or at least should result) in increased incidences of pro-social behavior.
Covenant Management Conduct Management Content Management
One can see here the interplay of covenant/conduct/content management. Sometimes we can isolate a behavior problem into one domain. However, human behavior is complex and often more than one management domain contributes to a student’s problems. For example, consider the following fictional character John and this scenario: John gets sent to the office because he got up out of his seat and was about to walk out of the classroom. Why did this happen? Perhaps it happened because John did not have a good relationship with his teacher (covenant); perhaps John got angry at something that triggered him (conduct); perhaps John was trying to avoid an academic task that was too difficult or uninteresting (content); or perhaps all three contributed to John getting up out of his seat and leaving the classroom. The point is that if we understand classroom management as the interplay of all three domains, then we can use proper problem-solving techniques to get to the root of the problem.
Covenant management is an important aspect of classroom management that is often overlooked. It can be defined as the facilitation of trusting, respectful relationships, willingly entered into, that promote optimal success for all children. Covenant management can be viewed from the classroom group and individual students. Review of the literature emphasizes that the majority of discipline problems are the result of poor teacher-student relationships.
