ARTICLE IN PRESS

Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

‘‘How will I get them to behave?’’: Pre service teachers reflect on

classroom management
Edy Hammond Stoughton
Department of Teacher Education, School of Education, Indiana University, 11470 Valley Meadow Drive, Zionsville, IN 46077, USA
Received 5 October 2005; received in revised form 7 May 2006; accepted 9 May 2006

Abstract

This study examines how pre-service teachers think about disconnections between what they believe about teaching,
what they learn in their university coursework, and what they observe of behaviour management practices in public school
classrooms. Based on the reflective writings of teacher education students at an urban Midwestern university in the United
States, this narrative research leads to a deeper understanding of how teacher educators can support and challenge future
teachers in their ability to think critically and thoughtfully in developing their identities as future educators.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Teacher education; Critical inquiry; Behaviour management; Teacher socialization; Pre service teachers; Narrative research;
Teacher reflection

1. Introduction meaning between what they have come to under-

If we are going to prepare teachers to work
intelligently and responsibly in a society that is
increasingly diverse in race, language, and
culture, then we need more teachers who are
actively willing to challenge the taken-for-
granted texts, practices, and arrangements of
schooling through participation in systematic
and critical inquiry. (Cochran-Smith, 2004, p. 62)
What is the impact on the developing teaching
identities of novice teachers when what they have
learned about critical awareness and issues of social
justice in progressive teacher education programmes
come up against traditional structures in American
public school settings? How do they negotiate
Tel.: +1 317 733 0266; fax: +1 317 274 6864.
E-mail address: eastough@iupui.edu.
stand about teaching and what they see in practice?
These questions are important for the growing
number of teacher educators in the United States,
and elsewhere, who believe that preparing teachers
who are sensitive and reflective decision makers able
to work against the technicalization and reduction-
ism of the current educational climate depends to a
great extent on teacher education that develops a
stance of thoughtful inquiry concerning dominant
practices. University programs based on this foun-
dation emphasize a critical inquiry stance in which
there is in-depth consideration of the sociocultural
and sociopolitical implications of schooling as well
as one’s own cultural embededness and preconcep-
tions. In this process novices and experienced
educators come together to examine multiple
perspectives on complex questions and to inter-
rogate and critique existing frameworks and taken-
for-granted practices aligned with Friere’s (1971)

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doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.05.001
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
idea of transformational dialogue. A space is also
opened up where important questions can be
asked about ‘‘what should be in relation to moral
and ethical issues in education’’ (Kincheloe, 2004,
p. 103).
However, the intersection between social justice
teachings, the individual and cultural backgrounds
that pre-service teachers bring with them, and the
context of public schools can frequently result in
disarticulations and contradictions as these novice
teachers struggle to make sense of who they want to
be professionally. They frequently conceptualize
their own schooling experiences as ‘‘prototypical
and generalizable toward the teaching profession’’
(Fajet, Bello, Leftwich, Mesler, & Shaver, 2005,
p. 718). This leads to the question of how they
negotiate interactions between the very different
understandings represented in these disparate con-
texts. Do they find themselves straddling two worlds
(Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004)
‘‘caught in the middle between what the university is
encouraging them to think and do and what the
school-based teachers they work with advocate?’’ Is
there, as Brouwer and Korthagen (2005) suggest, a
tendency for a rift to develop between the teachings
of their teacher education programs and the
teachers in their classroom assignments whom they
come to view as the ‘‘realistic role models, as the
people who ‘know’ how one should go about
teaching’’ (p. 155)? Or does the process of negotiat-
ing and problematizing these conflicting frame-
works challenge future educators to construct a
more thoughtful and nuanced teaching identity?
One area of classroom practice that leads to
particularly intense questioning among novice
educators is the issue of student behaviour. Typi-
cally this is a crucial subject that lies at the forefront
of concern for future teachers (McNally, I’anson,
Whewell, & Wilson, 2005). There are several
reasons for this. The control of behaviour of the
children in one’s classroom is an area into which
socialization of beginning teachers in school norms
is emphasized. There is widespread agreement
among school personnel that classroom manage-
ment is an essential part of their work particularly in
light of the frequently expressed perception that
children are becoming increasingly unruly and
difficult to teach, especially in inner city schools.
As a school administrator in a large urban school
corporation recently stated, ‘‘Discipline is the biggest
problem we face’’ (pers. commun., April 2005).
Discipline issues are rated consistently as a leading
1025
cause of teacher stress and burnout (Lewis, Romi,
Qui, & Katz, 2005). According to Ayers (2004)
effective behaviour management ‘‘is one of the most
persistent perceived needs of preservice teachers; for
many it is practically the sina qua non of teaching
itself’’ (p. 89). A substantial body of research points
to the importance school administrators place on a
teacher’s ability to control disruptive students
(Brophy & McCaslin, 1992). As Brophy and
McCaslin (1992) found, principals tend to rate
highly teachers who they perceive as skilled class-
room managers on the basis of their ability to
‘‘control’’ disruptive students. Therefore, to a great
extent, beginning teachers understand that a large
part of the evaluation of their effectiveness will
depend on how well they are perceived to be able to
control behaviour in their classes and yet there is a
deep apprehension about their ability as inexper-
ienced educators to perform successfully in this
complex area. This leads to concerns about how
these future teachers make sense of what they
experience in their public school assignments in
terms of the management of children’s behaviour
and the part those experiences play in their
developing teaching identities. In addition, there is
a recognition among both experienced and novice
educators that the way schools deal with the
behaviour—and misbehaviour—of students has
important implications in terms of the educational
establishment’s assumptions, expectations, and atti-
tudes toward children and learning (Ayers, 2003;
Caine & Caine, 1997; Raider-Roth, 2005; Watts &
Ereveles, 2005).
Questions about matters of discipline are cer-
tainly not limited to American teachers, but are of
concern for the international teaching community
as well. Student behaviour management was rated
as the second most significant factor causing stress
among 400 teachers in Hong Kong studied by Chan
(1998). In a survey of teachers in Australia, Israel,
and China, a substantial percentage of those
questioned considered discipline to be either of
moderate or major concern (Lewi et al., 2005). In
addition, McNally, I’anson, Whewell, and Wilson
(2005) report that in Scotland ‘‘the management of
pupil behaviour is considered a major policy
priority’’ (p. 169) according to the Times Educa-
tional Supplement in January 2004 that decried the
poor behaviour of students in the United Kingdom
and the inability of teachers to exert authority in
their classrooms. Therefore, although this study
centers on how teacher preparation students think
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1026 E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
about classroom behaviour practices in the context
of American public schools, the findings can be
widely applicable. Issues of discipline and classroom
climate (Lewis et al., 2005; McNally et al., 2005);
exclusion (Warren, 2005); and the ways novice
teachers think about possible disconnections be-
tween university teaching and ‘‘practical’’ consid-
erations in the formation of a teaching identity
(Brouwer & Korthagen, 2005; Shkedi & Laron,
2004) are of international concern.
The large, urban Midwestern university where I
instruct pre-service teachers brings teachers-in-
training together into cohorts of approximately 25
students which are based in public schools both for
classroom experience and for their university
seminars. The rationale for this arrangement stems
from a belief that conversations are enriched and
extended when practical experiences in schools are
closely linked with theoretical input (Brouwer &
Korthagen, 2005). The university instructors seek to
develop a dialogic pedagogy which begins with the
experiences of students and their responses to
themes and problems they identify and which
engages them in a critical discourse about those
issues (Kincheloe, 2004). A number of the seminar
discussions are grounded in an examination of the
‘‘critical dissonance between what students learn
about teaching and learning at the university and
what they already know and continue to learn about
them in the schools’’ (Cochran-Smith, 2004, p. 25).
The seminar in this initial semester developed to
enlarge student thinking about issues of diversity,
difference, and culture is grounded in readings
and discussions of the critical pedagogy of Friere
and Nieto; the importance of meaningful curricu-
lum and the construction of knowledge based on
the works of Dewey, Piaget and Vygotsky; and
an understanding of the social construction of
disability.
One of the topics covered is classroom manage-
ment. Individual interviews and class discussions
indicated that students identified this as a subject
about which there is a fairly wide disparity between
what is taught in university classes and seminars and
the theoretical construct upon which many beha-
vioural plans are based. As one student related,
‘‘The teacher gives away tickets for certain things
such as turning in homework and passing certain
tests. Once children have collected so many tickets
they can go to the candy jar. This goes totally against
what we have been discussing in class about intrinsic
motivation and best practices.’’
2. The study
This study developed from discussions and
student writings in two cohorts of elementary pre-
service teachers for which I was the instructor
during the 2004–2005 academic year. It asks
questions about how those pre-service teachers
constructed their understanding of behaviour man-
agement in their first sustained experience in public
school classrooms, and how they incorporated what
they learned from their education courses, their
cooperating teachers, and their own initial teaching
experiences and how they framed and evaluated
these practices. It is based on the understanding that
‘‘one cannot help teachers develop their classroom
management skills without addressing their emo-
tional responses to the events around them and the
attitudes, values, and beliefs that underlie these
responses’’ (van den Berg, 2002, p. 586). The study
also examines if, and in what ways, these novice
teachers are able to go beyond questions of simply
‘‘what works’’ to reflect more deeply on behaviour
practices and to decide how they fit with their beliefs
about justice and equity. As McNally et al. (2005)
note, although most beginners are looking for
‘‘practical things that will work in the short term
as one of their main objectives is, understandably,
to get order in order to teach’’ (p. 180), an
overemphasis on ‘‘tips’’ risks the absence of central
principles to guide their practice. Therefore, an
objective of this research is to discover how teacher
education students can be supported in an ‘‘ongoing
process of self-examination and reframing’’
(Greenman & Dieckman, 2004, p. 241) in which they
find possibilities for deepened understanding and a
heightened critical awareness that will enable them to
question established practices including underlying
assumptions and beliefs in this important area.
Written reflections were used as the basic
analytical tool in this study. The students were
asked to respond in reflective journal entries to the
question: ‘‘Discuss the philosophy and tone of the
behavioural expectations and practices in your
assigned classroom and talk about how well you
think these might work for you in your own classroom
and what, if anything, do you think you would do
differently.’’ Journal entries were analyzed on the
basis of what these future teachers understand
about classroom management practices they ob-
served in public schools and how they incorporated
those ideas into their understanding of teaching and
learning.
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E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
3. Reflective writing as a vehicle for examining
possibilities
Reflection is a disciplined way of assessing
situations, imagining a future different from
today, and preparing to act. (Ayers, 2004,
p. 110).
Reflection can be significant in promoting self-
awareness with the benefit of coming to a sense of
understanding of oneself and one’s reactions and
perceptions. Reflective journals can also be impor-
tant in providing protected spaces for developing,
critiquing, and sharing reactions to experiences and
perceptions. Through reflection, pre-service teachers
are encouraged to revisit an event and see it through
multiple perspectives making connections between
experiences and values and beliefs. Oliver and Lalik
(2000) discovered in their research among girls that
the privacy of journal writing provides a feeling of
safety that allowed the girls to feel freer to express
opinions that might seem risky in group conversa-
tions. They speak of journals as a way for students
to ‘‘facilitate finding a voice, a voice needed before
any kind of dialogue can ever take place between
them and their culture’’ (p. 114). Reflective journal
writing, in providing a forum for students to express
their questions and concerns and receive feedback
from others in the learning community, is an
important part of building knowledge about teach-
ing and learning. As Lowenstein points out,
‘‘Journals enable students to raise awareness of
their ways of making sense of the world, but also to
assess these ways and make choices about what
counts as sensible or legitimate’’ (p. 54). Therefore,
a careful study of the reflective journal writings
completed as a course requirement can provide
insight into the conceptual models that are being
constructed. Providing an opportunity to write
about their perplexities and concerns not only
allows students to step back from situations and
consider them from a different perspective, but it
also helps their instructors gain insight into what
students are thinking and how they might be helped
to reframe and rethink troubling issues. These
written reflections and the ways in which univer-
sity instructors respond to them, have the potential
to open up conversations that can help novice
teachers make sense of what they are seeing and
experiencing and the meaning those experiences
have for them.
1027
4. Narratives as a way of constructing identity
Narrative is a fundamental human way of giving
meaning to experience. In both telling and
interpreting experiences, narrative mediates be-
tween an inner world of thought-feeling and an
outer world of observable actions and states of
affairs. (Garro & Mattingly, 2000, p. 1).
In studying the way that the two cohorts of pre-
service teachers responded to the situated cognitions
they acquired through being in schools I analyzed
their journal writings through the lens of narrative
analysis. My choice of method derives from a belief
that narratives express a worldview, and that we
come to terms with our experiences and develop and
negotiate our identities largely through the stories
we construct and the discourse we use in telling
those stories (Fairclough, 1995; Polkinghorne, 1988;
Titscher et al., 2000). The ways in which stories
about teaching are constructed, retold, and inter-
preted help to define how we structure reality. There
are major ideological effects in the ways discursive
practices represent and position situations and
people as well as relationships between people
(Titscher et al., 2000).
Studying narratives in an effort to understand the
‘‘main story line’’ can provide important insight
into how meaning is constructed. Therefore, I
considered it to be important in analyzing these
student writings to look closely at how they chose to
represent what they saw and how they expressed
their expectations and understandings of the class-
room culture in which they participated. I studied
the selected set of journal entries and surrounding
conversations to examine the different voices this
group of students was internalizing and in what
ways. A central question was how their narratives fit
in the multiple discourses of social justice, student
behaviour, school practices, and the university voice
as they constructed images of teacher identities.
One’s personal experiences and conflicting beliefs
and values are not the only forces that are
significant in developing one’s identity. Other
people’s storied constructions of reality also play a
part, particularly others who, in our estimation,
have compelling claims to speak with authority
(Sfard & Prusak, 2005). Sfard and Prusak contend
that ‘‘significant narrators, the owners of the most
influential voices, are carriers of those cultural
messages that will have the greatest impact on one’s
actions’’ (p. 18). Therefore, in my analysis I looked
for instances in which students either challenged or
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1028 E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
acquiesced to the authoritative voices of classroom
teachers as they defined appropriate practices
including how to think about children and their
behaviour. How did these teachers-in-training
attempt to mediate between conflicting versions of
reality in constructing their own central narratives
as future teachers? If, as Brouwer & Korthagen
(2005) contend, novice teachers often come to
regard classroom teachers as the most knowledge-
able authorities concerning educational practices,
was this apparent in these particular journal entries?
In analyzing the reflective writings I considered
both the overall meaning that individual students
gave to their experiences and emergent themes that
the narratives had in common (Garro & Mattingly,
2000; Polkinghorne, 1988; Strauss, 1987; Titscher,
Meyer, Wodak, & Vetter, 2000). I also looked for
the dynamic tensions within themes and ways in
which ‘‘prevailing themes in the text both resonate
and clash with one another’’ (Raider-Roth, 2005,
p. 187). I examined how the discourses used in the
reflections tended to either naturalize or problema-
tize social practices (Fairclough, 1995). Finally, I
studied the pieces of writing recursively comparing
the discourse of teacher education as evidenced in
classroom discussions and the way experiences were
narrated.
The thinking behind these student writings was
further explored and extended in several subsequent
class discussions centering around the journal
entries which provided a means of member check-
ing. Triangulation was provided through a compar-
ison of the reflections across participants, through
my regular observations in the classrooms described
in the journal entries, and by sharing the completed
study with the students. Student responses to their
reading of the study largely centered around their
positive reactions to the validation of their voices
and their questions including Kaitlin’s response
that, ‘‘This makes me feel that I’m on the right track
to becoming a teacher.’’
5. Contextualizing the study
5.1. Participants
The participants in this study were pre-service
teachers attending a large university of approxi-
mately 30,000 students located in a major metro-
politan area in the Midwest. At the time of the study
they were enrolled in two separate sections of Block
I, the initial teacher preparation semester. Each
group spent two full days each week on-site at
public elementary schools. One afternoon a week
they met with a team of two instructors for
coursework in Math and English. In the afternoon
of the alternate day they met with a team of two
other instructors to learn about teaching diverse
learners. I was the special education professor for
the team.
Discussion in the section of the course that
featured diversity issues was complicated and made
especially significant by the fact that there was very
little diversity in these two groups of students. The
overwhelming number of the cohort members were
middle class White females in their 20s and early 30s
who had attended secondary school in small towns
or suburbs where there were few persons whose race
and ethnicity were not like their own. One cohort of
22 students was composed of 20 European Amer-
ican females, one African American female, and a
European American male. All 26 students in the
other class were European American with 24
females and 2 males. To complicate this demo-
graphic, the university has a strong and long-
standing commitment to the highly diverse urban
schools in the city and, therefore, field placements
are typically located in inner city schools. This
created a certain amount of initial uncertainty and
apprehension among a number of students as they
indicated that they felt rather fearful and unsure
about what to expect in their placements in city
schools that were quite different from their familiar
school contexts.
5.2. Schools
The two cohorts of students were placed for their
field experience in three elementary schools (Grades
K-5) all serving low-income populations. Although
the schools had highly diverse student populations,
the faculties of the schools, following the wide-
spread pattern of teachers in today’s urban schools
in the United States, were overwhelmingly Eur-
opean American females (Cochran-Smith, 2005;
Goodwin, 2004; Lowenstein, 2005).
Brookview [pseudonym] is located in an area of
the city characterized by a growing population of
Hispanic families. At the time of this study, 80% of
the students were Hispanic, 15% were African
American, and 5% were European American. All
but five of the teaching staff—two African Amer-
ican females, two African American males and a
Hispanic male—were European American females.
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E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
A number of classroom assistants were Hispanic.
These employees served as a bridge to the significant
number of students who spoke little, or no, English.
The demographic of Heritage [pseudonym] was
70% European American, 20% African American,
and 10% Hispanic. During the 2004–2005 school
year, the teaching staff at Heritage was totally
comprised of European American females. The only
male presence was the European American male
principal. The majority of the European American
students live in the immediate neighborhood
whereas most of the African American students
ride a bus to school. The principal reported in an
interview that the African American children
represent the poorest students and that all of them
participate in the Free and Reduced lunch program.
In the same interview the principal referred to the
Hispanic students as the lowest performing group in
the school.
Woodridge [pseudonym] is located on the edge of
a traditionally rural area that is rapidly becoming
urbanized as the city encroaches on surrounding
farmland. The demographic composition of the
school is 44% African American, 54% European
American, and 2% Hispanic. Again, the teaching
staff was overwhelmingly White and female. The
Principal at Woodridge was an African American
male and, in addition, there was an African
American male physical education teacher. There
were no Hispanic teachers at Woodridge.
6. Classroom management at Brookview, Heritage,
and Woodridge
The three elementary schools in this study all
followed a philosophy about behaviour control in
their classrooms that was quite similar. Their
procedures were equally uniform. This conformity
to a common philosophy was characterized by an
emphasis on order, obedience to authority, and
externally enforced control over problem behaviour
(Brophy & McCaslin, 1992). Standard practices
were confirmed both by student descriptions and by
classroom observations. The accepted format for
classroom management in all of the schools
consisted of three essential parts: clearly defined
rules that students must follow at all times, positive
recognition for following the rules, and conse-
quences that are applied when students do not
follow the rules. Consequences were given to
children in public ways largely with the expressed
purpose of serving the function of deterrence. They
1029
were arranged in an escalating hierarchy and were
expected to be carried out with unvarying consis-
tency.
Journal excerpts from teacher education students
in each of the three schools provide a general
overview of the behavioural philosophies at use in
the classrooms they observed. Although I have
chosen three entries as representative, all of the
journal entries described basically the same model.
Bethany reports from her second grade classroom
at Brookview:
My teacher, Mrs. D___, has a ‘‘bad’’ behaviour
system and a ‘‘good’’ behaviour system. If the
students do something that she doesn’t like, they
have to move their ‘‘pin’’ from one big colored
circle to another. As they move to a different
color they have time taken off their recess. If they
move to the red circle, they lose all of their recess
and have to call home. If the students do
something that the teacher likes, they earn a
Mega smile. This is a piece of yellow paper that
they keep together with their group’s Mega
Smiles. The group that has the most at the end
of the week gets rewarded with Snickers bars.
Stacey writes about her first grade class at Heritage:
The discipline system in place in my mentor
teacher’s classroom is a pull-card system. The
system has 5 colors—green, blue, yellow, brown,
and red. The first time students are told to pull a
card, they get up and go to the board and place
the first color in the back of the stack. Green is
the color which the students start out with in the
beginning of the week. Blue is their first warning.
Yellow is the next color in the lineup and means
that the student misses 5 minutes of recess.
Brown means the student misses the whole recess.
The final color is red and that color means they
need to call a parent.
Diane describes her assigned kindergarten class-
room at Woodridge:
Each student has a card that starts on green for
good behaviour. If they disrupt class they have to
switch the card to yellow and sit in time-out for
five minutes. Time-out is a chair that is placed
near the cards and away from the rest of the
students. The card has to be automatically
changed to yellow if the student did not do
homework the previous night and it is also
moved for disruptive behaviour. If the student is
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1030 E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
still disruptive, then the card has to be switched
to red and their guardian is called.
Sometimes the procedures are quite a bit more
elaborate as in the case of the ‘‘star stick’’ used by a
2nd grade class at Brookview described by Mary
Ann. It seems that the ‘‘star stick’’ is a dowel rod
containing four painted sections—red, yellow,
orange, and green. There is a clothespin for each
child with his or her number on it. At the start of
each day all clothespins are on green. After one
infraction the clothespin is moved to the yellow
section. The penalty for that movement is that the
child must spend 10 minutes of recess walking
around the perimeter of the playground. If the
clothespin must be moved to orange, the child
spends the entire recess marching around the
playground perimeter. A move to red means that
the child spends recess walking and a call is placed
to his or her parents. Mary Ann was quite taken
with this plan as she demonstrated by going on to
say enthusiastically:
The best thing about the ‘‘star stick’’ is that it
moves! It is light and moves with the students
when they go to ‘‘specials.’’ So any person in the
school can move the pin on the ‘‘star stick!’’
Most of the classrooms had an additional isolation
policy that was ostensibly used for infractions that
were too egregious or disruptive to be dealt with
through normal channels. However, in certain
contexts and with certain children, these arrange-
ments seemingly became normalized with some
children permanently separated from their class-
mates. Typical journal entries noted practices that
were similar to those Mindy wrote about when she
noted that, ‘‘I know a few of the ‘hard-to-control’
children have their desks set off from the rest of the
class.’’
7. A range of opinions among novice teachers about
classroom management plans
On one level this seemed to be an easy topic for
these pre-service teachers to write about. Behaviour
management plans were an important and pervasive
element in each of their classrooms and were
frequently referenced throughout the school day.
The aspect of the assignment that proved to be more
difficult for Block I students was trying to sort
through their feelings about how disciplinary
concerns were addressed in their particular class-
rooms. Only 3 of the 48 students who completed the
assignment were quite sure that they would struc-
ture their own classrooms in a similar way. On the
other end of the spectrum, 8 of the 48 students were
extremely uncomfortable with the behavioural
procedures in use in the classroom to which they
had been assigned. The majority of the students
were either somewhat or decidedly ambivalent
about the practices they observed.
In looking at the three groups in terms of possible
factors that might account for their divergent
reactions, there were two rather interesting differ-
ences. The group of students who disagreed with
classroom behavioural practices tended to include
more non-traditional students in that several were
older and had children of their own. Whereas the
ambivalent group also contained a number of non-
traditional students, the group that was unreserv-
edly in agreement was made up wholly of younger,
unmarried students. Another distinctive common-
ality shared by the students who were adverse to
practices in effect in their schools was that all of
them indicated that they remembered very vividly
quite negative school experiences. There seemed to
be a sensitivity to teaching practices perceived as
repressive or unjust and a desire to do things
differently. This sentiment was expressed by Megan
who said that, ‘‘I lived through miserable times at
school, but there was one teacher who made a
difference in my life and I want to be like her.’’ In
addition, students who were planning on becoming
special education teachers were all in the groups
that either were ambivalent or who disagreed with
behavioural practices. Further examining these
patterns would be an interesting topic for further
research with future cohorts of pre-service teachers.
The differences in how these three groups of
students deconstructed what they observed con-
cerning the management of student behaviour can
be seen in the following comments selected from
each of three positions.
7.1. Those who approved: ‘‘I believe that rules dictate
behaviour’’
The three teacher education students who wrote
in very positive terms about behaviour management
in their public school classrooms stressed that what
they most appreciated about their particular setting
was that order was efficiently maintained. They
evidenced a strongly utilitarian orientation: a
system of classroom control is good if it works
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
smoothly. A fairly consistent theme among this
group of novice teachers was a belief in the positive
outcome of having predictable expectations and
established procedures. Amy expressed the belief
that in her third grade classroom at Brookview:
The teacher’s good technique for handling
behaviour issues is because the students know
what the expectations are. They know what is
expected and what is inappropriate and they
obey that.
In a similar vein, Lisa, who was assigned to a fourth
grade class at Woodridge stated that:
I would set up my classroom in exactly the same
way. Behaviour expectations need to be put out
there early on. If children know what is expected
and what the consequences are, then they are
likely to think twice before acting a certain way.
Brooke, although somewhat uncertain at first, came
to accept the classroom teacher’s expert knowledge
as the best way to deal with behaviour:
At first I thought the teacher was being hard on
the students. It seemed as though the entire day
was centered on disciplining children. However,
now that I have seen more and become better
acquainted with the students, I think the teacher
has to have this sort of discipline policy in place
to keep the attention of the children and to keep
some order in the classroom. The children do
respond, and it does get their attention when
their sticks are taken away. I think I would tweak
things a little to show more understanding of
their emotional needs, but overall I think it is a
very effective approach to discipline.
Overall, these students agreed with the necessity of
establishing a smooth-running classroom and, in
accordance with Amy’s observation that, ‘‘Proce-
dures are the most important thing in having a smooth
running classroom,’’ they believed the best way to
achieve that goal was to set clear expectations right
from the beginning and to hold firm to them.
7.2. Those who disagreed with procedures: ‘‘I have
concerns about how behaviour is addressed’’
The objections of the 8 pre-service teacher who
were not in agreement with the procedures for
behaviour control in their public school classrooms
fell into several general areas. Both intuitively and
through class readings and discussions in their
1031
university seminars, these future teachers had come
to believe that lasting and positive change in the
way a child acts in school requires more than paper
‘‘Mega Smiles,’’ Snickers bars, or changing colored
tags. They questioned the implicit as well as the
explicit purposes behind decisions made about how
to shape student behaviour. They further wondered
if classroom procedures supported children in
finding better ways of acting as well as a reason
for changing their behaviour, or if they were simply
‘‘a means to keep social control through training’’ as
Chris contends in his journal entry. The following
reflections speak to worries about the lack of
efficacy, and in some cases futility, of existing
behaviour procedures—at least for certain students:
It seems to always be the same few students and
they do not appear surprised that they have had
to move their pins.
I have not noticed a significant decrease in
behaviour problems from those students who
have been asked to pull cards.
The fact that the same names are usually on the
board to miss recess just goes to show that this is
not effective for them.
Katherine had a more global objection to the
classroom management practices in her assigned
classroom:
I feel that Mrs. R’s. class is out of her control a
lot of the time and that she spends most of her
day trying to get them to be quiet and do their
work. I have never seen a class that is so focused
on behaviour, but their behaviour is generally
out of the teacher’s control. I have used this
experience as a looking glass into a class
environment I do not want to have as a teacher.
I will have a classroom where the children want
to learn and where motivation is intrinsic.
As Caroline writes, it is the students who ‘‘Never
have the opportunity to experience the rewards’’ that
this group of student teachers in Block I found to be
a troubling indictment of the system’s lack of
effectiveness. In addition, contradictions between
practices that appeared demeaning and ostracizing
and ‘‘expert’’ practitioner knowledge claiming that
these practices were the best way to deal with
difficult students confused and puzzled them and
provided hopeful openings for further questioning
and critical conversation.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1032 E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
7.3. Those who were unsure: ‘‘I have to keep sifting
through my brain and critically thinking about why i
would or would not want to use these practices in my
classroom someday’’
The large group of students who wavered
between acceptance and rejection of current prac-
tices was not so certain as the first group about
either the efficacy or the desirability of the ways of
controlling behaviour that they saw in their class-
rooms. These future teachers were much more
ambiguous about the success of the interventions.
One of the most frequently expressed sources of this
ambivalence was the tension some students felt
between an orderly classroom atmosphere and one
that was over-controlling, inflexible, and focused
too heavily on obedience. What was the line, they
wondered, between enforcing of necessary class-
room rules and a structure in which compliance is
enforced in authoritarian or punitive ways? This
inner conflict was expressed by Jennifer who wrote:
In my classroom I definitely see that the teacher
is in charge of the entire classroom. I think that
some of her ways of managing a classroom are
great and others I want to steer clear of. I like
that she always sticks to the rules and the
students know what their punishment will be if
they don’t. I like that everything she does is very
orderly. But she has little tolerance for students
who don’t follow the rules. Her teaching style is
very rigid—don’t talk unless talked to, stay in
your seat etc.
In a recent article Lisa Delpit (2003) deplores the
vast amounts of energy and time that teachers are
expected to spend on ‘‘keeping track of points
related to non-instructional tasks and preventing
any kind of deep instruction’’ (p. 17). Likewise,
Katy, as well as a number of other students,
expressed a concern about an overemphasis on
obedience to the possible detriment of other, more
important, concerns in her journal entry:
I’m torn between liking the cards and not liking
the cards. I don’t mind the ‘‘pulling the card
idea’’ but I don’t agree with having to spend all
day long trying to make sure the books are flat,
pencils down, eyes on me, ears open, bottoms on
the seat, etc. I believe that most of Mrs. T’s time
is spent ‘managing’ her class instead of teaching.
8. Conflicting needs
For this study I focus on the journal entries of a
group of students who were opposed to behaviour
practices and the group of students who were
ambivalent about them. I chose those two groups
of reflective writings to analyze because of the
important role they could potentially play in
discussions of dominant practices.
The 8 students who did not agree with the existing
programmes for behaviour control are significant in
that they are the people who can provide leadership
in making a shift in thinking among cohort
members as they push their fellow pre-service
teachers to go beyond ‘‘the ways things are’’ to
consider ‘‘the way they should be.’’
A number of these students went beyond voicing
their concerns about specific procedures to reflect
on what they would do in terms of the climate they
wanted their classrooms to have. They saw building
relationships as a key component in encouraging
positive behaviour. Elements of a developing teach-
ing philosophy are apparent in the following journal
excerpt:
I would not set up a behaviour system in my
classroom that only supports students who are
already disciplined and are high achievers. I
would want to gain the attention and respect of
all students by including all children. If you can
give a child even a pinch of confidence and
encouragement, they are more likely to respect
you and themselves and, in the end, achieve goals
higher than they could ever imagine.
The 37 students who expressed uncertainty about
behavioural practices are also important because
they are at the point where they are questioning and
yet are unsure of where they stand or how they can
resolve their questions. Ambivalence can be a failure
to deal with conflict pointing to the need to provide
critical lenses that encourage these novice teachers
to consider unexamined issues and unexplored
possibilities. As Madeline Grummet (conference
presentation, Purdue University, February, 2006)
pointed out, pre-service teachers are often con-
vinced of ethical orientations, but it is too fre-
quently a ‘‘polemic of complaint and not
questioning.’’ Smagorinsky et al. (2004) spoke to
the importance of stretching these students to think
more deeply about what puzzles them when they
wrote that, ‘‘Student teachers who never face
philosophical contrast or conflict may well face an
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
ideological meltdown when moving to settings that
invalidate their ideals’’ (p. 22). Therefore, it is
important to use the disjunctures they experience to
lead to reflective questioning (Fecho, Graham, &
Hudson-Ross, 2005). Their perplexities and con-
cerns can serve as a catalyst for deepened inquiry
and thoughtful dialogue. During a class discussion
following the journaling exercise, Matt expressed his
concern about the exclusion of certain students. As
the discussion, continued Matt was able to make the
connection that all of the excluded students were
African American boys. His new awareness led to a
deeper and more critical exploration of socio-
cultural issues. In deconstructing their reflections
we must dig deeply into their questions and
uncertainties supporting these novice teachers in
developing a thoughtful, ethical framework upon
which to base their identities as future teachers.
They need help in dealing critically and thoughtfully
with what they are seeing and in deepening their
inquiry, making more explicit their values and
beliefs through thoughtful dialogue that can lead
to ‘‘existential struggle and transformation’’ (Jupp,
2005, p. 22). They are in the process of developing
their own personal interpretive frameworks through
which they can perceive and give meaning to
teaching. The challenge in working with this group
is to open up conversations that not only question
practices but begin thinking in an intentional way
about how to do things differently.
The most common concern running through the
reflections of those 45 students was the dichotomy
many students felt between the need to maintain
order and other values that figured prominently in
their developing teaching philosophies such as the
importance of building community and meeting
individual student needs. The two groups came
together over this issue that was very much a point
of struggle within and among these novice teachers
over such social justice issues as inclusiveness, equal
access, and providing opportunities for all students
to achieve their potential. Although they did not
consistently cite seminar literature or philosophical
orientations they did employ a rhetoric of ethical
orientation positioning. Several of the students
expressed some concern over how their ideas would
work ‘‘in practical terms,’’ yet they all indicated a
commitment to a supportive, prosocial community
as a crucial foundation for learning, and they
showed a recognition that learning and teaching
are inherently relational activities (Raider-Roth,
2005).
1033
Two common themes emerged from the narra-
tives of the two groups of students: those undecided
and those opposed. There was a feeling among a
number of these future teachers that the philosophy
and practice of how teachers reacted to student
behaviour was expedient rather than educational
and that responses were frequently concerned with
‘‘putting out fires’’ rather than helping children
learn how to be more successful classroom partici-
pants. The second common theme that appeared in
many of the papers was a concern about the
exclusion and ostracism of students who were
considered discipline problems.
8.1. ‘‘This form of punishment has no lasting effects
on the kids’’
In several of the journal entries a concern was
expressed about the ultimate purposes of behaviour
management programmes. It appeared to the
journal writers that the object of many interventions
was to stop misbehaviour as quickly and efficiently
as possible without considering how to help children
learn more effective ways to handle similar situa-
tions in the future (Brophy & McCaslin, 1992).
They expressed discomfort about the fact that it
appeared that teacher needs for order, obedience,
and compliance were served rather than student
needs for understanding and growth. There was
generalized agreement in classroom discussions that
behaviour plans must be about more than main-
taining order, they must also deal with inculcating
an understanding of the reasons behind the rules. As
Ellen wrote, ‘‘I don’t think her behaviour manage-
ment does much to the extent of teaching the students
about appropriate behaviours and decision-making.
Instead it is just a means of stopping the behaviour as
soon as possible.’’ This parallels Covaleskie’s (2005)
assertion that, ‘‘Children must develop a framework
within which they can make good choices about
how to act, and we must help them do so’’ (p. 50).
The following two excerpts, both from cohort
members in the ambivalent group also speak to this
point:
I believe that students need reason and purpose
in order to intrinsically motivate them to develop
their own plan for success. Students of this age
should be learning the real reasons they need to
make good decisions. If we instill in them why we
want them to behave instead of just saying ‘‘go,
pull your card,’’ it may affect their decision
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1034 E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
making. The problem with this form of punish-
ment is that it does nothing to correct the
behaviour, just the symptoms. It focuses on what
I believe to be not as important as other things.
8.2. ‘‘For a student to feel unwelcome into the
classroom community is simply unacceptable’’
The clearest disjunction between disciplinary
practices and ideas of social justice was in what
these two groups of future teachers considered to be
the injustice and ostracism inherent in exclusionary
forms of punishment. Separating out students due
to their poor behaviour had the effective of
marginalizing them from social and academic
participation and was seen as problematic not only
because of the effect on the student who was
marginalized, but also because of the negative effect
such actions had on the climate of the classroom
and particularly on the creation of a safe and
inclusive classroom community. Seven of the eight
students who expressed disagreement with domi-
nant practices and 12 of the students who were
ambivalent expressed concern about students who
were separated from their classmates frequently for
extended periods of time. These prospective teachers
were troubled by practices that polarized students
and labeled some students as ‘‘less than’’. There was
also an understanding of the pervasive influence
teacher attitudes and actions have on children. The
importance of teacher modeling including public
criticism and ridicule was noted by Megan, who
stated poignantly that ‘‘The teacher has targeted one
child in her room to feel her wrath which has a much
longer arm than just her own. Her wrath extends
through the arms of Kevin’s peers also.’’ Paul writes
about his perceptions of the negative consequences
of isolation both on the student and his classmates
in a fifth grade classroom:
There is one student whose desk is located in the
left rear of the classroom, nowhere near any of
his classmates. I was shocked and dismayed,
especially when everything I was learning in
Block 1 discusses inclusion and classroom com-
munity. I do not believe isolating students with
behavioural problems will do anything to im-
prove a student’s behaviour. First, the isolated
student is not learning how to get along with his
fellow classmates. It is impossible for him to
discuss class work with other students if he is not
allowed to sit near anyone else. Therefore, he is
behind in classroom assignments and has no
chance at all for success. All I can see is a student
who is set up to fail. Second, his isolation cannot
help in building a classroom community. From
my observations, the rest of the class, including
the teacher has total disdain for the student. If
anything goes wrong in the classroom, he is
usually blamed for it. I may not have all the
answers of how to deal with students with
behaviour problems, but I do know that isolating
a student is not how the problem is solved.
Anne also wrote of the negative effects of exclu-
sionary practices:
Students with behavioural problems sat alone at
different corners. There was a student whose
desk was in the corner of the room facing the
window. She seemed like an outcast who did not
belong. It was difficult for her to participate in
class discussions because she was not facing the
classroom like other students. She had to turn
her head to see the board and look at the teacher,
which seemed very uncomfortable. She seemed as
if she was not part of the class.
The nature of negative self-fulfilling prophecies
inherent in differential treatment was noted by Beth:
Some students are set aside in the room and
treated as outcasts because of their behaviour. It
appears to me that these students act the way
they do because of the way they are treated. Two
students especially are set off to the side in the
back and are surrounded by empty boxes and
desks so as not to be able to draw attention to
themselves and disrupt the classroom. However,
these same students are the ones who are always
interrupting and acting out.
Because of the prominence of exclusionary practices
in their reflections, and also because of the clear
disconnection such practices presented with uni-
versity teachings, this issue opened up important
possibilities for critical conversations that could
help students make connections between their
beliefs about teaching and learning and classroom
practice. The significance of this topic also lies in the
near universality of the removal of certain children.
In a subsequent discussion every Block I student in
both cohorts indicated that the practice of isolating
students because of their behaviour was standard
practice in their classrooms.
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E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
The ambivalence and wavering between ethical
values and efficacy expressed in the following
journal entry points up the need for conversations
to explore issues more deeply:
In Mrs. F’s. classroom when I first attended,
there were two desks that were away from the
rest of the class. I had asked her ‘‘why’’ on the
second visit, and she responded by saying they
have talking issues. The two girls were separated
from each other and from the rest of the class.
The one girl has made her way back into the
group setting, while the other girl is still sitting
away from the class. I do know that this type of
technique for talking seems to be working for the
girls. What else could you do if they just don’t stop
talking?
Thoughtful analysis and authentic dialogue based
on these reflective writings have great potential for
growth and transformation. The questions these
students ask are the kinds of questions that are
important to foreground in our work with future
teachers as we support them in becoming the
thoughtful and caring educators that are needed in
our schools.
9. Discussion
The challenge of teaching is to decide who you
want to be as a teacher, what you care about and
what you value, and how you will conduct
yourself in classrooms with students. (Ayers,
2001, p. 23).
What do we hope students in our teacher education
programs understand as they prepare to enter the
teaching profession, and how will we assess what
they are actually understanding? Teacher educators
concerned about the complex challenges and ethical
choices facing young teachers, must find ways to
help novice teachers not only teach successfully in
the complex contexts of public schools in the 21st
Century, but also find ways to transform those
contexts. How can teacher education programs
support future educators in developing thoughtful
frameworks that will equip them to meet the needs
of a widely diverse population of children and be
able to ‘‘reinvent classroom knowledge and dis-
course so that it builds on, and is attentive to, the
resources of all children’’ (Cochran-Smith, 2004,
p. 62)? We, as teacher educators, are challenged to
consider carefully the perplexities our students
express and find ways to move them from where
1035
they are to where they need to be as ethically aware
teachers.
This study is based on narrative analysis of
journal writings as a reflective tool in teacher
education. A careful and thoughtful analysis of
such writings can provide teacher educators with a
clearer understanding of their students’ thinking
and thus can become a powerful tool in providing a
context for important discussions paving the way
for authentic transformation in the way future
teachers look at how to work with children in their
classrooms. Studying student voices through these
writings can also help us examine our own practices
and reflect on what we are teaching and how it is
being received.
In looking at implications for my work, I found
both the language of critique and the language of
possibility in these journal entries. Particularly for
those students who were having trouble deciding
what they believed, this exercise in reflective writing
played an important role in creating protected
spaces where they could interrogate and deepen
their thinking (Oliver & Lalik, 2000).
In their writing about behaviour practices, the
two cohorts of future teachers struggled with
competing discourses concerning institutional needs
for order and the individual needs of children. They
struggled with tough questions related to the
validity of ‘‘expert knowledge’’ and ‘‘the unitary
visions of teachers’’ roles and behaviours that they
believed were valued in their schools’ (Vinz, 1996,
p. 55). I found in a number of these student writings
a willingness to think analytically about taken-for-
granted practices. I was encouraged to find that
there appeared to be a wrestling with the complexity
of behaviour interventions leading some students to
reject simplistic, one-dimensional solutions. A
number of students showed in their writings an
intuitive knowledge backed up by seminar discus-
sions that behaviour management is integrally
linked with the culture of the classroom and is,
further, ultimately related to the ethical values and
commitments that teachers bring to their work with
children.
A significant number of the prospective teachers
who participated in this study seemed be internaliz-
ing and incorporating into their developing teaching
philosophies ideas about social justice and fair and
equitable treatment of all students in inclusive
learning communities that were fostered in the
university teacher education program. Ideas that
were featured prominently in seminar conversations
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1036 E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
were frequently referenced in comments such as, ‘‘I
want my classroom to be a place where students want
to attend everyday and I want to have a positive
learning environment like the ones we learned about in
class discussions.’’ That many of these teachers-in-
training took a critical look at classroom manage-
ment practices led me to be optimistic about the
possibility for them to continue to be open to
discovering more nuanced ways of establishing
classrooms where fewer children are written off as
incorrigible or ‘‘hopeless’’ and where all children are
able to contribute their unique promise and
potential. Yet, at the same time I was concerned
about how to most effectively respond to the
ambivalence and conflicting values that remained
with a number of the cohort members. This points
up the clear need to continue to explore ways to
connect school practices with university teachings
and existing predispositions.
10. Implications and directions for research
The findings of this study of how two groups of
pre-service teachers were beginning to construct
their teaching identities in the face of conflicting
knowledge claims raise further questions and point
out directions for future work. Making personal
decisions about the values one holds as a teacher is a
developmental process. As Ayers (2004) contends,
‘‘Our stories are dynamic and in-motion, always
changing with new conditions, and always suggest-
ing alternative outcomes’’ (p. viii). This leads to
concerns about the ways in which the understand-
ings and knowledge structures of these novice
teachers will change and evolve in their future
classroom experiences. There is a need to continue
to confront their unanswered questions and issues
of ambivalence as well as support and further
develop the beliefs that they hold firmly. Without
this continued critical pressure there may well be a
tendency to see behavioural methodologies with
which they initially disagreed as ‘‘the way things
are’’ as they become inculcated into dominant
practices. A significant question raised by this
research study involves whether the attitudes of
these students will change when, as they proceed in
their teacher preparation program, the balance
shifts to spending more extended time in schools
and less time in university seminars. This connects
to the concern expressed by Fajet et al. (2005) that
becoming overwhelmed with the challenges of
learning to teach, they may ‘‘revert to teaching
how they were taught which sometimes means
that they teach in ways quite different from what
they learn in their teacher preparation programs’’
(p. 725).
A further area of these research findings points to
the need for further work and study. The students
showed a lack of connection between their devel-
oping beliefs and the larger cultural context includ-
ing little problematizing of how the classroom
culture intersects with the culture of the school
and of the larger society. This finding is in
agreement with Shkedi and Laron’s (2004) conten-
tion that:
Beginning student teachers typically have given
little thought to the contexts of teaching—not to
the larger societal context, nor to the features of
communities, schools, and classrooms that influ-
ence teaching and learning. (p. 696).
Although in seminar discussions several of the
students were troubled by the fact that most of the
children who were marginalized were African
American, there was a hesitancy on the part of a
large number of students to go further in analyzing
the ‘‘othering’’ of certain students and the connec-
tion of that positioning with issues of cultural
difference and power. They stopped short of
looking at possible connections between ‘‘common
sense’’ professional practices and embedded cultural
assumptions. They did not seem to be at the point
where they could consider the ‘‘normal practices of
schooling as processes of instituting a particular
social imaginary’’ (Warren, 2005, p. 244), uncovered
in a study of similar processes of exclusion among
African-Caribbean young men in schools in the
United Kingdom. Their critique, which was cen-
tered around the humanistic position of a sense of
unfairness, needs to be extended to questioning the
wider practices of schooling. This kind of critical
analysis is particularly important in light of the
cultural encapsulation of these pre-service teachers
and the differences between the social, racial, and
ethnic makeup of public school faculties and that of
the children.
Teacher education programs need to continue to
explore difficult questions with students if we are to
counteract both the unquestioned acceptance of
‘‘common sense’’ wisdom and the pull of familiar
ways of doing things. It is crucial to continue to
provide spaces where future teachers can do the
important work of examining what is, what can be,
and the implications of their choices for themselves
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E.H. Stoughton / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 1024–1037
as teachers, for the children they teach, and for the
schools and communities we hope to build.
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