What can Ms. Rollison do to increase the chances that her students will behave appropriately in class?
Page 6: Statement of Purpose
To begin developing an effective comprehensive behavior management plan, Ms. Rollison learns that she must start with a statement of purpose—a brief, positive statement that conveys to parents and students the reasons why various aspects of the management plan are necessary. Ideally, this statement acts to guide all decisions and practices related to behavior. The statement of purpose must be focused, direct, clearly understood, and free of teacher jargon. Review the sample statement of purpose below and notice that it is:
Focused:
Sample Statement of Purpose
Our classroom will be a positive, considerate learning environment that fosters academic excellence and respect for others. All students will strive to do their best, both academically and behaviorally, to promote the success of everyone in the classroom.
- It states the purpose of the classroom
- It pinpoints the desired expectations for students
Direct:
- It is brief (three sentences or fewer)
- It positively states expectations
Clearly understood:
- It avoids vague or imprecise language
Free of teacher jargon:
- It does not use terms unique to educational professionals
- It uses language that parents and students can easily comprehend
- It avoids the excessive use of adjectives
Listen as Michael Rosenberg describes the importance of having a statement of purpose (time: 1:01).
Michael Rosenberg, PhD
Professor of Special Education, Associate Dean of Research
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
Transcript: Michael Rosenberg, PhD
Most schools have mission statements that reflect their overall goals and aspirations for improving the academic and social lives for kids. It’s important that individual teachers have a mission statement, or a statement of purpose, for their own individualized comprehensive behavior management plan. What this does is it provides this nice overview for all constituents and stakeholders in the classroom, the parents, the paraprofessionals, the related service people, to see exactly why we have the rules and procedures that we have. So in effect we see this purpose statement within the classroom as the impetus for all of the rules, consequences, procedures that follow within the comprehensive plan.
After developing the statement of purpose, the teacher might consider providing examples of expected behavior through activities such as story telling or role-playing. For instance, to help students understand the concept of being considerate in the classroom, the teacher could ask them to role play being considerate and then ask them to do the same for inconsiderate.
Activity
Ms. Rollison has developed a statement of purpose for her class. Help her to evaluate how well it meets the criteria and, if necessary, to rewrite it. First, read the statement of purpose below.
Think about each of the criteria listed below. Does Ms. Rollinson’s statement of purpose meet them? If yes, click the green checkmark. If no, select the red X.
Now that you have examined the feedback, click to rewrite Ms. Rollison’s statement of purpose to fully meet these criteria.
