Becoming a Behavior-Minded Art Teacher

I rarely print out articles that I can view on my computer, but this one I did. "Becoming a Behavior-Minded Art Teacher" by Frank D Susi (1996)tackles the diverse realm of managing student behavior. I thought Susi set up a good framework to consider when creating art room curricula. I like how he acknowledged the work and consideration that goes in to planning classroom activities well before the first day of class and how to consider student behavior during that process. When he discussed the "humane and democratically oriented beliefs and values" set forth by Kindsvatter, Wilen & Ishler (1992)I felt he shared with us ideal qualities and actions of the perfect art teacher. So although I agree with that these practices outlined are proper and necessary goals for all art teachers to strive to reach, I do not have faith that any educator has ever successfully met 100% of these prerequisites. To exemplify my thought process here, let's consider some of the phrases/ideas shared in this instructional list: showing respect,preserving dignity,personal responsibility,not making a troubled child's problem worse, providing realistic opportunities, personal success, emotional comfort, expecting class members to cope, reasonable conditions and responsibilities, inappropriate behavior, dealing with misbehavior fairly, consistently, clearly, and finally, enlightened and well intentioned. That's a pretty excessive list of things that could have any number of definitions depending upon the ideology of the student, the parent, the educator, the individual. I think the probability that the stars will align during every instance of misbehavior and every individual will agree with the efforts put forth to resolve the problem is pretty slim. My students will probably be completely out of control because I carry quite a bit of insecurity in taking any disciplinary action on other people's children. I have also heard horror stories about lack of school support for their employee when faced with a parent angry over a teacher's use of disciplinary action. That kind of stress and confrontation is not something I think many of us considered when deciding to become teachers.