One of the most vital aspects of having a successful teaching experience lies in the ability to "manage your classroom". Effective classroom management encompasses many things. Boiled down to its core, it is the wide variety of skills and techniques that teachers use to keep students organized, focused, attentive, on task, and academically productive during a class.

Effective teaching and learning cannot take place in a poorly managed classroom. And classroom management is a large part of performance reviews for teachers once they are working in the school system.

But for some reason, many university teacher education programs don't spend a lot of time on it. I remember talking about Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition over and over and over again in different courses. But classroom management? We talked about strategies, but there was never really a good opportunity to put it into action.

Sure, during school observations and student teaching, beginning teachers are placed in classrooms with real students and have opportunities to see management in action. But it's not the same when you're on your own in August. When you're a student teacher, you're walking into someone else's classroom. Even when you take over, the mentor teacher is expected to stay in the classroom with you. Their presence makes a difference. Additionally, since most student teachers take over the classroom a few weeks after the semester has already started, so it's likely the mentor teacher has already established the ground rules and expectations for the class. Once the students get into this routine (and with the mentor teacher always watching), they're less likely to give a student teacher trouble.

Studies have found this is a phenomenon all over the United States. A study by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) found that while virtually all programs have coursework that claims to teach classroom management, many don't give the subject enough time or real-life application. The survey results also found that over 40 percent of new teachers reported feeling either "not at all prepared" or "only somewhat prepared" to handle a range of classroom management or discipline situations. "Classroom management is extraordinarily absent in teaching certification programs," said Mike Lombardo, director of prevention supports and services for the Placer County (CA) Office of Education.

So what are some of the things preservice teachers are learning? I remember being told that it is incredibly important to establish the ground rules from day one. That it's easier to start off hard and soften up as the year goes on, rather than vice versa. But the tools I was given to do this? We learned about turning off the lights when the students got too chatty, sitting in silence waiting on the students, and using different clapping patterns to grab students' attention. These strategies can work, but they're not going to solve everything. And every group of students is different.

Now more than ever, it's imperative that we give aspiring teachers the tools to run their classrooms effectively. According to recent studies, more than 40% of US teachers leave the profession within five years. In North Carolina, the attrition rate for beginning teachers (teachers in their first three years) is 12.31%, substantially higher than more experienced teachers (7.66%). The future of education in our country is being affected by the conditions teachers are working in. Not preparing new teachers for the actual teaching experience leads to disillusion, disappointment, and overwhelming stress.

Beginning teachers face a reality shock in the classroom when their teacher education programs focus on the theoretical side of classroom management. A respondent to the NCTQ survey stated, "In my undergraduate studies, it was all about developing a classroom management philosophy, but nothing about the practical routines and rules that work in the classroom and that are backed by research. I had to research and learn these on my own." I found this to be true of my own teacher preparation courses.

Most classroom management instruction focuses on ideas and theories, but not enough focus is being put on putting these into action. The real classroom experiences we get often only give us a glimpse of what teaching is really like once you're on your own. And when you're teaching lessons to fellow preservice teachers in your courses, it is nothing like what working with real students is like. The art and craft of keeping a room full of 20 eight-year-olds, or 35 teenagers, engaged and under control is among the most challenging aspects of a teacher's job. Incorporating real-world activities and adding classroom management courses for preservice teachers is a worthwhile endeavor.