Analysis of the Phenomenon of “Report” and “Whistle-Blowing” in Class Management ()
1. Introduction
In the “Class Convention” for a middle school, teachers encourage students to report each other and reward 5 yuan for reporting at a time. This paper analyzes the behavior of “report” and “whistle-blowing” in class management. In class management, students’ whistle-blowing behavior has become common. Most primary and secondary school teachers maintain a tacit attitude towards this phenomenon, and even have a mechanism to reward whistle-blowing and encourage it. In view of this phenomenon, the advantages and disadvantages of the phenomenon of “whistle-blowing” are analyzed, and how to correctly guide students to establish a correct whistle-blowing tendency is proposed.
2. What Is “Report” and “Whistle-Blowing”?
The word “report” is not a derogatory term, because it refers to the behavior of reporting others’ wrong words and behaviors to the superior. This behavior plays a positive role in maintaining class order and is also conducive to teachers’ understanding of students. Encouraging report is also to prevent and reduce wrong behaviors and unhealthy tendencies. However, when the word “report” becomes “whistle-blowing”, the meaning changes. “whistle-blowing” has a derogatory meaning in Chinese dictionaries, and the word “whistle-blowing” often gives people a bad motive.
3. The Positive Role of Whistle-Blowing in Class Management
3.1. Help Teachers to Collect Class Information
The “whistle-blowing” behavior in the process of class management helps teachers master the comprehensive information of the class and students’ trends. It is difficult for younger students to effectively use their self-control ability. Especially when children are in the stage of self-discipline, they no longer believe in inner justice. They have learned from experience that if the violations are not found, then the violators will not be punished. At this time, if individual subtle violations of discipline are not found and corrected in time, the mistakes will gradually spread and expand. In class management, the class teacher cannot supervise students’ study and life all the time, and at this time, the whistleblower’s behavior greatly broadens the channels for the teacher to obtain information. As an auxiliary tool for teachers to collect information, the “whistleblower” can help the teacher to obtain some information that is difficult to detect and cannot be obtained through inquiry and observation, so that the teacher can timely correct unhealthy trends in the class and establish a correct code of conduct. [1]
3.2. Help to Increase Teachers’ Understanding of Students
It is impossible for a class teacher to have a comprehensive understanding of every student in the class. It often needs a channel of communication with the class students, and the class committee or class activists are the communication channels between teachers and students. Those so-called class activists are “whistleblowers”, from whom teachers can have a better understanding of each student’s ability, interest, motivation, attitude and learning style, so as to better guide students in their study and life, adopt different praise policies for students with different personalities, and avoid the sequelae of excessive praise while encouraging students’ progress. In this way, teachers can better understand students’ interests and hobbies and support students’ development in many aspects [2]. Teachers should clearly understand that students are the masters of learning, help students master knowledge through self-thinking, and actively encourage students to develop interests and hobbies. He Xingping, a senior 3 student in Liuzhou, is a typical case. Even in the tense stage of the third year of high school, he still balances the schedule of scientific research, student union work and college entrance examination review. The school and teachers are also very tolerant and understanding of him. The class teacher He Maosen has never abandoned him and always kindly reminds him that neither side can give up. The library teacher learned that He Xingping’s family was not rich and provided him with brand-new books on programming and software. Finally, He Xingping took his intelligent security alarm to Europe and won a medal from the Prince of Denmark.
3.3. Help Teachers to Manage the Class
By setting up a class committee and cultivating “EyeLiner”, the head teacher can monitor students, realize mutual supervision and self-regulation of students, and help maintain class order. Through communication with class students and understanding students’ inner thoughts, opinions and needs, class teachers can timely find problems in class management, timely adjust their own management methods, and formulate a series of appropriate class routines, which plays a positive role in establishing a good teacher-student relationship, improving class teaching quality and promoting students’ personality development. In short, teachers can find, manage and correct unhealthy tendencies in the class in time by using this method.
3.4. Help Students to Participate in Class Management
In primary and secondary school classes, students have formed a certain degree of independent thinking, know how to pursue advantages and avoid disadvantages. They worry about whether bad behaviors in the class will offend their classmates and choose to turn a blind eye, which is the reason for the rise of violence in most schools. The teacher encourages the students in the class to report the secret and bad behavior in the class through the form of “whistle-blowing”, that is, to protect the “whistleblowers”, and at the same time to give full play to the initiative of each student, so that the students in the class can participate in the democratic management of the class, which is conducive to safeguarding the interests of the class, enhancing the students’ sense of responsibility to the class, and urging each other to eliminate the unhealthy tendencies in the class.
4. The Negative Role of Whistle-Blowing in Class Management
4.1. No Guarantee of Messages’ Authenticity
The information about the class provided by “whistleblower” may not be all seen by themselves, but maybe hearsay or speculation. After the students’ processing, their information is often accompanied by exaggeration, fiction and other “distortion” phenomena. It will be a very bad thing if the teacher cannot filter the information correctly, but defines a student’s mistake in advance, shapes a bad image of the student in his mind, and then blame and punish the student, which may have a lifelong impact on some sensitive students. Teachers often have high trust in “whistleblower”. As teachers have the highest power in the class, their attitudes, rewards and punishments are very important to students, which may affect the relationship between students.
4.2. Easy to Destroy the Harmonious Atmosphere of the Class
The behavior of “whistle-blowing” is easy to intensify the internal contradictions in the class. On the surface, it damages the interests of others. In fact, the real victim is the “whistleblowers” themselves. In the student’s view of right and wrong, the “whistleblower” is regarded as a betrayer, which will lead to exclusion and isolation, and intensify interpersonal conflicts within the class. It is easy to cause a bad atmosphere of mutual suspicion and distrust in the class, which has a bad impact on the personality, psychology and values of students [3]. A harmonious and united atmosphere in a class is extremely important. It can cultivate students’ sense of class responsibility and social responsibility. If every student in the class is indifferent, wary of each other, and has no trust, it will be a very sad thing, and it will also be very detrimental to the healthy growth of students’ personalities.
4.3. Undermining Democracy within the Class
The behavior of “whistle-blowing” seems to be a democracy in the class. Everyone participates in the management of the class, but in fact, all the power in the class is in the hands of the class teacher, whose behavior is to maintain the authority of the teacher and the order of the class [4]. “whistle-blowing” is allowed in the class, and the behavior is praised by the class teacher. However, the students in the class do not truly understand the meaning of these class rules, nor do they want to protect and maintain the class order from the heart. They are more concerned about the teachers, and they cannot run through good habits in their lives in private, lacking the awareness of self-conscious norms. In an atmosphere where teachers are in power, students are afraid to express their true ideas, lack democratic speech, and are unable to innovate class management methods and manage class affairs more efficiently.
5. Correctly Guide and Grasp the Whistle-Blowing Behavior in the Class
In the case of a middle school, whistle-blowing under the reward policy will make the students in the class feel insecure and lack trust in each other. Teachers should give full play to the positive role of “whistle-blowing” as much as possible, avoid negative influences, and set up correct values for students.
The whistle-blowing behavior in primary and secondary school classes requires teachers to correctly guide and regulate students. In this way, democratic speech and whistle-blowing can be inclusive. Teachers should let students understand that not all whistle-blowing is correct and meaningful, and let students know what kind of whistle-blowing behavior is conducive to the common progress and development of class students. In other words, teachers should make students understand that the “whistle-blowing” behavior is not wrong, but a way to maintain class unity and help students understand and correct their mistakes. It is the embodiment of a sense of class responsibility and a sense of class honor. After all, the class is a place where everyone is prosperous and everyone is damaged. Any person’s mistakes will affect a class. Teachers like orderly classes, and so do students. Therefore, we should take students as the main body of class management, jointly safeguard our classes, and allow them to speak democratically and express their ideas and opinions. Younger students have not yet formed a complete social value system and the concept of right and wrong. Teachers’ attitudes often affect students’ behavior and have a far-reaching impact on students.
In addition, teachers should establish a reasonable class convention to clarify the rules in the class and delimit the boundaries. The class rules must be reasonable, necessary, specific, concise, and clear about the normative principle of whistle-blowing.
1) Whistleblowers should be responsible for what they say, and should not exaggerate, retaliate, or falsely accuse others.
2) Teachers should make it clear that the purpose of whistle-blowing is education and correction, not scolding and punishment.
3) To protect the identities of whistleblowers and defendants, teachers can privately communicate and educate students.
4) The defendant should be given the opportunity to correct, and the students should be guided to realize their mistakes.
5) Teachers should not be partial to or credulous to whistleblowers, but should have their own considerations.
6) Give certain encouragement and praise to those who report correctly, and avoid public praise.
6. Establish Correct Values
In school education, the moral education of students is extremely important [5]. Teachers should learn to take responsibility for themselves and act as a model for students to influence and educate students. They should not use coercive means to formulate punitive class rules, such as imposing fines on students. It is neither reasonable nor necessary to use such class rules. If students regulate their behavior simply because they are afraid of the rules, they cannot truly understand and appreciate the correct meaning of class rules. As an independent individual, students can have their own thoughts and choices. Blindly emphasizing obedience and restraint, and even taking it as the identification standard of a “good student”, this kind of education is not in accord with the order, stage and difference of adolescent growth. Students should be allowed to make mistakes, and given the opportunity to correct their mistakes. Rather than a single learning education, students should realize the all-round development of morality, intelligence, physique, art and labor.
Teachers should improve their own educational quality, pay attention to their own behavior, take the lead, exert a subtle influence on students’ world outlook and values in their daily education and life, and improve students’ moral character. The significance of education is not only to require students to abide by rules and regulations, but also to let students turn the rules into their own unconscious code of conduct, rather than letting “whistleblowers” regulate students’ behavior.