What do teachers mean by "structure"?

I'd say, with not the greatest assurance, Boomer, is that it means children need a routine, something that guides them through most of the day. A child should get to know pretty early that they have for example, garbage to take out in time to meet the garbage truck, recycles have to be put in their spot, clothes picked up and taken to the laundry, ... .

I agree. But that's really about the structure of life -- home + school + play + other = structure.

I want to know what teacher mean by "structure" at school.

Kinna help ya there, Lassie.

Here is one use I found:

Kids Need Sense of Structure to Feel Safe at School
Updated September 15, 2003

Sep 14 2003

Kids feel unsafe at school when they sense that schoolmates can get away with anything, say two New York University researchers.

“Disorderliness is the secondary school’s version of ‘broken windows,’ a visible sign that no one cares,” say Tod Mijanovich, M.P.A., and Beth Weitzman, Ph.D., of the university’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. “It serves to signal to students a lack of consistent adult concern and oversight that can leave them feeling unsafe.”

The fear engendered by disorderly schools transcends different neighborhood conditions, races and family social and economic levels, say Mijanovich and Weitzman, writing in the September issue of the Journal of Urban Health. Attending a private school left children feeling safer, they say.

In general, kids’ unsafe feelings have been linked to significant depressive and other psychiatric symptoms, poor academic performance and risky behavior.

Mijanovich and Weitzman used data from 3,290 students surveyed as part of the Robert Wood Johnson’s Urban Health Initiative. About two-thirds of the students attended urban schools and the other third lived in the suburbs. The study covered city and suburban schools in and around Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia and Richmond.

The students were asked about their general sense of safety at school and whether or not they had felt unsafe the day before. Since some interviews were conducted on weekends, the researchers could compare school days with weekends to judge whether safety was an issue of neighborhood or school-based feelings of safety.

Children who had attended school the day before the interview had 46 percent higher odds of feeling unsafe on that day than children who did not attend school.

In the general assessment of school safety, both urban and suburban children felt safer if their parents earned more money or had higher social standing. But the strongest risk factor, running across different types of families, neighborhoods and residential locations, was the sense of school disorder, says Mijanovich.

“About 31 percent of both urban and suburban youths reported that their schoolmates get away with anything,” he says. “School disorder increased with increasing student age and was almost twice as prevalent in public as in private schools — 33 percent vs. 18 percent.”

A family’s material resources can protect students from feeling unsafe some of the time, but not always.

“Privileged families can lessen the risk of their children’s feeling unsafe either by moving to well-off suburbs or by using private schools, but few families can fully escape the major risk factor: a disorderly school environment,” Mijanovich says. “A vicious cycle of school disorder and misconduct produces a culture of low-level violence that represents a continuous threat to adolescents’ sense of safety.”

However, he does not advocate a punitive approach to school discipline.

“It is more effective to promote teacher-student communication and trust and to enforce rules fairly and consistently than it is to institute more punitive measures,” he says. “The most powerful predictor of adolescent well being discovered to date is having a feeling of connectedness to one’s school, and students who perceive themselves to be fairly treated and who are invested in their school life are less likely to engage in risky behaviors.”

- Health Behavior News ServiceArticles in The Science of Mental Health are written by the originating institution. This article was originally posted to Newswise.

Thank you!

So "structure" means "restrictiveness" and "fairness"?

But really it sounds like the school needs structure, not the students.

When I hear the "structure" comments by colleagues - it always seems like they've been told the p.c. version of "your kid needs discipline".

But again that's referring to home life.

Here's how it was used to both me and my friend "Sara" out our opposite kids Mo and "Otis":

"We assigned Mo/Otis to this class/teacher because he needs structure."

(Otis is kind of a surfer dude type kid.)

Sounds at though the teacher is trying to pigeon hole them, boomer. In other words; "Structure yourself for ME". If you know about structural grammar, it's a formula. S+P = sentence, etc.

I would say that structure in that sense meant order and routine. Recesses and lunch are at the same time every day, so too are the classes - you know, English first period, etc. Sit in the same seat, know what's expected, that type of thing.

And people are creatures of habit (don't we usually sit in the same table seat, for example, or prefer the aisle or window on a plane or bus?) so kids would need that, too. I think that does make a person feel safer. Don't you?

Hmmmm..... very interesting observation, Letty. I'm going to mull that over for a while.

Again, that refers to the structure of the school day and that isn't something that is going to change due to whatever teacher a child gets.

(Mo and Otis have different teachers, I don't know if I mentioned that yet.)

would class structure equate to class control?

I don't know.

it was just a thought, I'm thinking "structure" and/or "control" could be a positive, a negative or a neutral in an education environment.

nope.

Discipline, as in order around them at school and in themselves (the once popular self-discipline).

Oh, okay.

So "Your kid needs structure" means "We have to tell your kid what to do"?

I think so too, ehbeth.

But "discipline" doesn't necessarily mean harsh or strict. I think it's a spot on the control spectrum between anything goes/loosey-goosey/kids are running around the room/free-for-all and control freak/authoritarian/"This is my room and you'll do as I say!"/strict.

A teacher whose room/class is "structured" has a daily routine, is consistent in her message/expectations on behavior, has (vs demands) the respect of the kids, is prepared for the day but is able to swing with the curve balls.

I don't think it's saying that Mo needs to be more structured, just that his environment needs to be more structured (less chaotic), and that some teacher's classrooms are like that and some aren't.

More likely to be where and when than what or how (at least in what I'm hearing - the kids know what to do and how to do stuff they're asked to do - but they do whatever it is at the wrong* time/place)


* wrong in the sense of disturbing others - which may tie into those behavioural charts you posted about

Okay... it's starting to make sense to me a bit more now.