4.2. The role of the cooperating teacher in behaviour
management
Another argument relates to the functioning of
the cooperating teacher in the context of behaviour
management: the cooperating teacher takes full
responsibility for coping with behaviour problems
and, therefore, the role of the student teacher
becomes marginal or non-existent. Comments
regarding behaviour in class were examined quantitatively
according to their source: student teachers
made 54% and cooperating teachers made 38% of
the comments (The rest of the comments were
divided among the supervisor, guest student teachers
and the children, themselves.) (Fig. 2).
The cooperating teachers made an average of 0.3
comments per minute. There were two who did not
comment at all and two who made an average of
more than one comment per minute throughout the
lesson.
The high percentage of comments on behaviour
management made by cooperating teachers does
remove part of the responsibility and accountability
from student teachers. Thus, to examine the
involvement of the cooperating teachers, we also
used qualitative tools. Most of the observations
indicate that the cooperating teacher begins the
class, and that, before she hands it over to the
student teacher, she reminds her pupils that she
expects them to cooperate and that their behaviour
is being put to the test. She also mentions the guests
in the class in the context of behaviour. For
example, in one class, the teacher asked the children
why they thought that there were guests in the class.
One of the children answered, ‘‘To see how we
behave.’’ The teacher smiled, repeated his answer
and continued on to the next child without contradicting
him. During the lessons, there were many
comments made by the cooperating teacher like
‘‘You promised mey’’, indicating that there had
been preparatory discussions before the class to
ensure that children who are prone to problematic
behaviour would behave themselves.