In pace with the Internet age, WeChat has become a mainstream social media tool. It has not only gained popularity in daily life, but also played a great role in education and teaching, especially in elementary school class management. Due to its numerous advantages and high efficientce in management, WeChat group has become a new means of communication between home and school, and the new favorite and artifact of elementary school head teachers. But it is undeniable that there are also some troubles and pain points in the use of WeChat groups. How to make good use of the "double-edged sword" of the management of class WeChat groups has naturally become headache for elementary school head teachers.

1. The Positive Role of Class WeChat Group

(1) WeChat group is the "sunshine room" for class information release

In the past, the daily affairs of some classes were mainly conveyed by students returning home, but elementary school students, especially low-end children, often did not fully understand the situation of the class, so the home-reporting would naturally not be in place. Therefore, elementary school head teachers use WeChat's quick and convenient function to establish class WeChat groups, which can keep parents informed of class activities, such as announcements of holiday suspensions, class adjustments, and group activities. After the activity is over, the results can also be released in time, which helps parents to accurately and fully understand the class. If the school is going to rehearse the Children’s Day celebrations, the teacher notifies the parents of the purchase of the dance props and performance costumes. The parents will immediately cooperate in finding samples and styles, and will also send pictures to discuss and decide together. After unifying their opinions, the parents recommended a representative to purchase the necessary dance props and costumes. After the things are done bought, everyone share the costs in the WeChat, which are done the teacher’s problem, and the parents were also satisfied.

Additionally, children always need parental supervision for their poor self-control and consciousness, and they often need adult supervision. The primary school class teacher shares the course schedule and learning process through the WeChat group, so that parents can understand and refer to the relevant process to guide and urge children to learn effectively.

(2) WeChat group is the "treasure house" for students to learn mobile learning

WeChat has changed the traditional educational thoughts, and has become accustomed to classroom teaching with a chalk, a mouth, and a blackboard. With the help of modern science and technology to mobilize the enthusiasm of students, the teacher can finally realizes the technology-assisted teaching and maximize its advantage.

WeChat uses the Internet as a medium to support the sending of text, pictures, videos, voice messages, etc. The class teacher can use the WeChat group to strengthen students' classroom learning when necessary. For example, when teaching students characters, the teacher can send the pictures of the new characters in the courseware to the group so that the students can write neatly and accurately write stroke by stroke. If you have any content that needs to be explained, you can immediately edit the information to remind parents to pay attention. Of course, the assignment of homework by the WeChat group is only an occasional behavior, which can not replace the role of the classroom, and extend classroom learning arbitrarily, otherwise it will easily increase the burden on students.

In addition, there are many excellent learning resources in some online databases and some WeChat public accounts. The head teacher may wish to make full use of the WeChat function to upload learning resources in the form of videos, audios, and texts to the WeChat group. Parents choose to download and let their children learn.

(3) WeChat group is the "glue" of the collective

How can a class be recognized and supported by all parents, and how can parents be closely bonded and united? The answer is to introduce the honor of the class. The Hall of Fame, which is frequently updated in the WeChat group, is a place where positive energy is constantly spreading. Event video, class honors, competition certificates... These can not only let parents know the current situation of the class, but also allow parents and children to learn more about the class. Confidence makes the collective more cohesive.

For example, the school requires every student to bring sports equipment such as skipping rope, shuttlecock and play sports games freely between classes. At the beginning, only a few people brought the equipment, but when the head teacher sent the photos of the activity to the group, many parents said that they were so happy to see the teacher and students skipping rope together. They can realize that the teacher loves the students and the students also love this class. As parents, they should support the teachers and the school. Although it is not a face-to-face communication, the gap between the head teacher and the parents is narrowed, the speech is more harmonious, and the class cohesion is stronger.

(4) Wechat group is the "cradle" of class moral education construction

The vitality of WeChat groups lies in their powerful communication functions. Teachers and parents can communicate, parents can communicate with parents, and of course, there can also be collective communication with all members. Therefore, the head teacher can take the opportunity to strengthen the moral education of students.

As a class teacher, it’s important to promote outstanding deeds in the class in the WeChat group, encourage students with outstanding performance and rapid progress in all aspects, set an example, and promote the common progress of class students. These will attract great attention from parents. In addition, the WeChat official account is used to disseminate information about family education and public opinion's correct views on hot events, and guide parents to pay attention to and properly carry out moral education.

For their children are of same age, parents are facing similar situation. So experience sharing eliminates the embarrassment of being alone. The forwarding and sharing function of the WeChat group makes it extremely convenient for many parents of students to create or repost many articles about family education. These sincere family education articles are from the real education life of responsible parents, and they are the bits and pieces of the parents. A true portrayal of the shining points of education. Just imagine what a strong emotional consensus it is for dozens of contemporaries from different industries to have parenting exchanges on the same platform with children of the same age who have a certain degree of commonality. Sometimes a parent's question will have the effect of stirring up waves with one stone, opening the door to parents' emotions. Parent communication on the WeChat platform of the class is an extremely cheap and very effective learning opportunity. More importantly, through communication, all parents will form a consensus: the education of children is not just a matter for teachers. Parents Also plays an important role.

2. Negative Influence of Class WeChat Group

Along with the convenience, many parents went off the road, and their arbitrary practice made the WeChat group "changed", which added a lot of troubles to teachers and parents, and brought some negative effects to class management.

(1) The WeChat group has become a "private place" for parents

Some parents like to show off their kids and often present photos of their children's various talent shows, etc., hoping to get praise from other parents. Although it is understandable, it interferes with other people's work and life. Some parents are pleased to swipe the screen. No matter what the teacher says, they will like it or reply "Thank you for your hard work." The same information quickly overwhelmed the notice issued by the teacher and caused obstacles to other parents' reading. Some parents like to send lucky money. During various festivals, some parents frequently send red envelopes to grab red envelopes in groups, which deviated from the original education goal of WeChat group. Some parents spammed information, posting some topics unrelated to education in the group, like promotional information. In short, these parents treat the WeChat group as their own place, as a personal resource, which is not advisable.

(2) The WeChat group has become the "boulder" for parents and students

Many parents will share the recent situation of their children in the group, and some parents will share the "little secrets" they hear from their children when they are chatting, which may affect other children. Some teachers love their students, but may misuse WeChat group for the temporary convenience, like naming and criticizing certain children, publishing grades or other behaviors which may hurt children’s self-seteem and increase the pressure on the parents.

(3) The WeChat group has become a "disturber" for teachers

Some parents always ask their children's performance in the group because they pay too much attention to their children's School affairs. Therefore, teachers are often tired of answering trivial questions. Sometimes even asking questions in the group in the midnight, which seriously affects the teacher and other parents’ sleep. Sometimes a teacher posts a message because the screen is swiped by the parents expressing gratitude, which causes different parents to keep asking the same questions in the group, which greatly reduces work efficiency.

(4) The WeChat group has become an "incubator" of bad habits

Originally, the teachers usually wrote the day’s homework on the blackboard, and the children carefully copied them into their homework books. They insisted on developing good study habits every day, and it was not easy to miss the homework. When the teacher assigns homework in the WeChat group, some children will naturally become dependent and too lazy to remember homework. If things go on like this, children will not only develop dependence, but will also reduce their sense of responsibility for learning to a certain extent.

Originally, parents needed to call in advance or directly use a written note to ask the teacher for leave for their children. With the WeChat group, some parents regard it as a convenient platform for asking for leave. Regardless of whether the teacher is online or not, sending a message to ask for leave and think everything is fine. This behavior will not only cause additional burdens for teachers' work, but also cause the home and school to fail to communicate effectively and in a timely manner, causing unnecessary misunderstandings and troubles.

3. Class WeChat Group Management Strategy

In the process of managing classes with the help of WeChat groups, I think the effective guidance and active participation of the head teacher is essential, especially monitoring to some extent is particularly important. The specific methods are as follows:

(1) Say or not

Common problems can be said in the group. For example, if there is a common problem among students, the teacher can point it out in the group. Parents often find out the deficiencies of their children based on the problems raised by the teacher, which is conducive to the cooperation of both parties and jointly educate the students. Or, the issues that need parents to participate in the discussion can be discussed in the group. For example, asking parents to give suggestions on class matters, like team meeting activities. For parents, they can have a lively discussion in the group and provide different ideas; for teachers, they can listen to the opinions of parents in all aspects.

Students’ personal issues can not be commented in the group. For individual students’ problems, teachers should communicate with their guardians individually, which can make parents feel sincerity, which is more conducive to communication. Just discuss one student’s problem in group not only lack pertinence, but also violates the privacy of students. If the problem is pointed out too sharply, it can easily arouse parental disgust. Because nowadays parents are more sensitive to children's problems, the teacher pointed out the shortcomings of a certain student sharply in the WeChat group, and the parents may not be able to face it peacefully, which is easy to cause resentment. In this way, not only will it fail to achieve the expected educational effect, it may also have the opposite effect.

(2) Reply or not

The WeChat communication platform has many advantages in interpersonal communication: Instant interaction without the constraints of time and space, delay message interaction, one-to-one communication or multi-person communication, and so on. The establishment of the class WeChat group easily breaks the time and space constraints, helps the contact and interaction between home and school, so that parents can better understand the performance of students in school, and deepen the communication between teachers and parents. But this also brings about problems: parents always have things to ask, and teachers have no extra energy to reply after they are busy with daily teaching tasks. In response to this contradiction, we should clarify the attitude and principles of class WeChat group management at the beginning.

I often hear some teachers say: "I don't go to WeChat, no matter what they say, I don't care." Although this method can make oneself retreat, it is not advisable. We all know that "warranty talk", a radical parent said something radical in the WeChat group, how much will affect other parents, if it is allowed to develop, the parents' support and trust in the school and teachers will decline, and even misunderstandings Or the formation of rumors, these will bring troubles to class management. But if the class teacher "hands everything" and answers every question, then we will be struggling to deal with it. Therefore, the class teacher should seize the main and give up the secondary, with a definite target. Looking carefully at the WeChat group, we will find that parents ask what homework they do, what clothes to wear tomorrow, some ask students about their performance at school, and ask for leave... For those that are not important, the head teacher will not answer. However, when problems such as parental conflicts, student injuries, teacher-student conflicts, and parent complaints arise in the WeChat group, the head teacher can not ignore them, but should intervene appropriately, explain in time, and guide the "wind direction."

The head teacher should always convey to the parents the idea that parents should help and cooperate with each other. In fact, the teacher in charge of the class cannot always guard the WeChat group, and sometimes cannot check the information of the WeChat group in time. Therefore, if parents help, some small problems will be resolved by the parents themselves. This not only deepens the awareness of cooperation between parents, but also liberates the work of the head teacher, allowing the head teacher to focus on class management and construction. It is impossible for the class teacher to focus on his phone all the time, however, they should keep up with the trend of the times and use new technologies to serve education in the "Internet +" era. On the one hand, they must know how to use WeChat groups to manage the class, Convey their own management concepts, and release good educational content or information to parents; on the other hand, they must have a certain degree of media communication literacy, understand the communication characteristics of WeChat groups, and use these professional knowledge in time when problems arise. Responding to the crisis, leading the healthy development of WeChat groups.

(3) Supervise or not

Give parents a certain amount of freedom, and do not suppress or harm their enthusiasm for activities. For some teachers, the parent group is just a means of communication, used for teaching-related uploading and distributing, especially the transmission of school documents, in addition to publishing safety-related matters. This part of the teachers do not want anything other than the above content to appear in the group, thinking that this is an interruption to the teachers. But in this way, the function of the parent group can only stay in the transactional notification, resulting in the lack of its educational function. However, class management is not only a personal matter, but also a process that children and parents get involved. To achieve this effect, you can get twice the result with half the effort through WeChat groups-it can not only be used to issue notices and assign tasks, It can also be used for teachers and parents to discuss educational issues together, to reflect on their own educational concepts and methods, to enhance the consciousness of both parties as educators, and to achieve common growth. Therefore, as long as the positive content is related to the growth of students, the head teacher can relax the entrance without any need to interfere. At the same time, he must seek the understanding and support of the subject teachers to jointly create a WeChat group that is mutually comfortable and win-win for all parties.

Of course, if it is information that has nothing to do with the purpose of constructing the group, the head teacher must learn to block it in time. How to avoid the repetition of a large quantity of invalid information or even "negative" information in the group is a test for the head teacher. I think the better approach is to establish rules in advance and make announcements in the group in the name of the family committee to guide everyone to speak rationally; speak in a civilized manner, advocate conciseness, objectiveness and fairness when communicating, and everyone should be responsible for their own speech; Have the courage to say “no”. For any inappropriate remarks, the class teacher or supervisory administrator has the obligation to stand up, treat them differently according to their nature, and persuade or stop them, or even persuade them to withdraw from the group, and strictly guarantee the healthy and orderly operation of the parent group.

(4) Get close to or not

The distance between the primary school headteacher and the parents in the group should be well controlled. It is necessary to know how to actively fit, but also to learn to distance itself in a timely manner. Only with just the right degree of control can it be conducive to the education and development of children and the construction of class collectives.

Therefore, the primary school head teacher must maintain a proactive and caring attitude on the issue of children’s education: approaching the children and parents as much as possible. First of all, the teacher in charge of the class should care about the students' study, and give feedback on the students' learning situation in school in time. Instead of waiting passively, the teacher should take the initiative to inform parents and worry about what they are worried about. Secondly, the head teacher should also care about the daily life of the students. After all, unlike class teachers, the head teacher also shoulders the special role of a teacher who is fully responsible for the thinking, study, health and life of a class of students. For example, you can often send messages in the group such as “The weather is getting colder, let the children wear more clothes”, “The river in front of the school is deep, tell the children not to go to the riverside to play”, only in this way can the parents feel the class collective warmth.

What needs to be particularly vigilant is that the head teacher should not get too close to the parents, that is, the so-called "discord" should be maintained. This point is also well-founded in psychology-the hedgehog effect, which refers to the phenomenon that hedgehogs move closer to each other to keep warm when it is cold, but keep a certain distance to avoid stabbing each other. It emphasizes the "psychological distance effect" in interpersonal communication. In pedagogy, this theory tells us that only by keeping a proper distance between educators and the educated can a good educational effect be achieved.

I think that the head teacher and the parents’ getting too close may cause two problems: First, the teacher and the parents have developed a personal relationship other than the family-school relationship due to the close communication between the teacher and the parents, such as being good friends--------So when caring for the “friends”, the teacher intervene in the family affairs inevitably, I will inevitably intervene in the family affairs of "good friends". When something goes wrong, this consequence will directly affect the healthy growth of students. Then what will teachers do in school in the future? How will they play their role as educators? Second, due to the close proximity of the class teacher and the parents, the parents have a thorough knowledge of all aspects of the teacher: the teacher has not only lost the necessary privacy rights, but more seriously, has also lost the effective education rights because the parents are too familiar with the teacher. The temperament will be clear about the educational measures taken by the teacher and the psychology behind it, and it may interfere or even hinder the normal educational activities of the teacher.

Therefore, the head teacher should always pay attention to keeping the distance from the parents. For example, he can set up some rule about the moment (a sharing function of WeChat). some moments about school can be open to parents while the personal or private life can be limited. Parents are full of curiosity about their child's head teacher, and it is normal to want to observe in many ways, but as a head teacher, we need to understand "distance produces beauty" and maintain a certain sense of mystery.

To sum up, regardless of advantages and disadvantages, the WeChat group is still an important platform for elementary school class management and education. The head teacher of elementary school can't set it aside or rule it by doing nothing. On the contrary, it is necessary to understand that "I am in charge of my turf", take action when it is time to take action, and be good at pros and cons. Only in this way can we return a clean blue sky to the class WeChat group.