THREE BRIDGES TO TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY DISCIPLINE WILLIAM GLASSER THOMAS GORDON, ALFIE KOHN

Holly Lewis, March 10, 2010, Classroom Management

William Glasser – Choice Theory According to Glasser, students misbehave

when their basic needs are not being met in the classroom.

Five basic needs that schools need to be provide in order for students to succeed are survival, belonging, power, fun and freedom.

All instruction should be done in a “leading” manner, with the focus being on the quality of teaching, learning and curriculum.

Basic Students Needs

The need for survival can be met by keeping the school environment safe and free from personal threat.

The need for belonging can be met by involving students in the class, and making sure they receive attention and recognition from others.

The need for power can be met by giving students responsibility for their tasks and allowing them to participate in the decision making for the class.

The need for fun can be met through group work, interesting activities, and shared accomplishments.

The need for freedom can be met by allowing students to make their own choices about what they will learn, and how they will demonstrate their knowledge.

Choice Theory

Choice Theory is the acknowledgement that we cannot control anyone behavior except our own and cannot successfully make the students do anything.

In the past, teachers have motivated students through “external control,” which means what we do to students or for them.

However, this is incorrect because students will always do what is most satisfying for them, and we cannot control anyone’s behavior except our own.

According to the Choice Theory, all a teacher can do is help a student recognize the value of quality learning, and provide them with the tools to achieve it.

Students learn more and are more cooperative when they enjoy the topic that they are learning.

Curriculum

Two flaws in present-day curriculum are:1. Irrelevance of the material to students daily lives2. Judging the quality of the education based on how many bits of information students can retain long enough to be tested on.

Quality Curriculum teaches students topics that they find enjoyable and useful.

Quality Learning is achieved by a teacher introducing a new topic and having the students decide what they would like to learn in depth.

Quality Learning leads to Quality Education, which can be measured by the depth of understanding in cohesion with the understanding of the information’s usefulness.

To evaluate Quality Learning, teachers should ask students to identify why the information is valuable, and how and where it can be used.

Quality Teaching

There are several things a teacher can do to ensure that they are providing high – quality teaching:1. Provide a warm, supportive classroom2. Make sure all instruction is “Lead teaching,” rather than, “Boss teaching.”3. Make sure all school work is useful.4. Encourage students to do the best that they can.5. Give the students opportunity to evaluate their work and improve upon it.

Lead Teaching

Teachers should be “lead” teachers as opposed to “boss” teachers. “Lead” teachers aim for the students to achieve quality

schoolwork. In order to motivate their students, lead teachers should do the following things: 1. Allow their students to choose the topics that they wish to learn and explore.

2. Work with students to develop classroom rules, aiming to establish courtesy as the main rule.

3. Intervene in a non-punitive manner when the rules of the classroom are violated.

Lead teachers should also avoid the seven deadly habits of criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing and rewarding.

Instead, they should focus on the seven connecting habits: caring, listening, supporting, contributing, encouraging, trusting and befriending.

Quality Classroom

In order to achieve a quality classroom, these things must be incorporated:

- Avoid the 7 deadly habits

- Make sure the class knows that you are invested in their education.

- Make learning fun; use the 7 connecting habits

- Establish courtesy as the most important rule in your classroom.

- Avoid traditional discipline. Talk and listen to your students when there is a problem.

- Promise students that you will not teach them anything that is not valuable or useful to them.

Quality Classroom

In order to achieve a higher quality of work…

- Allow students to continue to revise their assignments until they bring it up to a passing grade.

- Encourage students to work to a higher – quality level of work.

- Allow students to review tests and correct their answers until they truly know the material.

- Always have the students reuse the skills and information that they learn.

- Have competent students help other students so that all students can ultimately reach a higher quality level.

Thomas Gordon Discipline Through Inner Self-Control

The best form of classroom discipline is achieved through helping students acquire an inner sense of self – control.

He argued that teachers could no longer use traditional intervention techniques of power-based authority, reward, punishment, and win-lose conflict resolution.

Instead, teachers should use non-controlling methods for classroom discipline.

Non-controlling methods include: modifying the environment, sending I-messages, practicing a no-lose method of conflict resolution, acknowledging feelings and perceptions, actively listening to students, and avoiding roadblocks to communication.

I-Messages

Gordon suggests that teachers should use I-Messages to state how they feel about situations. “I feel frustrated because there is a lot of noise in the room, and I’m worried we wont get through our lesson.

He discouraged using You-Messages because they assign blame on the students, and they respond negatively. “You are making too much noise, and need to quiet down.”

Gordon’s Plan for Discipline

1. Influence rather than control

2. Preventive skills3. Determining who owns the problem4. Confrontive skills5. Helping skills6. No – lose conflict resolution

Gordon’s Plan for Discipline

Influence rather than control - When you try to control students’ behavior, you trigger their coping mechanisms, which are fighting, taking flight and submitting.

- When students resort to their coping mechanisms, it cuts off their communication and willingness to cooperate with the teacher.

- Instead, teachers should use non-controlling methods to exert a positive influence within the classroom.

Preventive Skills- To prevent discipline problems, teachers can use I – messages, collaborate rules setting, and use participative management. - Preventive I – Messages can influence students future actions. - Collaborate rule setting is when the teachers and students decide together how the classroom will run, and what behaviors will be expected of the students. - Participatory classroom management is when the teachers share the power with the students and give them say in decisions within the classroom.

Gordon’s Plan for Discipline

Discipline and Who Owns the Problem- When a individual misbehaves, the person who is made

uncomfortable by the behavior is said to “own the problem.”- This is important to Gordon’s theory because the discipline

techniques are applied in accordance to who owns the problem.

Confrontive Skills- If a teacher owns the problem, they should do the following:

- Modify the physical environment – eliminate distractions and stressors.

- Send I-messages regularly – when teachers are upset, they should express their feelings through I-Messages instead of scolding.

- Shift gears – if the I – Message provokes a negative response, the teacher should switch into a listening/understanding posture.

Gordon’s Plan for Discipline

Helping Skills- If a student owns a problem, teachers should listen and avoid communication roadblocks.

- There are four different types of listening:

- Passive listening – attentive silence

- Acknowledgment responses – verbal or nonverbal responses that demonstrate the teacher’s attention.

- Door openers – inviting students to discuss their problems.

- Active listening –mirroring back what the students are saying.

- Avoiding communication roadblock is a major requirement in communicating with students.

- Teachers should avoid giving orders, warning, preaching, advising, lecturing, criticizing, name calling, analyzing, praising, reassuring, questioning, and withdrawing.

Gordon’s Plan for Discipline

No-Lose Conflict Resolution- This is also known as the win-win conflict resolution.- It suggest that when there is a conflict, the end result should reach an agreement that satisfies both parties.

Alfie Kohn – Beyond Discipline Kohn’s main interest is developing “caring,

supportive classrooms” in which students are able to “pursue topics of interest in depth.”

He also criticizes how teachers discipline students through reward and punishment, and how “teaching and discipline that “do” things to students rather than involving students as partners in the process.”

He argues that this form of discipline creates mistrust, avoidance, and working for rewards only as well as causes students to mistrust in their own ability and hinders their becoming caring and self-reliant.

Learning Communities

“Learning communities” will allow students to feel valued and respected, feel connected to each other, and have a sense of “us” as a community.

Some strategies to achieve a sense of community in the classroom: Building relationships between students and teachers –

students will behave more respectfully if adults treated them with respect.

Enhancing connections among students – encourage students to consider situations from another person’s point of view.

Classroom meetings Classwide and School-wide activities – create plenty of

opportunities for students to collaborate as a group. Academic instruction – discuss with students what they want to

learn and how they want to learn it.

The Trouble with Discipline for Compliance

Kohn suggests that discipline would be irrelevant if the class was organized through the constructivist theory.

The constructivist theory states that students cannot learn knowledge directly from teachers, but can only learn through constructing it from their own experience.

The Trouble with Discipline for Compliance

Kohn also states that there is a discrepancy in what schools want and how they act. Schools want students to care about what they learn and

build upon it, but they force compliance, focus attention on grades, and encourage short – term retention through tests.

Compliance through rewards causes students to feel no commitment to their work, no understanding of what they are doing or why, and no idea that they should want to learn and act in these ways.

Ultimately, teachers have to change their teaching methods to avoid compliance if their long term goals are for students to be responsible and caring of their education.

Classroom Management

“The ideal classroom would emphasis a curriculum that appeals to the students and create a democratic community where students can comply with teacher expectations when it is truly necessary for them to do so, such as with safety matters.”

Kohn outlines criteria for assessing structure and limits. This list includes: purpose, restrictiveness, flexibility,

developmental appropriateness, presentation style and student involvement.

The Trouble with Today’s Teaching

Avoid traditional instruction where the teacher selects the curriculum, does the planning, delivers the lesson through lecture, demonstration, guided discussion, etc.

This form of instruction puts “emphasis on how well the students are doing rather than on what they are doing.”

He argues that this form of lecture will cause the students to have poor attitudes about learning and never challenge themselves intellectually.

Instead, teachers should pay attention to the individual needs and interests of each student and have the students construct their knowledge out of experiences provided for them.

Students should be active majority of time in the classroom, rather than passive.

Three Key Facts

Students learn most avidly and have their best ideas when they get to choose which questions they want to explore.

All of us tend to be happiest and most effective when we have some say in what we are doing.

When students have no choice and control over learning, their achievement drops.

Instruction according to Kohn Curriculum should allow students to be

purposefully active most of the time, rather than passive.

Students should construct knowledge and skills out of the experiences provided in school.