For Specialty Teachers

Curiosity: A strategy for encouraging students to attend

When I was in high school I had an English teacher who used a very simple strategy to interest and motivate students.  It didn’t take much time or effort on his part and was just a simple thing, but it was enough to get me to want to attend his class every single day.  What did he do?  He simply put up a new thought-provoking quote, in large letters, in the same place, on the same side chalkboard every day.

He never referred to the quote. (I suspect that intuitively he knew that doing so might produce counterwill.) He never asked our opinions or started a discussion and most often the quote was not related in the least to … >>>

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Any suggestions for getting started with this discipline approach in a school library?

QUESTION:
I’m the librarian in a K-8 school. I have been looking for a good discipline program and am really interested in DWS. Any tips or suggestions for successfully getting started in this type of teaching situation?

RESPONSE:
In any teaching situation, good classroom management lays the foundation for effective discipline. Leave nothing to chance. Carefully create procedures and then proactively teach your students how to behave at Level C in the library. Teach students procedures for every single thing they will need to do while in the library. (See Part I of the Discipline without Stress Teaching Model.)

For example, you might teach procedures for:

• entering and exiting the library
• signing out and returning books
• … >>>

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