Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 8 Number 4
#2 How NOT to promote responsibility
#3 The Japanese approach to teaching
#6 When to implement the program
Without Stress Blog
Positivity (conscious optimism) prmotes responsibility. This positive attitude begins between the ears. The most important thing people can control is their state of mind. A state of mind is something that one can control. It can be created. Thinking and acting responsibly—or irresponsibly—begins, therefore, with how a person shapes one's own thoughts. As leaders, teachers, and parents, we have an oligation to help young people shape and control their thoughts. We can do this by painting positive pictures that empower. Sometimes a simple word can make the difference as in, "You have to go to school today" vs. "You get to go to school today." Since how we think induces how we feel, negative thoughts have a tendency to blame,
READ MORE >>> →A researcher working on a large study of discipline and classroom management programs in America contacted me. She mentioned that her report would be presented to the American Educational Research Association. She asked whether her reference should be to the "Raise Responsibility System" or to "Discipline without Stress." I chose "Discipline Without Stress" for the following reasons: –"Discipline without Stress" is in the title of the book, whereas the "Raise Responsibility System" is a chapter in the book (Chapter 3), –Teaching procedures—the key to effective classroom management—precedes the introduction of the "Raise Responsibility System," –The three principles to practice for becoming more effective and improving relationships (Chapter 1 of the book) is not part of the "Raise Responsibility System," –The
READ MORE >>> →One of the most important comments received about the discipline approach is the following: “We especially liked the fact that the teachers were no longer punishing students but guiding them to self-analyze. We have begun using authority in a non-adversarial manner in order to establish and maintain a caring classroom environment.” Pamela Marton, Principal Community School, Los Angeles Unified School District, CA ———— More information on this topic is available at http://marvinmarshall.com.
READ MORE >>> →QUESTION:Some of my youngsters are struggling with the word, “anarchy.” How can I explain what it means in a simple way? RESPONSE: Remember that young people’s brains are like sponges. They can absorb anything. The trick is to make meaning of what is absorbed to enhance learning and memory. For older children: Break “an/archy” up by teaching that the prefix “an” means “not,” “without,” or “lacking”—in this case, “without rule.” Compare this with other prefixes such as “mono,” which means “one,” and “olig” which means “a few.” Explain that: –Monarchy is rule by one person (like a king). –Oligarchy means rule by a few people. –Anarchy means that there is no leadership, so people do anything they want—often without any
READ MORE >>> →I share a communication I received from Mary Lou Cebula, a principal in Warren, New Jersey: Subject: The Perfect Gift Hi Marv, I just had to share this experience with you. A second grade class invited me to their room. When I arrived, there was a special chair placed on the edge of the carpet. The students were seated on the carpet with their teacher, Mrs. Buckley. They asked me to sit in the chair. Mrs. Buckley explained that the children had participated in a writing activity called, "The Perfect Gift." They had to select a member of their family and decide what would be the perfect gift for that person. The student then wrote a letter to the person
READ MORE >>> →Emotions drive attention. Attention drives learning. Emotionally blocked; learning stopped. Spence Rogers of Peak Learning Systems is recognized for being one of the top experts in effective instruction and assessment. He shared with me an e-mail he received from a counselor whose job it is to intervene with kids sent to the office for misbehavior. He had introduced the counselor to information from my book. “I try and intercept as many as I can before the principal visits with them. I work with them with ideas from Dr. Marshall’s book. After coaching four students (all boys) from one first grade class, they wanted to share what they learned from Dr. Marshall’s work with their teacher. The teacher decided to let
READ MORE >>> →A friend of ours had surgery and expressed her concern about the procedure—even though it was a minor one. My wife counseled her with the following message: “When I was pregnant, I never worried about the baby. I simply remembered my mother’s self-talk when she was pregnant: I will only think beautiful thoughts so that I will have a beautiful baby.” If you have trouble creating self-talk that enhances your life, here is another approach: Redirect or detour your thinking onto another subject. Do this each time you begin to worry or are creating negative self-talk about yourself or others. More information on this topic is available at http://marvinmarshall.com.
READ MORE >>> →QUESTION: I was wondering if the behavior standards listed by Marshall (A = anarchy, etc.) are confusing to students. When we give them behavior grades, we say “A” is the best. I want to put up the Hierarchy chart as described in the book, but I wondered if it was going to confuse the kids. RESPONSE: The symbols “ABCD” have no particular meaning in and of themselves, it’s only in context that these symbols hold particular meanings. For example, in a multiple choice question, A,B,C,D identify four possible answers. In First Aid situations, ABC refers to Check AIRWAYS, Check BREATHING, Check CIRCULATION. When discussing “patterning” as a concept in math, ABCD might refer to a pattern of four repeating shapes
READ MORE >>> →Question: I teach Marvin Marshall’s Discipline without Stress levels but I’m a bit put off by the “reverse A-D system.” D being the best goes so opposite to how we usually think of grades or levels. Response: Although it’s true that school letter grades and the Discipline without Stress Hierarchy levels are arranged in opposite orders, at my K-6 school we have never experienced any confusion with this. I think that’s because we purposely do everything we can to keep grades separate from discussion of the Discipline without Stress Hierarchy. The two are not connected. Certainly, both provide tools of evaluation, but one is a tool of EXternal evaluation and one is a tool of INternal evaluation. The Hierarchy is
READ MORE >>> →QUESTION: Just wondering–could the levels be renamed to go in the opposite order? The younger kiddies have been so programmed to think that A is the best and what they should be striving for. To them, D means needing improvement. I’m afraid my kids will get confused when I tell them Level A is the worst level. RESPONSE: From a primary teacher on the Disicpline without Stress mailring: I thought the same thing until I taught it to my children. My second grade class learned the terms the first day of school. I had a harder time with getting my mind around it than they did! Their minds are remarkably resilient and flexible. As a reminder for me, I posted
READ MORE >>> →I have never been a fan of the self-esteem movement because I have always thought that a person’s self-esteem comes from one’s own self-talk. This self-talk emanates primarily from a person’s nature and experiences, rather than from some external agent(s). I have never bought into the idea that people who bully or who do not do well academically in school have low self-esteem. I have personally known people who bully and have high self-esteem, and I have known people who have done very well academically but who have low self-esteem. The “SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND” (volume 16, number 4) contains an interesting article entitled, “EXPLODING THE SELF-ESTEEM MYTH,” with the subtitle: “BOOSTING PEOPLE’S SENSE OF SELF-WORTH HAS BECOME A NATIONAL PREOCCUPATION.
READ MORE >>> →I recently attended your seminar in Omaha, Nebraska. Thanks for a great day and a philosophy that will change the way that I teach and handle the difficult students that we have here. Today I implemented the program for the first time. The students were very receptive to the idea of acting on Level C, the Cooperation level. It’s something they believe they can accomplish. They also asked if they could hold me accountable. When I talked to them on the bossing level, they said I was “breaking” my own expectation by TELLING them what to do. We had a great conversation. Thanks again, Mat Mat Daniels, wrestling coach PACT School Council Bluffs, Iowa More information on this topic is
READ MORE >>> →The following is from a recent post at DisciplineWithoutStress@yahoogroups.com/ “Wow! These discussions are so very informative and helpful. “This is my first year using Dr. Marshall’s program and thirty-second year of teaching. There is so much more to all this than I had ever anticipated. “Overall, I have less stress. I see growth in responsibility every day. As I work with my 5th grade students to empower them, I see them taking control of their behavior and choices. Is it perfect? No, far from it. But little by little it gets better and better. “No one really wants to be on Level B. (See The Hiearchy of Social Development.) Our students deserve our guidance. I suspect the payoff will be
READ MORE >>> →Efforts to promote learning (educational reform) have been headline news for many years. If you reflect on the number of reforms attempted in the United States in the last thirty years, you would need many fingers to count them. Then if you reflected on how many of these attempts to improve education are extant, you would be hard pressed to need any fingers. W. Edwards Deming, the man who brought the meaning of quality as “continuous improvement” to the world, often stated, “ninety-six percent of the problem lies in the SYSTEM, not in the employees.” Following are two examples where the educational SYSTEM uses unproductive approaches. The first: Educators talk about “motivating students” because of the apathy towards learning so
READ MORE >>> →Never, never, never tell another person YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THAT PERSON. (This does not refer to a person’s behavior.) The fact of life is that one never truly knows enough about a person to do that. Recently, overhearing a couple who have been married for many years, I heard the wife say to her husband, “I didn’t expect you to think that way.” She was pleasantly surprised by her husband’s take on a situation. In this same vein of never completely knowing another person, a very successful teacher told me that her high school counselor told her that she was not smart enough to go to college. (Although college does require a minimum of academic skills, perseverance is a far
READ MORE >>> →When travelling to South Africa with a group of school administrators, I personally experienced the power of how our thinking controls our feelings. I was chosen as one of two among 35 delegates to make a presentation. Due to various stories of lost and poor handling of luggage in Johannesburg, the group was discouraged from checking in any suitcases. It was suggested to travel only with carry-on luggage. This meant that I could bring a minimum of handouts. The one I chose was my teaching model. After my presentation, an administrator told me that it was unprofessional to attempt to sell my program. My website is loaded with information, all of which is FREE—with the exception of my book, posters,
READ MORE >>> →RESPONSE: One thing that I love about Marvin Marshall’s approach is that the results go beyond what all other discipline approaches offer. As you inquired about, teachers can easily use Discipline without Stress to inspire students to put effort into their own learning. I use it all the time for this purpose myself. Here’s just one example. Let’s say that you arrange for a guest speaker whose topic relates to some aspect of the course you are teaching. Firstly, it would be proactive to discuss how audience members should behave when a guest is addressing the class; a wise teacher would go over Level C expectations. Remember, in this approach it is the teacher’s expectation that all students operate at
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