Posts Tagged Fairness

Negotiations and Discipline

Negotiating about changing someone’s behavior can be more effective than using coercion. With this in mind, here are a few suggestions when you negotiate about a behavior or discipline situation.

• Be just. Good negotiators always think about how they can show that the outcome will be fair to all parties. In a discipline matter, this means that all parties feel the outcome will be just. If the decision is fair or just, the person or people with whom you are negotiating will never feel coerced or taken advantage of. This will make it easier to agree on the decision.

• Use a power pose. Expansive, open postures will prompt you to feel more powerful and confident during the negotiation. … >>>

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Consistency and Fairness

When we are consistent in imposing the same consequence on every student, are we being fair or unfair?

Although consistency is important, imposing the same consequence on all students is the least fair approach. When a consequence is imposed—be it called logical or naturalpeople are deprived of ownership in the decision. And ownership is a requirement for responsibility.

A more effective and fairer approach is to elicit a consequence or a procedure that will help students redirect impulses so they become more responsible. This is easily accomplished by asking students if they would rather be treated as individuals or as a group. They will have a preference to be treated as individuals and have ownership in … >>>

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How To Be Consistant

Although consistency is important, imposing the same consequence on all students is the least fair approach.

A significant trait that teachers, students, and parents are concerned about is being consistent.

“How can I be fair, firm, and CONSISTENT?” was a question I continually asked myself-not only as a teacher, but especially as an assistant principal of supervision and control in a high school of 3,200 students. The question was also on my mind when I disciplined students as a middle school assistant principal and as an elementary school principal.

Only when I returned to the classroom after 24 years in counseling, staff development, and administration did I realize that my mindset of being consistent in dispensing punishments was unfair and … >>>

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