Many school districts require their teachers to post rules, consequences, and rewards in the classroom. The theory is that if children know what the rules are and what happens if they break them or follow them, discipline issues will cease. This, of course, doesn’t work. Here’s a better approach that will instill responsibility in your students, reduce discipline issues, and appease the administrators in your district. 1. Post classroom expectations or standards, instead of rules.Standards are much different than rules. Standards engender student empowerment. They promote an esprit de corps in the classroom, similar to what occurs with any team. Standards serve as expectations, and expectations are responsibility lifting. They tap into internal motivation and foster commitment, rather than compliance.
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This week and next, many teachers and students across the country are starting their summer break. No matter what your summer plans are, here are some wonderful quotes about the season. Enjoy them as you bask in the summer sun. “A life without love is like a year without summer.”–Swedish Proverb “A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.”–James Dent “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”–St. Francis of Assisi “Be like the flower—turn your face to the sun.”–Kahlil Gibran “Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”–Sam Keen “I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where
READ MORE >>> →When using the Discipline Without Stress Hierarchy, you will sometimes run into a child who likes to challenge you. For example, upon learning the various levels, the child may say, “I like being on Level A. I don’t want to be on Levels C or D.” When this occurs, what is an adult to do? How do you help the child move past this challenging behavior without resorting to a coercive discipline approach? The key is to let the child know (in a positive voice and demeanor) that it is her choice to act on Level A, and when she chooses that level, that means she wants you to boss her. Explain that a person acting on Level A needs
READ MORE >>> →I often describe the Discipline Without Stress approach as “simple.” Sometimes teachers question my word choice. After all, it does take continual effort to deal with classroom management and at the same remember to be positive, offer choices, and ask reflective questions. Realize, though, that “simple” does not automatically mean “easy.” For example, learning how to drive an automobile is SIMPLE, but it only becomes EASY after you have driven for awhile. Likewise, deciding ahead of time not to eat dessert at a banquet may be SIMPLE. But when the plates from the main course are removed and the cheesecake is placed in front of you, your original decision may not be so EASY to implement. The point is that
READ MORE >>> →It seems that every week I hear more and more about the Common Core Standards, and most of it is negative or another attack against it. Some states have even dropped these voluntary national standards for reading and math for K-12 students. As one of the early opponents of the Common Core Standards, I am glad that others are realizing the flaws inherent in them. Of course, I understand the motive behind the standards. The objective is to ensure students are ready for college and work. And because so many students are not equipped for success in these two arenas, educational leaders are attempting to solve the challenge by establishing common standards. Establishing standards sounds and feels good. But really,
READ MORE >>> →A colleague emailed me the following paragraph from a book she’s reading called Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are by Jack Kornfield. The passage provides a great story about how coercion breeds defiance. “With acceptance and respect, problems that seem intractable often become workable. A man began to give large doses of cod liver oil to his Doberman because he had been told that the stuff was good for dogs. Each day he would hold the head of the protesting dog between his knees, force its jaws open, and pour the liquid down its throat. One day the dog broke loose and the fish oil spilled on the floor. Then, to the man’s great surprise, the dog
READ MORE >>> →I’ve long been an opponent of using standardized tests for student and teacher evaluations. In fact, if you search “standardized tests” on my blog, you’ll find many entries as to my reasoning. In short, standardized tests do not correlate with most school curriculums, these tests are biased toward higher economic communities, and they are not valid because they were not developed to assess if what has been taught has been learned. Recently, I learned of another major problem with using standardized tests to assess schooling, and it has to do with the technology many schools are using to administer the tests. Apparently, the Los Angeles City Schools are being plagued with problems regarding testing for student progress. According to the
READ MORE >>> →I recently read an article in the USA Today entitled “Education Goals are Getting Resegregated” (May 8, 2014). The article explains that “Only 7% of black high school seniors are proficient in math, compared with 33% of white students, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores released Wednesday. The reading gap is larger.” The article then goes on to detail many state’s goals for educational achievement, highlighting how “more than half the states have given up on race-blind standards, setting different goals for different groups of students.” For example, in the District of Columbia, the goal is for 94% proficiency in math for white students while only 71% for black students. Unfortunately, in many educational bureaucracies the exercise
READ MORE >>> →One of the many things I discuss in my seminars to teachers and parents is how important procedures are to increase efficiency. This applies to one’s personal life as well. Here is a current experience that my wife gave permission to share. My wife oftentimes turns the computer off and leaves the room without the computer shutting down. “I’m a quick getaway gal” is her quip. I often suggest the procedure of staying in the room until the computer totally shuts down. The faucet in our kitchen sink must be pulled down vertically; otherwise, the faucet drips. My suggested procedure is to look at the faucet after the handle is pulled down to be sure there is not any dripping.
READ MORE >>> →Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 14 Number 5
#1 Immediate results with discipline
#3 Asking for assistance
#5 Conscious and nonconscious thought
Teacher Appreciation Week is in full swing, and on teachers’ desks across the country you’ll see trinkets and baskets and other items that parents, students, and even administrators have given them to show them some thanks. While I certainly believe in appreciating others, and all the tokens given are indeed welcome, I have another suggestion for showing our nations’ teachers some appreciation: Pay them what they’re worth, end industrialized testing and teaching, and invest in providing teachers with the necessary supplies, resources, and tools they need to actually teach. That’s how we show that we appreciate teachers. What do you think? How should we really show teachers our appreciation and acknowledge how vital they are to our country?
READ MORE >>> →For many people, mastering the first principle of Discipline Without Stress—positivity—is a challenge. After all, how do you keep positive in a discipline situation when a student is doing something he/she shouldn’t be doing and quite possibly testing your nerves? It’s important to think, speak, and act with positivity in order to be most effective when you implement the Discipline Without Stress system. Even when a situation might be perceived as negative, as in a case where discipline is necessary, it is possible to phrase communications with students in positive rather than negative ways. Why is this so vital? Because people do best when they feel better about themselves, as opposed to when they feel worse. Additionally, student cooperation is
READ MORE >>> →More and more kindergarten teachers tell me each year, “This is the worst group of kids I’ve ever had.” Does this ring true for you too? The reason teachers have this perception is that young children do not have the social skills that children developed in prior years. In many communities and schools today, kids are deprived of opportunities to engage in play activities that prompt both creativity and successful social relationships. Instead, they are engaged in developing academic skills (many boys of whom have not yet developed cognitively enough to be successful). This push for academics at an early age (some children are being pushed to read by age 3!) is at the expense of promoting empowering self-images and
READ MORE >>> →Did you know that any school in the United States can receive free materials of the Discipline Without Stress approach? Simply go to http://disciplinewithoutstress.org/ and complete the application. This highly successful discipline and learning system uses an approach that does not prompt counterwill. In fact, this approach achieves what every teacher desires but rarely accomplishes: separating the act from the actor, the deed from the doer, a good kid from inappropriate behavior. There are two reasons for this. The first is that counterwill, the natural human tendency to resist coercion, is totally bypassed. The second is that it also bypasses the natural tendency to defend oneself. Whenever a behavior is directly addressed, the natural tendency is to protect oneself. With
READ MORE >>> →This past Sunday (April 20, 2014), the highly-rated 60 Minutes TV program highlighted the Excellent Boys Charter School in Brooklyn, New York. This school uses a similar approach to what Marva Collins developed in Chicago. Both schools have high expectations, empower their students, and do not allow victimhood thinking—exactly what I will show teachers how to accomplish next week when I present in Chicago. This is yet another indication of how successful the Discipline Without Stress Teaching Model can be. I often receive letters from teachers and administrators about the Discipline Without Stress model. Here is one I received recently from a school in Bronx, New York: “I highly recommend taking advantage of working with Dr. Marvin Marshall. He provides
READ MORE >>> →Many teachers and parents who read and implement Discipline Without Stress and Parenting Without Stress often ask if giving children a treat once in a while is the same as giving them a reward. Here’s a useful distinction to keep in mind: Rewards are always tied to some condition, whereas treats are given unconditionally. In other words, if you simply give a child a cupcake or a small toy, that’s not a reward. But if you say to the child, “If you do X, I’ll give you a cupcake,” then that’s a reward. Realize too that the nature of the actual item being offered has no bearing on whether it can be considered a reward or a treat. A glittery
READ MORE >>> →Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 14 Number 4
#1 Marva Collins
#2 The power of expectations
#7 A repair shop
I recently read a news article about a Pennsylvania teenager who was convicted of disorderly conduct after using his iPad to film his tormentors who were bullying him at school. The boy claimed to have been bullied for several months by a certain group of kids. Each time he complained to the school about the many incidents, he felt no one was listening since nothing ever got done. So he took matters into his own hands by creating a 7-minute recording of the bullying events. But when he showed the school his video, rather than go after the bullies, the school administrators went after him, even going so far as to suggest pursuing a felony wiretapping charge! While this story
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