Rules Rules are meant to control, not to inspire. Rules are necessary in games. Between people, however, rules result in adversarial relationships because rules require enforcement. In addition, rules are often stated in negative terms and imply an imposed consequence if not followed. Rules place the teacher in the position of the enforcer, a cop, wearing a blue uniform with copper buttons—rather than that of a teacher, coach, mentor, facilitator of learning, or educator. Enforcing rules often results in power struggles that rarely result in win-win situations or good relationships. Relying on rules often prompts counterwill (the human tendency to resist coercion) and produces reluctance, resistance, resentment, rebellion, and even retaliation. Upon analysis, you will see that rules are either
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A procedure is essential for gaining students’ attention. Much instructional time is lost and teacher stress is increased without some procedure. A procedure is described below for quickly obtaining students’ attention. View the visual, Attention Management, and let students know that this is the procedure you will use to get their attention. Raise a hand showing “give me five” (two eyes on the teacher, two ears listening, and one mouth closed). (The visual is on page 97 of the Resource Guide.) Explain that you will continue teaching when ALL hands are raised. If someone has not raised a hand, it is the students’ responsibility to prompt that person to follow the procedure. Second, when you give the “go ahead,” ask
READ MORE >>> →After spending some time recently with me and my wife, my friend asked what was the secret to our relationship. I replied by sharing the Golden Rule of marriage: “BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER.” In all of our married years together, I have never experienced the quickest way to destroy a relationship: register disgust!
READ MORE >>> →Forcing an issue often spoils the desired outcome. —Abraham Lincoln The old story of the salesman who lost a sale bears periodic repeating. After he told his sales manager, “Well, I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,” his boss replied, “Your job is not to make the horse drink; it’s to make him thirsty.” The “Art of Influence” is to INDUCE PEOPLE TO INFLUENCE THEMSELVES. Posing a provocative question that prompts the other person to reflect is the most successful approach for increasing your effectiveness.
READ MORE >>> →The June 6, 2011 issue of Time Magazine headlined an article “The Optimism Bias” (pp 40-46). The article began, “We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures” and then gave the following definition: “The belief that the future will be much better than the past and present is known as the optimism bias.” A key ingredient of optimism is hope because it keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress, and improves physical health. The article relates optimism and hope to how memory may work: The core function of the memory system could be to imagine the future—to enable us to prepare for what has yet to come. The system is not designed to perfectly replay past events. It is
READ MORE >>> →On June 2, I will be presenting to the staff of Clark Montessori Junior and Senior High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have long admired the Montessori approach. The following shares four fundamental characteristics that Discipline Without Stress and the Montessori approach have in common. 1)Children learn best through intrinsic motivation.There are neither rewards nor punishments in true Montessori environments. 2)Competition hinders learning.Students learn to monitor their own progress in order to recognize self-growth. This leads to personal satisfaction based on effort—instead of comparisons about what others may have accomplished. 3)Montessori develops self-discipline and independence.Students in a Montessori environment learn to be responsible for their choices. They become truly self-disciplined with much less need for adult intervention. 4)Montessori is education
READ MORE >>> →“Back to School for the Billionaires: They hoped their cash could transform failing classrooms. They were wrong. NEWSWEEK investigates what their money bought” was the headline in the May 9, 2011 issue of Newsweek Magazine. The article is about the money invested by Bill Gates, The Sam Walton Family, Eli Broad, and Michael Dell. The magazine states, “There weren’t many positive results that we could identify.” (page 43) Anyone who has had experience as a classroom teacher could have predicted this. Education improvement starts in the classroom, not with money or with administrative mandates. Instruction has to do with both teaching and learning. Teaching is, obviously, the responsibility of the teacher. To be successful, the teacher has to establish good
READ MORE >>> →The weekly newspaper “USA Today” carried an interesting article about education on May 11, 2011. The article was entitled, ” How to Reshape U.S. Education” and was written by Amy Chua, the author of “BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER” and a law professor at Yale University. The article highlighted the following: “Parents should insist that we combine Asia’s discipline with American creativity so that our children can excel in the global economy.” As with the vast majority of articles, this one also addresses “what” needs to be done, but does not include any idea of “how” to do it. The article does assert, however, that there is one critical skill where our kids lag behind: learning how to learn.”
READ MORE >>> →Here is an effective approach for any school: Every day the morning announcements END WITH A QUESTION designed to prompt reflection and responsibility in students. Posing a daily question directs the attention of everyone in the school (both students and teachers) to a specific issue or topic. Throughout the year, the school reinforces school-wide procedures, solves small problems, and encourages internal motivation through the announcements. The school sees a lot of good coming from these questions because they provide a powerful way to influence students. Kerry in British Columbia shared this idea. Sample announcement questions are posted at her blog. See Kerry’s categorized posts.
READ MORE >>> →Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 11 Number 5
#2 Responsibility and expectations
#4 Improve relationships by using a client perspective
#6 Parenting and electronic devices
The mindset of current educational approaches regarding student behavior unfortunately focuses on obedience, which turns out to be a common source of reluctance, resistance, resentment, and even rebellion. Simply stated, OBEDIENCE DOES NOT CREATE DESIRE. However, when the focus is on promoting responsibility, obedience follows as a natural by-product. The reason is that motivation to be responsible requires a DESIRE to do so. The motivation must be INTERNAL. Many schools use EXTERNAL motivation of stimulus-response psychology in the form of rewards, threats, and punishments. However, these approaches (a) foster compliance rather than commitment, (b) require an adult presence for monitoring, (c) set up students to be dependent upon external agents, and (d) do not foster long-term motivation for responsibility. In
READ MORE >>> →Likability is the shortest path to believability, trust, and effectiveness. It is also the easiest path to influence others. It may be worthwhile to reflect on this one quality above others—the quality that prompts people to do what you would like them to do. Three practices are most productive in this regard. They are (1) communicating in POSITIVE, rather than in negative, terms; (2) showing OPTIONS that are available; and (3) REFLECTING on how to overcome objections.
READ MORE >>> →Question: I’m a teacher at a suburban Atlanta charter high school. As a member of the discipline committee for the high school, I am involved in the rethinking/restructuring of our discipline system and, of course, you and your Levels of Development came to our attention. We have perused the “Quick Explanation” on your “Summary” link of your web site and have ordered your book. We are very interested in the “Raise Responsibility System.” We have considered having posters with the A, B, C, D concepts printed for every classroom. However, several of us are concerned that these may come across as too juvenile for high school students. We suspect that these concerns will be addressed in your book when it
READ MORE >>> →Here is an interesting quiz: 1. Name the three wealthiest people in the world.2. Name the last three heavy-weight world boxing champions.3. Name three people who have won a Nobel prize.4. Name the last three Academy Award motion picture winners for best actor (female and male).5. Name three of the last decade’s baseball World Series winners. How did you do? The point is that none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. Notice that these are not second-rate achievers. They’re the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners. Here is another quiz. See how you do on this one. 1. Name three teachers who aided your
READ MORE >>> →I had an interesting experience on Thursday evening during my Parent Teacher Interviews which were to be “student led.” I prepared a typical list of classroom areas for parents and child to visit on a “Kindergarten Tour” and the children practiced explaining about activities we do at each one. Things like: “Here is my book box. I’ll read you some books that I’ve made.” During several of the interviews, older siblings attended. While some of these intermediate students respected that their younger brothers and sisters deserved the limelight at this time, others did not. One grade 5 boy in particular was a problem. At first he was just traveling around the room at great speed, but very quickly he moved to pulling out toys and scattering them. Then he began banging on our toy cash
READ MORE >>> →Promoting Responsibility & Learning – Volume 11 Number 4
#4 My mother’s advice for improving relationships
#5 Promoting learning by stopping
#7 Discipline and Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports
Every so often messages and stories are repeated in order to bring them back to our attention. Often we are not conscious of the power of our communications. The words and phrases we use in our daily interactions have three major influences: (1) They influence how we think and experience the world, (2) They shape the way others see us, and (3) They determine how much cooperation and success we have with other people. We can use words which are landmines–which will blow up our odds of getting cooperation–or we can be persuasive in a positive way. For example, if I introduce a phrase with the word, “unfortunately,” it conjures up that something bad will follow. I have communicated in
READ MORE >>> →Marian Diamond is an internationally known neuroscientist who has studied mammalian brains for decades. Dr. Diamond is the author of “Magic Trees of the Mind: How to Nurture Your Child’s Intelligence, Creativity, and Healthy Emotions from Birth through Adolescence.” Her recipe for enriching the brain to increase academic success heavily relies on nurturing the uniqueness of each brain in a caring environment. Her studies have shown that an enriched environment includes: 1. Setting the stage for enriching the cortex by first providing a steady source of positive emotional support, which includes encouragement and tender loving care. (The emotional brain develops before the analytical brain.) 2. Providing a nutritious diet with enough proteins, vitamins, minerals, and calories. 3. Stimulating all the
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