More What Do I Do When...?. Allen N.. Mendler
Sandy Melton, a teacher in Corpus Christi, Texas, shares her experience in teaching Manuel, a boy from the barrio, who sat in the back of her fifth-period class. Manuel was so disruptive with his antics that he prevented most of the class from paying attention to their assignments:
He wore a blue bandana and delighted in receiving attention and gaining control. As was my custom when he started disrupting my class, I informed him that he had a detention, which didn’t bother him at all…. I think he had gotten used to having an eighth-period class called detention, and we got to know each other quite well during these additional hours together. At one point he told me he wasn’t going to amount to anything, and everybody knew it. He knew it and his family knew it: He had never done anything good and felt he didn’t stand a chance. After several days, Manuel said, “If you will not make me stay for detention tomorrow, I will straighten up, I promise. Will you give me a chance?” Manuel started staying after school on his own, helping me make bulletin boards and grade papers. He loved it when I asked him to be in charge of detention when I left the room, and I would always put him in charge of watching my purse. Remember, this is the kid who at the beginning of the year had stolen calculators, quarters, hall passes: You name it, he stole it…. Next Manuel wanted to stay after school and started to do his work. He asked me to teach him to multiply and divide. He couldn’t keep up with everything the class was doing, but you better believe he passed those 6 weeks. Manuel was a migrant student and therefore was gone the last 6 weeks of the year. It blew my mind when he asked for all the work he would miss so that he could get a grade rather than another incomplete…. This was during my third year as a teacher, and I know I made mistakes, but I will always believe that I made a difference in Manuel’s life.
As educators and administrators, we must believe we effectively influence change in the lives of the students we touch. It is imperative to approach each day as if it is the day a breakthrough will happen. An important part of our job is to believe that today, the student with a history of disrespectful language will finally share her disagreement in a more respectful way. We have to act as if a continually disruptive student who is out of his seat every other minute is today going to sit still longer. Working with tough kids requires persistence and optimism. If we surrender our optimism, it becomes virtually impossible to influence change. At the same time, we must realize that for every three steps forward we take, there will be two steps back. Virtually all people revert to their old behaviors several times as they acquire new ones.
Principle 4: Emphasize Strategies That Teach Responsibility
The keys to responsible behavior are to:
• Understand and be aware of what we are doing.
• Predict how our behavior will affect ourselves and others.
• Make adequate and responsible choices.
• Know how consequences are linked to the choices we make.
• Develop good planning skills.
Although obedience-based methods of discipline are preferable to chaos, the best discipline occurs when students internalize the message: This is responsibility-based discipline. Responsibility-based discipline seeks to have students behave well not just when the voice of authority speaks, but also in the absence of authority. By contrast, obedience means “do as you are told” and requires the presence of authority to enforce rules. The major tools of obedience-based discipline are rewards and punishments.
The goal in achieving good discipline should be for students to act appropriately because it is the proper thing to do, rather than acting appropriately out of fear that someone will punish them if they misbehave. Obedience is especially desirable in matters of health and safety. Rewards and punishments are often required in the early stages of development for children to feel a sense of safety and security. But when applied to most misbehavior, such methods are rarely more than short-term solutions that often provoke rebellion among challenging students. Responsibility involves the cognitive process of “making the best decision possible.” This occurs more slowly than obedience because it requires providing students with opportunities to sort out facts, make decisions, link consequences with actions, and become more adept at planning. For some, learning responsibility is even more basic—it is about helping them notice how they are currently behaving so that they can take charge of what they do. There appear to be increasing numbers of students who seem to have a disconnection between their brain and their behavior. For these students, inappropriate behavior such as tapping a pencil, getting out of a seat, or talking to a neighbor has become so automatic that there is little if any self-awareness. Responsibility is about helping students make these connections.
Principle 5: We Can Be on the Same Page Without Always Doing the Same Thing
Teaching children to be responsible involves tailoring the consequences for misbehavior to each individual child. Children must be shown and taught the difference between being fair and treating everyone exactly the same. Not all students react the same way to the same consequence, and not all teachers and administrators react the same way to each infraction. Unfortunately, when some educators try to do what they think is right rather than treating everyone the same way, they can be accused of playing favorites and being unfair by other students or their parents. We believe that being fair requires having rules and procedures based on sound values for everyone. When rules are broken, fairness requires the implementation of specific consequences that are most likely to help each particular student improve his or her behavior. Having more than one consequence available enables the teacher to select one that will likely be most effective for the particular student. It should be based on what the educator believes will best help that student learn better behavior. Good discipline requires predictability and flexibility. In school, being fair means giving each person what is needed to be successful and to learn responsibility.
Principle 6: Good Discipline Is Not Just Procedures, Rules, and Consequences: It Is a Vision Guided by Educational Goals and Grounded in Values and Principles
Rules viewed as “stupid” are unlikely to be followed, especially among students who have little interest or incentive for being compliant. In order for rules to work they must make sense, and in order for them to make sense they need to be tied to a value or principle—that is, the purpose served by the rule. Rules are about treating each other in ways that permit learning to take place. For students, rules should provide guidelines for defining what we are expected to do and how to make it happen. Values relate to the reasons why we treat people the way we do, and they are necessarily general and broad in scope. Values provide students with an answer to why they are expected to follow the rules. In the educational environment it is important that the values we emphasize most are those that affect teaching and learning in a positive way. An example of a value is “students should be and feel safe at all times.” This is a value because learning cannot successfully take place in an environment where students feel in danger and cannot give attention to their work. Another value, “racism, bigotry, sexism, and anti–any group–ism are not welcome,” supports rules that protect students from harassment because a harassed student is unable to learn to his or her full potential. Our schools must define their larger purpose or vision and then settle upon the values that are inherent in accomplishing that vision. Rules and procedures are the specific requirements that characterize proper behavior. We must ask ourselves what we need in our classrooms and schools to ensure that maximum teaching and learning occur. Each teacher must know the values he or she needs to promote in order for teaching and learning to occur in the classroom. Classroom rules and procedures should then be tied directly to those values.
Principle 7: We Have the Most Control Over Our Own Behavior, So We Must Set an Example by Reflecting the Type of Behavior We Expect From Students
Let students see us living by the same code of behavior we expect from them. When assigning homework, we need to promptly do our own homework by returning their work to them as quickly as possible. If we want students to be there for each other, we need to be visible in the halls and make sure that they see us being there for them. If we really want students to learn responsibility, we need to show them that we trust their