MOVING BEYOND CROWD CONTROL TO PROMOTE SELF-DISCIPLINE
January 1, 1970
WELCOME TO ISSUE THIRTY-ONE!In this issue, you will find advice on how you can help your students learn to accept the responsibility for their own learning and behavior, the first scenario in a series of weekly offerings to help teachers manage discipline issues, and information about three terrific Websites that can make school easier and more productive for you and your students.
You can also listen to her explain her beliefs about teaching, how she began writing about education, and the challenges and rewards of a career in education for all teachers. Click on the Quick Link at the lower right to listen to her podcast!
To follow Julia's weekly advice about common discipline problems just click on the Quick Link at the bottom right. Each week, you will find a real-life classroom scenario,your goals as you work to manage the problem, some possible solutions, and a list of the mistakes you should avoid.
“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” ~Jesse Owen
MOVING BEYOND CROWD CONTROL TO PROMOTE SELF-DISCIPLINE
At this point in the school year, many of your students will have developed patterns of behavior that will either help them be successful students or be mired in failure. If you want to move your students to become productive students who are thriving in your class, it is time to make sure that you are steering them toward self-discipline. Fortunately, this is not as difficult to do as it may seem. Begin with small steps and allow them to propel you and your students forward.
The rewards of a self-disciplined class are obvious for students. Not as obvious are the rewards that you will experience once your students take responsibility for their own actions. You will not have to struggle in an uphill battle to convince reluctant students to do their homework, stay awake, or even cooperate with each other. Your professional life will become much more pleasant!
In this excerpt from Section Five of Discipline Survival Guide for the Secondary Teacher, Second Edition you will find some general principles to inform your teaching philosophy as you work to engage every student as fully as possible as often as possible. Allow them to help shape your thinking as you work toward a classroom of self-disciplined students.
“If the ultimate purpose of the enormous amount of energy, thought, and effort that we pour into our discipline policies and practices is to create students who are self-directed, at what point will we know we have been successful? Unfortunately, as with most of our dealings with adolescent students, the process is not always an easy one. Often, just when we think that all of our discipline goals have been met, something will happen in class to remind us that our students still need us to help them from straying off-task.
In spite of the impossibility of knowing for certain just how successful our attempts to help students assume responsibility for their actions will be, we must work towards that goal. We should not only direct our students so that they understand what they should do, but we must encourage them to be willing to do the right thing at the right time.
Moving students towards the goal that we have for them—that they will become self-disciplined learners—is not a task that can be rushed.
Fortunately, we have countless chances to help students in their efforts to become self-disciplined. If you want to help your students mature into accepting personal responsibility, you could pick two or three of these techniques to use now. When they have become an integral part of the culture of excellence you want to promote in your classroom, then you could try some of the others.
Model the Behavior You Want Your Students to Have
Our actions certainly speak louder than our words when it comes to teaching our students the behaviors we want to see from them. This is particularly true of self-directed behaviors. If we want students to be articulate, then we must be articulate. If we want their work to be neatly done, then the handouts we give them must be models of neatly done work. If we expect our students to come to class on time, then we must encourage that promptness through our own punctuality. Secondary students need strong positive role models who will show them the way to succeed. One of the greatest gifts we can give our students is to be the kind of role model they need day after day.
Maintain High Standards for All of Your Students
We are not going to be successful in moving our students towards self-directed behavior unless we have high academic and behavior standards for them. If students are going to stretch their limits and grow, then they need to be challenged to do this. If you want to see just how capable your students can be, then set limits that are difficult but not impossible for them. You don’t have to expect perfect academic or impeccable behaviors all of the time, but too often our students are much more capable than we give them credit for being. It is especially important to maintain these high standards when students seem to struggle or when less capable students are included in the class. It is a disservice to lower standards instead of helping students rise to meet them.
Connect Effort to Success
Too often teachers hear students exclaim, “But I studied! I should have an ‘A’ on this!” when they have spent just a few minutes looking over their notes while texting, watching television, updating a playlist, and browsing online. To help students mature in their thinking and to become self-disciplined, caring teachers make the effort to show students that success requires effort. Discuss how long they really studied and which techniques they used. Encourage them to use the monitoring charts in this section. Ask questions designed to make students reflect in a productive way about the effort they exert. Students who can see that their success is the result of their effort are far more likely to succeed than those who can’t.
Motivate Your Students to Work Well
It is important for all of us to recall our own school years when large parts of the day were not as interesting for us as others. What made the difference for many of us was a determined and caring teacher who motivated us to want to learn. These were the teachers whose homework we always did no matter what. We arranged our dentist appointments around their classes because we did not want to miss even one. What a contrast to those other classes where we perfected the fine art of sneaking peeks at the clock to see if another thirty seconds of tedium had passed yet.
The difference in those classes was not only in the subject matter under study. Those teachers who cared enough to motivate us to learn made the difference. We, too, can motivate our students to want to succeed. There are hundreds of techniques at hand for those teachers who use a bit of creativity to catch and sustain student interest. If you want your students to want to become self-disciplined, it is up to you to include as many motivating factors into each lesson as you can.
Be Encouraging and Positive with Your Students
Students whose teachers make it abundantly clear that they have confidence in their ability to succeed are students who are more apt to become self-disciplined than those whose teachers doubt their students’ abilities. If you want positive actions from your students, then you must show your own positive side. This does not mean you need to be falsely cheerful or to flatter your students; both of these will surely fail with a spectacular thud. Secondary students are fragile creatures who need strong doses of support and encouragement (just like their teachers) in order to be at their best. If you want to help them move towards self-discipline, encouragement and a positive approach are critical for success.
Hold Your Students Accountable for Their Actions
In addition to high expectations and encouragement, students must be aware that there is also some level of negative consequence for their actions. It isn’t enough to just have high standards for your students. You also must hold them accountable for their success or lack of it in meeting those standards.
Teachers can use many techniques to make sure students are learning to accept responsibility for their own success. These techniques should be part of the overall scheme by which you encourage students to perform at their best level academically and socially. If we never hold students accountable for their actions, then they will not develop into the resilient and self-disciplined pupils that we want them to be.”
“It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.” ~Clint Eastwood
What to Do? What to Do?
This is the first in a series of weekly bits of advice regarding some of the most widespread discipline problems that can confront even the most prepared teacher. Each one will feature a common discipline scenario and some suggested solutions. You will find the others at Julia’s author page at Amazon.com.
DID YOUR MOTHER SEE YOU LEAVING THE HOUSE WEARING THAT?
Scenario: A student comes to class wearing inappropriate clothing, conspicuously in violation of the school’s dress code.
Long gone are those days when a dress code violation meant that a student had hair that was too long or a skirt that was too short. Even in more recent years when students began to attend class proud of their newest piercing or tattoo, dress code issues continue to plague teachers and administrators. In fact, there are far more students in proud violation of a school’s dress code than those who do not teach could ever imagine.
Trying to deal tactfully but effectively with boys in tee shirts with appalling puns or references to drugs and alcohol to girls in too-revealing outfits, dress code violations can be a difficult situation for many teachers.
Your Goals:
• To minimize the distraction and potential for disruption
• To preserve the offending student’s dignity
• To prevent the situation from reoccurring
Steps to Follow:
• Try to prevent the situation by making sure that students are aware of the dress code and that you do intend to enforce it. Making this clear before a violation happens will make it easier for you to enforce the rule.
• Ignore whatever you can when you can. Sometimes calling attention to a minor infraction can cause a major class disruption as the student attempts to argue with you.
• Speak privately with student violators whenever you can. Calling down a student in front of other students will only cause humiliation and anger.
• Be as matter of fact and succinct as you can. Simply state the rule and ask the student to correct the situation if at all possible. For example, a male student wearing a vulgar tee shirt can just be asked to wear it inside out. A female student without a change of clothes at school can just be reminded not to wear the offensive garment again. Make your point, but be as kind and dispassionate as possible at the same time.
• Often male teachers are uncomfortable at the thought of approaching a female student who wears revealing clothing to school. If you are not comfortable with talking to a student about his or her clothing, enlist a colleague to help you.
Mistakes to Avoid
• Be sensitive to a student’s self-image. Do not belittle or attempt to embarrass a student who violates the dress code.
• If you suspect that a student is wearing clothing that identifies him or her as part of a gang, do not attempt to manage the situation yourself. Involve an administrator.
• Be careful not to place yourself in a difficult situation where you could be accused of wrong doing.
• Do not touch a student who is dressed inappropriately. Such an action on your part may be misconstrued.
• Be careful that you do not violate your school’s dress code yourself!
“It’s never too crowded along the extra mile.” ~Wayne Dyer
Three Terrific FREE Website Resources
Quizlet (http://quizlet.com) is a wonderful alternative to paper flashcards. With more than sets of electronic flashcards, students can either study cards shared by others or create their own. Quizlet offers a test for students to use to track their progress as well as two games that are fast and fun for students.
Pics4Learning (http://www.pics4learning.com) is a site that offers thousands of photographs for teachers and students. Make meaning clear for your students with the visual images offered at this site.
Free Dictionary (http://www.ibritt.com/resources/freedictionary_tools.htm) At this site, your students will find five important learning tools: A word of the day, a quotation of the day, a spelling bee game, a vocabulary match up activity, and a link to http://www.thefreedictionary.com where they can access several varieties of dictionaries.