Management of Classroom Discipline - Models and Theories

Synopsis
Discipline practices and systems in schools worldwide are generally guided by theory
from educators and psychologists. There are a number of theories in existence on
school discipline. This unit will discuss the concept of classroom discipline and five
major theories or models on discipline.

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this unit, students will be able to:

1. explain the concept of classroom discipline

2. discuss Canter’s Theory of Assertive Discipline
3. discuss Dreikurs’ Model of Confronting Mistaken Goal
4. Discuss Kounin's Model of Discipline
4. discuss Alfie Kohn’s Beyond Discipline Model
5. discuss Thomas Gordon’s Discipline as Self-Control Model

1 The Concept of Classroom Discipline

A pleasant classroom environment where students behave responsibly is a pre-

requisite for high quality teaching and learning. Teachers in their endeavour to
maintain such environments, work to help students show initiative, accept
responsibility, and interact positively with others. The influence they exert – referred
to as discipline - consists of a number of different strategies and techniques (Charles,
2011).

According to Charles (2011), if students always are at their best behaviour, there
would be no need for discipline. But the reality of the situation is that there is a
always a certain amount of misbehaviour in all classrooms. In some cases, the
misbehaviour is minor, with not many adverse effects. However, in the majority of
classrooms misbehaviour occurs frequently and interferes unnecessarily with
teaching and learning. Dealing with such misbehaviuour consumes time that should
be devoted to instruction and has a wearing effect on teachers and students. In the
worst case scenario, classroom misbehaviour is so bad that teachers can hardly
teach; as a result students fail to reach acceptable levels of learning. This then is the
crux of classroom discipline – the ability to produce a productive classroom
environment where misbehaviour is minimized so that learning can be maximized.

Charles (2011) adds that modern classroom discipline strives for three main goals:

(a) to maintain a productive learning envrionment

(b) to teach students to be self-directing and responsible, and
(c) to promote civility among all members of the class.

According to Charles (2011), teachers’ efforts to maintain classroom decorum and

secure students’ cooperation in learning and exercising self-control are called,
collectively discipline management. Classroom management is also often used in
reference to discipline; however, it involves a larger scope as it also involves the
establishing of routines and the organizing of the classroom and materials of
instruction.
The description of the following models of discipline for Canter, Dreikur's and Kounin
were extracted from “Teacher Matters” (2011).

2.1 The Canter Model of Discipline (Assertive Discipline)

Assertiveness and insistence are at the focus of Canter's model. If, at first, these do
elicit the desired behavior from students, well organized follow up procedures are
brought into play. This model provides a very powerful system of corrective discipline.

Canter's Key Ideas.

Key ideas forming the core of assertive discipline are presented below. These
provide a summary of the assertive discipline model.

1. Teachers should insist on decent, responsible behavior from their students.

Students need this type of behavior, parents want it, the community at large
expects it and the educational process is ineffective without it.
2. Teacher failure, for all practical purposes, is synonymous with failure to
maintain adequate classroom discipline.
3. Many teachers labor under false assumptions about discipline, believing that
firm control is stifling and inhumane. On the contrary, firm control, maintained
correctly, is humane and liberating.
4. Teachers have basic educational rights in their classrooms including:
o The right to establish optimal learning environments.
o The right to request and expect appropriate behavior
o The right to receive help from administrators and parents when it is
needed.
5. Students have basic rights in the classroom too, including:
o The right to have teachers who help limit inappropriate, self-
destructive behavior
o The right to choose how to behave, with a full understanding of the
consequences that will follow automatically from their choices.
6. The needs, rights and conditions outlined above, are best met through the
use of assertive discipline. The teacher communicates clearly his/her
expectations to students and follows up with appropriate and consistent
actions which do not violate the best interests of the students.
7. Assertive discipline involves the use of the following behaviours. To be
effective they must be used consistently:

o Identify expectations clearly.

o Be willing to say "I like that" or "I don't like that".
o Be persistent in stating expectations and feelings.
o Use a firm tone of voice.
o Maintain eye contact.
o Use non-verbal gestures in support of verbal statements.
o Use hints, questions, and I-messages rather than demands or
requests for appropriate behavior.
o Follow-up with promises (reasonable consequences, previously
established) rather than with threats.
o Be assertive in confrontations with students; include the use of
statements of expectation, indicate consequences that will occur, and
 note why action is necessary.

8. To become more assertive when using discipline, teachers should do the

following:
9.
o Practice assertive response styles.
o Set clear limits and consequences.
o Use follow-up procedures that are consistent
o Make specific assertive discipline plans and rehearse them mentally.
o Write things down; do not trust to memory.
o Practice the 'broken record' technique when reinforcing expectations.
o Ask school principals and parents for support in your efforts to help
students.

The Basis of Assertive Discipline.

Canter maintains that an assertive teacher is one who clearly and firmly
communicates needs and requirements to students, follows the expression of these
needs and requirements with appropriate actions and responds to students in ways
that maximize compliance. However he or she at no time or in any way, violates the
best interests of the students.

A climate of care and support develops from what Canter calls "basic teacher rights"
in working with students. These "basic teacher rights" include:

 The right to establish an optimal learning environment for students, consistent

with the teacher's strengths and limitations.
 The right to expect and experience behavior from students that ,while
contributing to the the students' optimal growth, also meets the special needs
of the teacher.
 The right to ask and receive help and backing from administrators and
parents. When these basic rights of teachers are met, they are then in a
position to provide a climate of positive support and care for the students.
However for this potential to be realized an additional factor is required; this
additional need is training in the use of assertive discipline techniques.

Canter is emphatic that teachers can incorporate with ease the basics of assertive
discipline into their own teaching styles . He implies the following series of steps will
lead to implementation of his ideas:

Five steps to Assertive Discipline.

Step 1. Recognizing and Removing Roadblocks to Assertive Discipline.

Canter believes that all teachers are capable of being assertive when the need
arises. However there are many "roadblocks" that teachers have to overcome,
especially when expressing their behavioural requirements and gaining compliance
from students.

The use of assertive discipline begins with the recognition and removal of these
roadblocks. The majority of these roadblocks involve the teachers' negative
expectations of student behaviour. In short, teachers expect students to behave
badly. We believe that such factors as their health, home, personality, or
environment, mitigate against students from behaving well at school. This pessimistic
expectation must be recognized as false and must replaced with more optimistic
expectations.

Secondly, teachers must recognize the simple fact that they can influence the
behavior of all students under their direction in favourable ways; no matter what the
initial problems may be. Recognition of this fact helps remove the roadblocks
associated with negative expectations.

Teachers are advised to focus on the following realities:

 All students need limits and teachers have the right to expect and set them.
Teachers who fear students will not like them if they set and stick to limits
have not paid attention to basic human psychology. We admire and respect
teachers who hold high expectations and high standards. We seldom respect
teachers if they take a laissez-faire approach to teaching.
 Teachers have the right to ask for and receive help from principals, parents,
and other school personnel. Teachers who have such support will not be
intimidated when students are defiant or hostile.
 All students cannot be treated exactly the same way. It has been ingrained in
teachers that standards and consequences must be applied equally to all
students. This is true up to a point. However different students, like people in
general, respond differently within a given situation. They realize that
sometimes their peers need special help and they are usually accepting and
understanding when a special incentives or behavior modification program is
used with certain students.

Step 2. Practicing the use of assertive response styles.

Canter differentiates three styles of response that characterize teachers' interactions

with misbehaving students:

(a) The Non-assertive Response.

The non-assertive response style is typical of teachers who have given in to students
or who feel it is wrong to place strong demands on student behavior. Teachers using
this non-assertive style are passive. They either do not establish clear standards or
else they fail to back up their standards with appropriate actions. They hope their
good natures will gain student compliance. They are not firm or insistent and they
end up resignedly accepting whatever the students decide to do.

(b) The Hostile Response.

The hostile response style is used by teachers who feel that they are barely hanging
on to class control. They use aversive techniques such as sarcasm and threats. They
often shout and believe they must rule with an iron fist or else they will be
overwhelmed with chaos. Hostile responses produce several bad side effects - they
hurt students' feelings; they provoke disrespect and a desire to get even; they fail to
meet students' needs for warmth and security; and they violate two basic student
rights: the right to positive limits on self-destructive behavior and the right to choose
their own behavior, with full knowledge of the consequences that will follow.

(c) The Assertive Response.

The assertive response style, which should be practiced until it becomes natural in
dealing with students, protects the rights of both teacher and student. With this style,
teachers make their expectations clearly known to students. In a business-like way
they continually insist that students comply with these expectations. They reinforce
their words with actions. When students choose to comply with teacher guidance
they receive positive benefits. When they choose to behave in unacceptable ways
the teacher follows up with consequences that reasonably punish misbehavior.
Examples of nonassertive, hostile and assertive responses:

Example 1: fighting.
 A Non-assertive Response: 'Please try your very best to stop fighting.'
 A Hostile Response: 'You are acting like disgusting savages!'
 An Assertive Response: 'We do not fight. Sit down until you cool off.'

Example 2: talking out of turn.

 A Nonassertive Response: 'You are talking again without raising your hand.'
 A Hostile Response: 'Learn some manners or else there's going to be
trouble.'
 An Assertive Response: 'Don't answer unless you raise your hand and I call
on you.'

Step 3. Learning to set limits.

Canter makes this point clearly: "no matter what the activity, in order to be assertive,
you need to be aware of what behaviors you want and need from the students". He
would have teachers identify the specific behaviors they expect from students, such
as taking turns, not shouting out, starting work on time, and listening to another
student who is speaking.

Once teachers have identified the inappropriate behaviours they should then make
them clear to the students. Once inappropriate behaviour has been made explicit, the
next step in setting limits is to decide consequences for both compliance and
noncompliance. For compliance, verbal acknowledgment is usually sufficient. Dealing
with noncompliance is more difficult but using assertive discipline is usually the most
effective strategy. When dealing with inappropriate behavior, teachers should be
ready with firm reminders of what students should be doing.

Canter details several methods for setting verbal limits, emphasizing the following
three techniques:

(a) Requesting appropriate behavior, which is accomplished using:

 Hints - statements made from time to time reminding students of the teacher's
expectations (e.g., "Everyone should be reading silently.")
 I-messages - telling students how behavior is affecting the teacher (e.g.,"It is
getting so noisy I can't do my work.")
 Questions- hints or commands put in the interrogative form (e.g., "Would you
please get back to your reading?")
 Demands - statements that direct students what to do (e.g.,"Get back to your
reading right now.")

Canter warns that demands can have unfortunate results and issues his one and
only commandment associated with assertive discipline: 'Thou shalt not make any
demand thou art not prepared to follow on through.'

(b) Delivering the verbal limit using tone of voice, eye contact, gestures, and so
 forth:

Tone of voice - this should be firmly neutral and businesslike. It should not be harsh,
abusive sarcastic, or intimidating. Neither should it be mirthful, implying a lack of
seriousness.

Eye contact - for a message to have its greatest impact, teachers should look
students straight in the eye. However, teachers should not insist that students look
them back in the eye. Even though students look away, teachers should fix them with
a direct gaze when verbally setting limits.

Gestures - these add much to verbal messages, especially in societies where few
gestures are used. Facial expressions together with arm and hand movements
accentuate messages. However Canter cautions that fingers and fists should not be
waved in students' faces.

Use of student names - their use adds further impact to verbal messages, making
them more powerful and penetrating. This is especially true for messages delivered
over long distances, as across the room or school grounds.

Physical touch - touch is unusually effective when used in conjunction with verbal
messages. A hand lightly placed on a shoulder communicates forcefulness combined
with sincerity. Canter warns, however, that some students react violently to touch, by
pulling away abruptly or even thrusting back. They may also claim that the teacher
has pinched or hurt them.

(c) Using the broken record technique, involving insistent repetition of the original
message, is especially effective when students seek to divert teachers from
their intended message.

Here is an example:

Teacher: "Alex, we do not fight in this room. I will not tolerate fighting.
You must not fight again."

Student: "It's not my fault. Pete started it. He hit me first."

Teacher: "I understand that might be the case. I didn't see it. However
you will not fight in my class."

Student: "Well Pete started it."

Teacher: "That may be. I'll watch but you must not fight in this class."

The broken record technique (in this case the repetition that 'we do not fight in this
class') is maintained with firm, forceful but kindly insistence. Canter gives these
reminders concerning its use:

 Use it only when students refuse to listen, persist in responding

inappropriately, or refuse to take responsibility for their own behavior
 Preface your repetitions with, 'that's not the point' or "I understand but"
 Use it a maximum of three times; after the third time follow through with an
appropriate consequence, if necessary.

Step 4. Learning to follow through on limits.

By "limits" Canter means the positive demands you make of students. By "following
through" he means the appropriate actions you take, either when students comply
(positive results) or when they fail to comply (negative results). The important point is
that students have already been made aware of the consequences, either good or
bad, that will follow the behavior they choose. Canter presents the following
guidelines for following through appropriately:

o Make promises, not threats. A promise is a vow to take appropriate action

when necessary. A threat is a statement that shows intent to harm or punish.
o Select appropriate consequences in advance. Teachers should have a bank
of several specific consequences to draw on when necessary. These
consequences should be both positive and negative, with differing degrees of
severity for violations of the rules.

Step 5. Implementing a system of positive or favourable consequences.

The previous step emphasized negative assertions and consequences. These are
often foremost in teachers' minds. It is common for teachers to feel inadequate in
dealing appropriately with them. However, according to Canter, the positive or
optimistic side of the picture is even more important to the maintenance of good
discipline. Successful involvement with students when they behave appropriately
builds influence with the students, leads to a decrease in the amount of problem
behavior and makes for a happier and more productive classroom.

Here are some positive consequences suggested by Canter:

o Personal attention from the teacher. A special, positive, personal response

from the teacher is one of the most rewarding experiences a student can
have. Most students respond enthusiastically to such attention. It is delivered
in the form of greetings, short talks, compliments, acknowledgments, smiles,
and friendly eye contact.
o Positive notes to parents. It is usual for parents to be informed about their
children only when they have misbehaved in school. Thus a brief note or
phone call, commenting favourably on a student, can do wonders for the
morale of both students and parents. Parents are more likely to support
teachers when they receive such approving messages.
o Special awards. Students respond well to special awards given for high
achievement, significant improvement, and so forth.
o Set up a system of consequences that you can easily enforce. Canter
suggests the following but emphasizes that each teacher must come up with
his or her own system which suits their personality and thus with which they
feel comfortable. The following set of consequences is designed for an
individual problem student. It covers the duration of a particular day. Each
new day begins afresh:

o Misbehavior Consequence :
 First - Name on board (a warning)
 Second - Check by name (15 minute detention)
 Third - Second check (30 minutes detention)
 Fourth - Third check (30 minutes detention; student phones
parents and explains)
 Fifth - Fourth check (30 minutes detention; student phones
parents, explains, and meets with the principal.)
  Sixth - Student suspended.

o Practice verbal confrontations that entail a consequence. To effectively use

assertions and consequences naturally, practice them in advance. Imagine
possible situations that are likely to arise in the classroom. Canter suggests
that one good way to practice is to follow the following sequence:

o Describe a rule to your imaginary class, such as "No talking without

permission." Briefly explain why it is necessary and what student
should do instead. State clearly what the consequences will be for
compliance and noncompliance and check that students understand.
o Imagine that a student has talked out of turn. Make an assertive
response. Imagine the student then answers back rudely. Assertively
state the consequence of his or her action. Suppose now the student
defies you. Follow through assertively.

o Special privileges. Students of all ages respond well when given special
privileges, for example; helping to care for classroom animals or equipment,
helping with class materials, or working together with a friend.
o Material rewards. Many tangible objects can be effective rewards. Young
students like stickers, badges, ribbons, etc. Older students like to receive
posters, pencils, rubber stamps, etc.
o Home rewards. In collaboration with parents, privileges can be extended to
the home. Completing homework can earn extra television time, reading an
extra book can earn a favorite meal, and so forth.
o Group rewards. Canter discusses methods of rewarding the entire group for
good behavior. He includes the following suggestions :
o Dropping marbles into a jar when the entire group remains on task and
works hard. When the jar is filled the class is treated to something
special.
o Completing a series of letters on the board that eventually reveal a
secret word, such as "Popcorn Party". The class then receives a
popcorn party as a reward.

Beginning the year

Although an assertive discipline program can be implemented at any time, the first
few days of a new school year are an especially favourable time to introduce the
program.
Canter makes the following suggestions:

 Decide on behaviors you want to elicit from students and determine the
positive and negative consequences that will accompany them.
 Take your list to the principal for approval and support.
 On first meeting with the new students discuss the behaviors, consequences
and the methods of follow through you intend to use. Keep the list of
behaviors (rules) to six or less.
 Make it quite clear that all students must comply with the rules. Tell the
students exactly what will happen each time a rule is broken. ( The
consequences they can expects for the first, second, third offence, etc.)
 Ask the students to write the behaviors and consequences on a sheet of
paper, to take the plan home and to have their parents read and sign it. Have
them return it to you the next day.
 Emphasize that these rules will help the class develop a sense responsibility
 for learning and behaving acceptably. Reinforce the message over a period of
time at appropriate occasions.
 Ask students to tell you in their own words what they believe you expect of
them and what the consequences will be for both compliance and violations.
 Prepare a short letter describing the plan to parents in which you ask them for
their support and express your pleasure in being able to collaborate with them
in efforts to benefit their child.
 Implement the assertive discipline plan immediately.

Comments on Canter's Model

Canter's model of assertive discipline integrates ideas and techniques from several
other models. These ideas and techniques include such items as 'behavior as
choice', 'logical consequences' rather than the use of threats or punishments,
'positive reinforcement' for desired behavior, 'addressing the situation rather than the
student's character', etc. However Canter's model has several unique features- its
overall ease of implementation, its insistence on meeting teachers' and students'
rights in the classroom, its emphasis on caring sufficiently about students to limit their
self-defeating behavior and its insistance on gaining support from administrators and
parents.

And what of the model's shortcomings? Many teachers find fault with it. Many
teachers complain , for instance, that it is too harsh, too aggressive, overpowering for
younger children, demeaning to older students, so focused on suppressing bad
behavior that it excludes emphasis on the building of values for good, responsible
behavior. As with all other aspects of human interaction, different people have
different opinions; no one approach will please everyone at the same time and in the
same situation.

Application of the Model

Kwan is in En. Rama's class and is quite docile. She never disrupts the class and
does little socializing with other students. Despite En. Rama's best efforts Kwan
rarely completes an assignment. She doesn't seem to care. She is physically present
but makes little effort or contribution to the life of the class. How would Canter deal
with Kwan?

Canter would advise En. Rama to do the following:

o Communicate the class expectations clearly to Kwan. Be assertive and check

that Kwan has received your message.
o Use a firm tone of voice and maintain eye contact when reminding Kwan of
the expectations.
o Be consistent when you follow through with pre-established consequences.
Make the negative consequences more severe and the positive
consequences more attractive until you find the level that works for Kwan.
o Let Kwan's parents know how her behaviour concerns you. Explain that
Kwan's best interests are served by the the parents and Mr, Jake working
together to help her
2.2 Dreikurs' Model of Discipline (Confronting Mistaken Goals)

All students want recognition. Most misbehavior results from their attempts to get it.
When frustrated in their attempts to gain the recognition they desire, their behavior
turns toward four "mistaken goals". Teachers must recognize and deal effectively
with these.

Dreikurs' Key Ideas

1. Discipline is not punishment. It is teaching students to impose limits on

themselves.
2. Democratic teachers provide firm guidance and leadership. They allow
students to have a say in establishing rules and consequences.
3. All students want to "belong". They want status and recognition. Most of their
behavior is directed by their desire to belong.
4. Misbehavior reflects the mistaken belief that it will lead to the recognition they
want.
5. Misbehavior is associated with four mistaken goals: seeking attention ,
gaining power, taking revenge, and displaying inadequacy. The goal in each
case is to elicit certain responses from teachers.
6. Teachers should quickly identify the mistaken goals and act to avoid their
reinforcement.
7. Teachers should encourage student's efforts while avoiding praise of either
their work or character.
8. Teachers should teach students that unpleasant consequences always follow
inappropriate behavior.

Dreikurs believed that teachers who teach in a mostly democratic fashion are those
who most effectively establish discipline. Dreikurs' categorization of teachers is
based on the predominant behavior they display in the classroom. He identifies three
types of teachers:

(a) Autocratic.

Autocratic teachers force their will on students in order to control the class. They
motivate students with outside pressures rather than stimulate motivation from within.
This attitude and approach tends to perpetuate problem behavior. Authoritarian
figures are increasingly being rejected by students. Students seek a democratic
atmosphere in which they are treated as equal human beings and react with hostility
to the autocratic teacher.

(b) Permissive.

Permissive teachers generate problem behavior because the atmosphere they allow
is not based on everyday reality. Students in a permissive classroom fail to learn that
successful living in general society requires them to follow rules. They do not learn
that failure to follow rules results in adverse consequences. They do not learn that
acceptable behavior requires self-discipline.

Students are confused because they believe that they are free from restraint and can
do whatever they want. However they discover that things do not go smoothly for
them. Discipline and control must be present in classrooms if learning is to occur.
Students want guidance and leadership. They are willing to accept guidance if it is
not forced on them and if they believe they are being heard. This does not mean that
they want control of the classroom.

(c) Democratic

Democratic teachers are neither permissive nor autocratic. They provide firm
guidance and leadership by establishing rules and consequences. Freedom grows
from discipline. To the extent that students understand that consequences follow
behavior, they are then free to choose behavior that will attain their legitimate needs.
Discipline involves teaching students how to establish an inner control that permits
them to choose behavior compatible with their best interests. Teaching students how
to attain self discipline eliminates the need for constant corrective action by the
teacher.

It is Dreikurs' assertion that the following 8 conditions foster a democratic classroom:

(a) The establishment of order.

(b) The setting of limits.
(c) The use of firmness and kindness:
(d) Firmness from teachers shows that they respect themselves.
Kindness shows their respect for others.
(e) Involving student when establishing and maintaining rules.
(f) Leadership from the teacher.
(g) Inviting cooperation and eliminating destructive competition.
(h) Promoting a sense of belonging within a group.
(i) Encouraging an atmosphere of freedom to explore, discover, and choose
acceptable behavior through understanding the responsibilities and
consequences associated with it.

Dreikurs' do's and don'ts

Effective discipline requires the teacher to provide continuing guidance in helping

students develop inner control. Discipline should not consist soley of limits imposed
at times of stress and conflict from the outside . It should be built up and continually
renewed and refreshed by consistent guidance that promotes a feeling of
cooperation and team effort.

To achieve successful discipline Dreikurs suggests:

Teachers should:

o Give clear-cut directions for the actions expected of students. Wait until you
have the attention of all class members before giving directions.
o Establish a relationship with each individual based on trust and mutual
respect.
o Use logical consequences instead of traditional punishment. The
consequence must bear a direct relationship to the behavior and must be
understood by the students.
o See each behavior in its proper perspective. In this way, you will avoid making
serious issues out of trivial incidents.
o Let students assume greater responsibility for their own behavior and
learning.
o Treat students as your social equals.
o Combine kindness and firmness. The student must always sense and respect
that while you are a friend, you will not accept certain kinds of behavior.
 o At all times distinguish between the deed and the doer. This allows you to
retain respect for the student while not accepting their behaviour.
o Set limits from the beginning but work toward mutual understanding, a sense
of mutual responsibility and mutual consideration for others.
o Mean what you say, keep your demands simple and ensure that they are
carried out.
o Deal with incidents quickly and effectively, bring them swiftly to closure and
work to repair damaged relationships. Let students know that mistakes are
corrected, forgiven and then forgotten.

Teachers should not:

o Nag and scold as this is likely to strengthen a student's regrettable concept on

how to get attention.
o Work to obtain a promise from a student. Most students will promise to
change in order to free themselves from an uncomfortable situation. Requiring
a student to give you a promise is a sheer waste of time.
o Find fault with students. It may hurt their self-esteem and discourage them.
o Adopt double standards - we are all familiar with these.
o Use threats as a method to discipline students. Although some students may
become intimidated and conform for the moment, threats have no lasting
value. They do not lead to a change in a student's basic attitude.

Comments on Dreikurs' views

Dreikurs' model has the potential to bring about genuine attitudinal changes in
students. If an attitudinal change occurs then behavior improves or changes because
students consider it the proper thing to do. Dreikurs considers his approach to be
democratic as teachers and students together decide on rules and consequences.
They take joint responsibility for maintaining a classroom climate that is conducive to
learning. For all its strengths, Dreikurs' system does require steady and continual
effort for valuable results to become evident. Additionally, a word of warning, there
exists in the model a possible defect or lack that causes serious concern to teachers
of hard-to-manage classes. We may raise the issue in the form of a question: "What
do you do when students defy you?"

Experienced teachers know that defiant behavior is often strongly reinforced by other
class members and that it is likely to spread. They believe such behavior must be
stopped at once. Dreikurs is silent here.

Regardless of this very significant limitation, Dreikurs' emphasis on mutual respect

and encouragement of student effort and general responsibility takes its rightful place
amongst the most powerful techniques for building desirable human character. In
summary, Dreikurs' greatest contribution lies, not in how to suppress undesired
behavior in the short term but in how to build in students an inner sense of
responsibility and respect for themselves and others.
2.3 The Kounin Model of Discipline (Withitness & Organisation)

Good classroom behavior depends on effective lesson management, especially on

pacing, transitions, alerting, and individual accountability.

Kounin's Key Ideas

1. When teachers correct misbehaviors in one student, it often influences the

behavior of nearby students. This is known as the ripple effect.
2. Teachers should know what is going on in all parts of the classroom at all
times. Kounin called this awareness, 'withitness'.

3. The ability to provide smooth transitions between activities, and to maintain

consistent momentum within activities is crucial to effective group
management.

4. Teachers should strive to maintain group alertness and to hold every group
member accountable for the content of a lesson, which allows optimal learning
to occur.

5. Student satiation (boredom) can be avoided by providing a feeling of progress

and by adding variety to curriculum and classroom environment.

The Ripple Effect

From Kounin's studies into this phenomenon, he concluded the following:

The ripple effect may occur as the teacher gives encouragement ("Good, I see that
many of you are almost finished") and as the teacher gives reprimands ("I see a few
people who may have to stay in after class to finish"). The ripple effect is most
powerful at the early childhood/primary level. It is weaker at the secondary and college
levels where it depends on the popularity and prestige of the teacher.

Withitness

Kounin coined the term "withitness" to describe teachers' knowing what is going on in
all areas of the classroom at all times. Kounin determined that this trait is
communicated more effectively by teachers' behaviors than by their words, and
further, that it is effective only if students are convinced that the teacher really knows
what is going on.

Kounin found that if students perceive that teachers are with it (in that they
immediately choose the right culprit and correct misbehavior), they are less likely to
misbehave, especially in teacher-directed lessons. Handling the correct deviant on
time is more important to classroom control than is firmness or clarity of a desist.

Overlapping

Kounin states that overlapping is the ability to attend to two issues at the same time.
Here is an example:

A teacher is meeting with a small group and notices that two students at their seats
are playing cards instead of doing their assignment. The teacher could correct this
either by:

1. Stopping the small group activity, walking over to the card players and getting
them back on task, and then attempting to reestablish the small group work. or
 distance, then monitoring the students at their desks while conducting the
small-group activity.

As you can tell, the second approach involves overlapping. Overlapping loses its
effectiveness if the teacher does not also demonstrate withitness. If students working
independently know that the teacher is aware of them and able to deal with them, they
are more likely to remain on task.

Movement Management

Kounin's research revealed an important relationship between student behavior and

2.4 Alfiewithin
movement Kohn’s andBeyond Discipline
between lessons.Model
He did not mean physical movement of
students or teachers. He meant pacing, momentum, and transitions.
The articles here were all taken from the internet. All articles were written by Alfie
Kohn except
Teachers' for the
ability to crtique article.
move smoothly from one activity to the next, and to maintain
momentum within an activity has a great deal to do with their effectiveness in
2.4.1 Article
controlling No. 1: Beyond
behavior Discipline byInAlfie
in the classroom. smoothKohntransitions, student attention is turned
easily from one activity to another, thus keeping student attention on the task at hand.
A few years ago, I received a letter from a woman who was working on a book about a
Comments on Kounin's
progressive educator. SheModel
said she was considering devoting a chapter of her manuscript to
a discussion of a program called Assertive Discipline, which was at best only indirectly
The techniques
related advocated
to her subject. But sheby knewKounin for class
my stomach control
reacted theare allway
same intended totocreate
hers did and
the sight
maintain a classroom atmosphere conducive to learning. By keeping students
of marbles in a jar, or a hierarchical list of punishments on a classroom wall, and she wanted busily
(and
to knowhappily)
whether engaged,
I thought behavior
she shouldproblems
bother witharethisreduced to a minimum. In order to
digression.
function as Kounin suggests, teachers must be able to deal with the entire class,
various subgroups and individual students, often at the same time. Kounin does not
It didn’t that
believe seemteachers'
a particularly complicated
personality traitsquestion, and yet the
are particularly more I in
important thought aboutcontrol.
classroom it, the
What is important, he insists, is teacher's ability to manage groups and lessons.the
more I found my response shifting. At first, I was simply going to say “Hell, yes! Help To
hundreds teachers
reiterate, of thousandsmustoflearn
teachers
to: who have been exposed to this program to reflect on
how pernicious it really is.” Assertive Discipline, after all, is essentially a collection of bribes
and 1.
threats
Know whose
whatpurpose is to enforce
is happening rules that
in every areatheofteacher alone devises
the classroom andtimes
at all imposes.
and
The pointcommunicate
is to get the that
trainsfact
to to
runstudents.
on time in the classroom, never mind whom they run
over.2.Everything,
Be able to deal with
including themore thanofone
feelings issue must
students, at a time.
be sacrificed to the imperative of
obedience:
3. Correct the appropriate target before misbehavior escalates.

4. Ensure
“Whenever smooth
possible, transitions
simply ignorefrom
the one activity
covert to another.
hostility of a student. By ignoring the
behavior, you will diffuse [sic] the situation. Remember, what you really want is for the
5. Maintain
student to complygroup focus
with your through
request. alerting
Whether orand accountability.
not the student does it in an angry manner
is not
6.the issue.” (Lee
Provide non Canter’s
satiatingAssertive
learningDiscipline)
programs by emphasizing progress, challenge,
and variety.
As I prepared to write this to her, however, and as I recalled Lee Canter’s disclaimer in
There is no doubt
the Teachers CollegeofRecord several
the value of Kounin's
years agosuggestions in nothing
that “there is maintaining a goodAssertive
new about learning
environment,
Discipline,” that oneit that also prevents
is “simply misbehavior For
a systematization” that reason
of common his suggestions fit
behavior-management
best into the
strategies, preventive
I realized that facet
it wasoftoo
discipline.
easy to single out one person as the Darth Vader of
American education. At least Canter is candid about the authoritarian (and behaviorist)
As an of
thrust entire system ofNodiscipline,
his methods. one couldhowever, teachers
possibly confuse hisfind that Kounin's
program suggestions
for an attempt to engageare
of
students in ethical reflection, or to build caring relationships with them; teachers are urgedof
less help in supportive discipline and almost no help at all in the techniques
corrective discipline,
simply to tell studentswhere misbehavior
“exactly what behaviormustis be stopped …
acceptable. and
Noredirected
questions. positively.
No room for
confusion.”

But the same cannot be said of many other programs on the market that wrap themselves in
words like “cooperative” and “dignity” and even “love.” While rejecting the most blatant
forms of coercion, they, too, are ultimately about getting students to comply, and they, too,
rely on carrots and sticks. These programs unhesitatingly recommend that we dangle
rewards in front of students when they act the way we want: praise and privileges, stickers
and stars, and other examples of what has been called “control through seduction.”
The groovier programs, following the lead of Rudolf Dreikurs, prefer not to talk about
punishing students. Instead, punishment is repackaged as “logical consequences.” The
student is still forced to do something undesirable (or prevented from doing something
desirable), but the tone of the interaction is supposed to be more reasonable and friendly,
and the consequence itself must have some conceptual connection to the child’s act: The
punishment fits the crime. Thus:

 If a 2nd grade student is guilty of “talking out of turn, squirming, and so on,” he might
be ordered not only to leave the room but to spend time back in a kindergarten class.
This is a “logical consequence,” and therefore appropriate, as long as the teacher strikes
the right tone by saying that she wonders whether the boy is “ready to continue in 2nd
grade” and suggesting that therefore “it might be better for [him] to try and go back to
kindergarten for a while.” (R. Dreikurs and L. Grey, Logical Consequences: A New
Approach to Discipline)
 If a student makes a spitball, the teacher should force him to make 500 more spitballs
so that his throat becomes “increasingly parched.” If a student tips her chair back, “she
can be asked to stand for the rest of the period.” (L. Albert, A Teacher’s Guide to
Cooperative Discipline )

 “Each student who violates a rule [must] write his own name on the blackboard”–or, in
another approach, must have his name written there by an elected class “sheriff” who is
“responsible for keeping the behavioral records.” (R.L. Curwin and A.N.
Mendler, Discipline with Dignity)

Is it more reasonable to make a child stand for the rest of the period than, say, for the rest of
the week? Unquestionably. It is also more reasonable to paddle a child than to shoot him,
but this does not offer much of an argument for paddling. Is there a connection between
tipping back a chair and not being able to sit in it? Yes, but does it really matter to the child?
The issue is not the specific features of the punitive response so much as the punishment
itself: “You didn’t do what I wanted, so now I’m going to make something unpleasant
happen to you.” We would not expect the child to be less resentful (or less likely to retaliate)
just because the teacher used what amounts to Punishment Lite.

In trying to answer the woman who was considering a chapter about Lee Canter, I came to
conclude that the problem is not just with his program but with the use of rewards and
punishments per se, regardless of what they are called or how they are embellished. Even
when children are “successfully” reinforced or consequenced into compliance, they will
likely feel no commitment to what they are doing, no deep understanding of the act and its
rationale, no sense of themselves as the kind of people who would want to act this way in
the future. They have been led to concentrate on the consequences of their actions to
themselves, and someone with this frame of reference bears little resemblance to the kind
of person we dream of seeing each of our students become.

Gradually, though, I began to wonder whether even this was the last word. Rewards and
punishments are instruments for controlling people, and the real problem, I began to
suspect, was the belief that the teacher should be in control of the classroom. If all these
discipline programs disappeared tomorrow, a new one would pop up like the next Kleenex in
the box if teachers were determined (or pressured) to remain in control and needed
methods for making sure that happened.
This recognition offered a fresh way of looking at my own experiences as a classroom
teacher, and at what I had seen in countless classrooms over the last few years. Students are
far less likely to act aggressively, intrusively, or obnoxiously in places where the teacher is
not concerned with being in charge–and, indeed, is not particularly interested in classroom-
management techniques. I realized that the discipline problems I had experienced with
some of my own classes were not a function of children who were insufficiently controlled
but of a curriculum that was insufficiently engaging. (The students weren’t trying to make
my life miserable; they were trying to make the time pass faster.) It occurred to me that
books on discipline almost never raise the possibility that when a student doesn’t do what
he is told, the problem may be with what he has been told to do–or to learn.

Of course, none of this would make sense to someone who believed the only alternative to
control was chaos. Even if such a teacher found continuing problems in a strictly controlled
classroom–especially when she was absent–that might lead her to blame the students and
to answer with more discipline, tougher consequences, tighter regulation. And the worse
things got, the more “unrealistic” it would seem to her to give up control, the less likely that
she would consider bringing the students in on the process of thinking about the kind of
classroom that they would like to have, and how to make that happen.

No wonder the advice of Rudolf Dreikurs and his followers often seems interchangeable with
that of Lee Canter. For example, if a student argues with anything we say, Dreikurs advises
us to do the following: “First, you simply reply, ‘You may have a point.’ Second, you do
whatever you think is right.” (R. Dreikurs and P. Cassel, Discipline Without Tears ) No wonder
Canter recommends Dreikurs’ work and quotes from it. Dreikurs may have talked about
democracy, but what he apparently meant was the use of meetings and other “modern”
techniques to get students to do what they are told: “It is autocratic to force, but democratic
to induce compliance,” he and his colleagues wrote. (R. Dreikurs et al., Maintaining Sanity in
the Classroom, 2nd ed.)

Classroom management programs invariably urge teachers to begin the year by taking
control and laying out their expectations for student behavior–along with what will be done
to those who disobey. But no child ever became more likely to think for herself, or to care
about others, in such an environment. To “manage” students’ behavior, to make them do
what we say, doesn’t promote community or compassion, responsibility or reflection. The
only way to reach those goals is to give up some control, to facilitate the tricky, noisy,
maddening, unpredictable process whereby students work together to decide what respect
means or how to be fair.

Of course, you can get a child to recite “We should keep our hands and feet to ourselves” by
repeating this enough times or posting it on the wall, just as you can get him to recite “To
divide by a fraction, turn it upside down and multiply.” You can get a child to stop slugging
someone else (at least, in your presence) by threatening to punish him if he continues, just
as you can get him to pick out the topic sentence of a paragraph. But the first examples in
each pair don’t suggest someone who is developing socially or morally, any more than the
latter examples suggest someone who is developing intellectually.

To help students become ethical people, as opposed to people who merely do what they are
told, we cannot merely tell them what to do. We have to help them figure out–for
themselves and with each other–how one ought to act. That’s why dropping the tools of
traditional discipline, like rewards and consequences, is only the beginning. It’s even more
crucial that we overcome a preoccupation with getting compliance and instead involve
students in devising and justifying ethical principles.

And that’s why I suggested to my correspondent that a critique of Assertive Discipline made
a lot of sense–as long as it was more than a critique of Assertive Discipline.

2.4.2 Article No. 2: Discipline Is The Problem — Not The Solution by Alfie Kohn

When things in my classroom hit bottom, there were days when I was convinced that
the kids stayed up nights plotting ways to make my life miserable. It was only later
that I realized their disruptions were basically just intended to make the time pass
faster.

And it was later still before I could admit that I didn’t blame them. The problem
wasn’t with the students — it was my curriculum and my reliance on textbooks,
worksheets, and a diet of disconnected facts and skills. Did I really expect my
students to be eager to learn about “Our Friend the Adverb”? Given these types of
assignments, it would have been amazing if they hadn’t acted up.

Of course, most articles on disciplining students would brush aside such reflections.
Instead, they’d remind me that it’s my right to demand that the students act
“appropriately” — which is to say, do whatever I tell them. They’d offer an
assortment of tricks to get the students to comply with my wishes. In fact, the whole
field of classroom management amounts to techniques for manipulating students’
behavior.

This is awfully convenient for teachers because it takes for granted that the fault lies
completely with the children. But consider:

* Maybe when there’s a problem, we should focus not only on the child who doesn’t
do what he’s asked, but also on what he’s being asked to do (and how reasonable it
is).

* Maybe when a student is off task, the right question to ask isn’t “How do I get him
back on?” but “What’s the task?”

* Maybe when a student does something inappropriate, we should look at the climate
of the classroom that we have helped to create.

Working with students to build a safe, caring community takes time, patience, and
skill. It’s no surprise, then, that discipline programs fall back on what’s easy:
punishments (“consequences”) and rewards.

Do they work? Yes and no. Threats and bribes can buy a short-term change in
behavior, but they can never help kids develop a commitment to positive values. In a
consequence-based classroom, students are led to ask, “What does she want me to do,
and what happens to me if I don’t do it?” In a reward-based classroom, they’re led to
ask, “What does she want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?”

Notice how similar these two questions are. Rewards and punishments are really two
sides of the same coin. And notice how different either one is from what we’d like
children to be thinking about: “What kind of person do I want to be?” or “What kind
of classroom do we want to have?”

To help kids engage in such reflection, we have to work with them rather than doing
things to them. We have to bring them in on the process of making decisions about
their learning and their lives together in the classroom. Children learn to make good
choices by having the chance to choose, not by following directions.

Suppose it’s been taking a long time for your class to get settled after returning from
lunch. What are your options? You could threaten to take away a privilege or
humiliate the slowest kids. You could dangle the equivalent of a doggie biscuit in
front of the class if things improve tomorrow. Or you could set up one child as an
example to manipulate the behavior of everyone else (“I like the way Doreen is taking
her seat so quickly!”).

All of these “doing to” strategies are about demanding obedience, not about helping
kids think their way through a problem — or pondering why what’s happening might
even be a problem in the first place. As a result, the need for discipline and control
never ends.

But what if you engaged the students in thinking for themselves?: How long is it
taking us to get settled? Why? What can we do about that? This approach saves time
in the long run, reduces the number of problems, and ultimately gets kids started
thinking their way through their problems.

Each time I visit such a classroom, where the teacher is more interested in creating a
democratic community than in maintaining her position of authority, I’m convinced
all over again that moving away from consequences and rewards isn’t just realistic —
it’s the best way to help kids grow into good learners and good people.

2.4.3 Progressive Education: Why It’s Hard to Beat, But Also Hard to Find

If progressive education doesn’t lend itself to a single fixed definition, that seems
fitting in light of its reputation for resisting conformity and standardization. Any two
educators who describe themselves as sympathetic to this tradition may well see it
differently, or at least disagree about which features are the most important.

Talk to enough progressive educators, in fact, and you’ll begin to notice certain
paradoxes: Some people focus on the unique needs of individual students, while
others invoke the importance of a community of learners; some describe learning as a
process, more journey than destination, while others believe that tasks should result in
authentic products that can be shared.[1]

What It Is

Despite such variations, there are enough elements on which most of us can agree so
that a common core of progressive education emerges, however hazily. And it really
does make sense to call it a tradition, as I did a moment ago. Ironically, what we
usually call “traditional” education, in contrast to the progressive approach, has less
claim to that adjective — because of how, and how recently, it has developed. As Jim
Nehring at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell observed, “Progressive schools
are the legacy of a long and proud tradition of thoughtful school practice stretching
back for centuries” — including hands-on learning, multiage classrooms, and mentor-
apprentice relationships — while what we generally refer to as traditional schooling
“is largely the result of outdated policy changes that have calcified into
conventions.”[2](Nevertheless, I’ll use the conventional nomenclature in this article to
avoid confusion.)

It’s not all or nothing, to be sure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a school — even one
with scripted instruction, uniforms, and rows of desks bolted to the floor — that has
completely escaped the influence of progressive ideas. Nor have I seen a school that’s
progressive in every detail. Still, schools can be characterized according to how
closely they reflect a commitment to values such as these:

Attending to the whole child: Progressive educators are concerned with helping
children become not only good learners but also good people. Schooling isn’t seen as
being about just academics, nor is intellectual growth limited to verbal and
mathematical proficiencies.

Community:  Learning isn’t something that happens to individual children —

separate selves at separate desks. Children learn with and from one another in a caring
community, and that’s true of moral as well as academic learning. Interdependence
counts at least as much as independence, so it follows that practices that pit students
against one another in some kind of competition, thereby undermining a feeling of
community, are deliberately avoided.

Collaboration: Progressive schools are characterized by what I like to call a

“working with” rather than a “doing to” model. In place of rewards for complying
with the adults’ expectations, or punitive consequences for failing to do so, there’s
more of an emphasis on collaborative problem-solving — and, for that matter, less
focus on behaviors than on underlying motives, values, and reasons.
Social justice: A sense of community and responsibility for others isn’t confined to
the classroom; indeed, students are helped to locate themselves in widening circles of
care that extend beyond self, beyond friends, beyond their own ethnic group, and
beyond their own country. Opportunities are offered not only to learn about, but also
to put into action, a commitment to diversity and to improving the lives of others.

Intrinsic motivation: When considering (or reconsidering) educational policies and

practices, the first question that progressive educators are likely to ask is, “What’s the
effect on students’ interest  in learning, their desire to continue reading, thinking, and
questioning?” This deceptively simple test helps to determine what students will and
won’t be asked to do. Thus, conventional practices, including homework, grades, and
tests, prove difficult to justify for anyone who is serious about promoting long-term
dispositions rather than just improving short-term skills.

Deep understanding: As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead declared long ago,
“A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth.” Facts and
skills do matter, but only in a context and for a purpose. That’s why progressive
education tends to be organized around problems, projects, and questions — rather
than around lists of facts, skills, and separate disciplines. The teaching is typically
interdisciplinary, the assessment rarely focuses on rote memorization, and excellence
isn’t confused with “rigor.” The point is not merely to challenge students — after all,
harder is not necessarily better — but to invite them to think deeply about issues that
matter and help them understand ideas from the inside out.

Active learning: In progressive schools, students play a vital role in helping to design
the curriculum, formulate the questions, seek out (and create) answers, think through
possibilities, and evaluate how successful they — and their teachers — have been.
Their active participation in every stage of the process is consistent with the
overwhelming consensus of experts that learning is a matter of constructing ideas
rather than passively absorbing information or practicing skills.

Taking kids seriously: In traditional schooling, as John Dewey once remarked, “the
center of gravity is outside the child”:  he or she is expected to adjust to the school’s
rules and curriculum. Progressive educators take their cue from the children — and
are particularly attentive to differences among them. (Each student is unique, so a
single set of policies, expectations, or assignments would be as counterproductive as it
was disrespectful.) The curriculum isn’t just based on interest, but on these
children’s interests. Naturally, teachers will have broadly conceived themes and
objectives in mind, but they don’t just design a course of study for their students; they
design it with them, and they welcome unexpected detours. One fourth-grade
teacher’s curriculum, therefore, won’t be the same as that of the teacher next door, nor
will her curriculum be the same this year as it was for the children she taught last
year. It’s not enough to offer elaborate thematic units prefabricated by the adults. And
progressive educators realize that the students must help to formulate not only the
course of study but also the outcomes or standards that inform those lessons.

Some of the features that I’ve listed here will seem objectionable, or at least
unsettling, to educators at more traditional schools, while others will be surprisingly
familiar and may even echo sentiments that they, themselves, have expressed. But
progressive educators don’t merely say they endorse ideas like “love of learning” or
“a sense of community.” They’re willing to put these values into practice even if
doing so requires them to up-end traditions. They may eliminate homework altogether
if it’s clear that students view after-school assignments as something to be gotten over
with as soon as possible. They will question things like honors classes and awards
assemblies that clearly undermine a sense of community. Progressive schools, in
short, follow their core values — bolstered by research and experience — wherever
they lead.

What It Isn’t

Misconceptions about progressive education generally take two forms. Either it is

defined too narrowly so that the significance of the change it represents is understated,
or else an exaggerated, caricatured version is presented in order to justify dismissing
the whole approach. Let’s take each of these in turn.

Individualized attention from caring, respectful teachers is terribly important. But it

does not a progressive school make. To assume otherwise not only dilutes
progressivism; it’s unfair to traditional educators, most of whom are not callous
Gradgrinds or ruler-wielding nuns. In fact, it’s perfectly consistent to view education
as the process of filling children up with bits of knowledge — and to use worksheets,
lectures, quizzes, homework, grades, and other such methods in pursuit of that goal —
while being genuinely concerned about each child’s progress. Schools with warm,
responsive teachers who know each student personally can take pride in that fact, but
they shouldn’t claim on that basis to be progressive.

Moreover, traditional schools aren’t always about memorizing dates and definitions;
sometimes they’re also committed to helping students understand ideas. As one
science teacher pointed out, “For thoughtful traditionalists, thinking is couched in
terms of comprehending, integrating, and applying knowledge.” However, the
student’s task in such classrooms is “comprehending how the teacher has integrated
or applied the ideas… and [then] reconstruct[ing] the teacher’s thinking.”[3] There are
interesting concepts being discussed in some traditional classrooms, in other words,
but what distinguishes progressive education is that students must construct their own
understanding of ideas.

There’s another mistake based on too narrow a definition, which took me a while to
catch on to: A school that is culturally progressive is not necessarily educationally
progressive. An institution can be steeped in lefty politics and multi-grain values; it
can be committed to diversity, peace, and saving the planet — but remain strikingly
traditional in its pedagogy. In fact, one can imagine an old-fashioned pour-in-the-facts
approach being used to teach lessons in tolerance or even radical politics.[4]

Less innocuous, or accidental, is the tendency to paint progressive education as a

touchy-feely, loosey-goosey, fluffy, fuzzy, undemanding exercise in leftover hippie
idealism — or Rousseauvian Romanticism. In this cartoon version of the tradition,
kids are free to do anything they please, the curriculum can consist of whatever is fun
(and nothing that isn’t fun). Learning is thought to happen automatically while the
teachers just stand by, observing and beaming. I lack the space here to offer examples
of this sort of misrepresentation — or a full account of why it’s so profoundly wrong
— but trust me: People really do sneer at the idea of progressive education based on
an image that has little to do with progressive education.

Why It Makes Sense

For most people, the fundamental reason to choose, or offer, a progressive education
is a function of their basic values: “a rock-bottom commitment to democracy,” as
Joseph Featherstone put it; a belief that meeting children’s needs should take
precedence over preparing future employees; and a desire to nourish curiosity,
creativity, compassion, skepticism, and other virtues.

Fortunately, what may have begun with values (for any of us as individuals, and also
for education itself, historically speaking) has turned out to be supported by solid
data. A truly impressive collection of research has demonstrated that when students
are able to spend more time thinking about ideas than memorizing facts and practicing
skills — and when they are invited to help direct their own learning — they are not
only more likely to enjoy what they’re doing but to do it better. Progressive education
isn’t just more appealing; it’s also more productive.

I reviewed decades’ worth of research in the late 1990s: studies of preschools and
high schools; studies of instruction in reading, writing, math, and science; broad
studies of “open classrooms,” “student-centered” education, and teaching consistent
with constructivist accounts of learning, but also investigations of specific innovations
like democratic classrooms, multiage instruction, looping, cooperative learning, and
authentic assessment (including the abolition of grades). Across domains, the results
overwhelmingly favor progressive education. Regardless of one’s values, in other
words, this approach can be recommended purely on the basis of its effectiveness.
And if your criteria are more ambitious — long-term retention of what’s been taught,
the capacity to understand ideas and apply them to new kinds of problems, a desire to
continue learning — the relative benefits of progressive education are even greater.
[5] This conclusion is only strengthened by the lack of data to support the value of
standardized tests, homework, conventional discipline (based on rewards or
consequences), competition, and other traditional practices.[6]

Since I published that research review, similar findings have continued to accumulate.
Several newer studies confirm that traditional academic instruction for very young
children is counterproductive.[7]  Students in elementary and middle school did better
in science when their teaching was “centered on projects in which they took a high
degree of initiative. Traditional activities, such as completing worksheets and reading
primarily from textbooks, seemed to have no positive effect.”[8]  Another recent
study found that an “inquiry-based” approach to learning is more beneficial than
conventional methods for low-income and minority students.[9]  The results go on
and on. In fact, I occasionally stumble upon older research that I’d missed earlier —
including a classic five-year investigation of almost 11,000 children between the ages
of eight and sixteen, which found that students who attended progressive schools were
less likely to cheat than those who attended conventional schools — a result that
persisted even after the researchers controlled for age, IQ, and family background.[10]

Why It’s Rare

Despite the fact that all schools can be located on a continuum stretching between the
poles of totally progressive and totally traditional — or, actually, on a series of
continuums reflecting the various components of those models — it’s usually possible
to visit a school and come away with a pretty clear sense of whether it can be
classified as predominantly progressive. It’s also possible to reach a conclusion about
how many schools — or even individual classrooms — in America merit that label:
damned few. The higher the grade level, the rarer such teaching tends to be, and it’s
not even all that prevalent at the lower grades.[11] (Also, while it’s probably true that
most progressive schools are independent, most independent schools are not
progressive.)

The rarity of this approach, while discouraging to some of us, is also rather significant
with respect to the larger debate about education. If progressive schooling is actually
quite uncommon, then it’s hard to blame our problems (real or alleged) on this model.
Indeed, the facts have the effect of turning the argument on its head: If students aren’t
learning effectively, it may be because of the persistence of traditional beliefs and
practices in our nation’s schools.
But we’re also left with a question: If progressive education is so terrific, why is it
still the exception rather than the rule? I often ask the people who attend my lectures
to reflect on this, and the answers that come back are varied and provocative.  For
starters, they tell me, progressive education is not only less familiar but also much
harder to do, and especially to do well. It asks a lot more of the students and at first
can seem a burden to those who have figured out how to play the game in traditional
classrooms — often succeeding by conventional standards without doing much real
thinking. It’s also much more demanding of teachers, who have to know their subject
matter inside and out if they want their students to “make sense of biology or
literature” as opposed to “simply memoriz[ing] the frog’s anatomy or the sentence’s
structure.”[12]  But progressive teachers also have to know a lot about pedagogy
because no amount of content knowledge (say, expertise in science or English) can
tell you how to facilitate learning. The belief that anyone who knows enough math
can teach it is a corollary of the belief that learning is a process of passive absorption
—a view that cognitive science has decisively debunked.

Progressive teachers also have to be comfortable with uncertainty, not only to

abandon a predictable march toward the “right answer” but to let students play an
active role in the quest for meaning that replaces it. That means a willingness to give
up some control and let students take some ownership, which requires guts as well as
talent. These characteristics appear not to be as common as we might like to think.
Almost a decade ago, in an interview for this magazine, I recalled my own experience
in high school classrooms with some chagrin: “I prided myself on being an
entertaining lecturer, very knowledgeable, funny, charismatic, and so on. It took me
years to realize [that my] classroom was all about me, not about the kids. It was about
teaching, not about learning.”[13]  The more we’re influenced by the insights of
progressive education, the more we’re forced to rethink what it means to be a good
teacher. That process will unavoidably ruffle some feathers, including our own.

And speaking of feather-ruffling, I’m frequently reminded that progressive education

has an uphill journey because of the larger culture we live in. It’s an approach that is
in some respects inherently subversive, and people in power do not always enjoy
being subverted. As Vito Perrone has written, “The values of progressivism —
including skepticism, questioning, challenging, openness, and seeking alternate
possibilities — have long struggled for acceptance in American society. That they did
not come to dominate the schools is not surprising.”[14]

There is pressure to raise standardized test scores, something that progressive

education manages to do only sometimes and by accident — not only because that
isn’t its purpose but also because such tests measure what matters least. (The
recognition of that fact explains why progressive schools would never dream of using
standardized tests as part of their admissions process.)  More insidiously, though, we
face pressure to standardize our practices in general. Thinking is messy, and deep
thinking is really messy. This reality coexists uneasily with demands for order — in
schools where the curriculum is supposed to be carefully coordinated across grade
levels and planned well ahead of time, or in society at large.

And then (as my audiences invariably point out) there are parents who have never
been invited to reconsider their assumptions about education. As a result, they may be
impressed by the wrong things, reassured by signs of traditionalism — letter grades,
spelling quizzes, heavy textbooks, a teacher in firm control of the classroom — and
unnerved by their absence. Even if their children are obviously unhappy, parents may
accept that as a fact of life. Instead of wanting the next generation to get better than
we got, it’s as though their position was:  “Listen, if it was bad enough for me, it’s
bad enough for my kids.” Perhaps they subscribe to what might be called the Listerine
theory of education, based on a famous ad campaign that sought to sell this particular
brand of mouthwash on the theory that if it tasted vile, it obviously worked well. The
converse proposition, of course, is that anything appealing is likely to be ineffective.
If a child is lucky enough to be in a classroom featuring, say, student-designed
project-based investigations, the parent may wonder, “But is she
really learning anything? Where are the worksheets?” And so the teachers feel
pressure to make the instruction worse.

All progressive schools experience a constant undertow, perhaps a request to

reintroduce grades of some kind, to give special enrichments to the children of the
“gifted” parents, to start up a competitive sports program (because American children
evidently don’t get enough of winning and losing outside of school), to punish the kid
who did that bad thing to my kid, to administer a standardized test or two (“just so we
can see how they’re doing”), and, above all, to get the kids ready for what comes next
— even if this amounts to teaching them badly so they’ll be prepared for the bad
teaching to which they’ll be subjected later.[15]

This list doesn’t exhaust the reasons that progressive education is uncommon.
However, the discussion that preceded it, of progressive education’s advantages, was
also incomplete, which suggests that working to make it a little more common is a
worthy pursuit. We may not be able to transform a whole school, or even a classroom,
along all of these dimensions, at least not by the end of this year. But whatever
progress we can make is likely to benefit our students. And doing what’s best for
them is the reason all of us got into this line of work in the first place.

A Dozen Questions for Progressive Schools

Because of what I’ve described as the undertow that progressive educators inevitably
experience, it’s possible for them to wake up one morning with the unsettling
realization that their school has succumbed to a creeping traditionalism and drifted
from the vision of its founders.  Here are some pointed questions to spur collective
reflection and, perhaps, corrective action.

1.  Is our school committed to being educationally progressive, or is it content with an

atmosphere that’s progressive only in the political or cultural sense of the word?

2.  Is a progressive vision being pursued unapologetically, or does a fear of alienating

potential applicants lead to compromising that mission and trying to be all things to
all people?  (“We offer a nurturing environment  . . . of rigorous college
preparation.”)

3.  Is the education that the oldest students receive just as progressive as that offered
to the youngest, or would a visitor conclude that those in the upper grades seem to
attend a different school altogether?

4.  Is the teaching organized around problems, projects, and questions?  Is most of the
instruction truly interdisciplinary, or is literature routinely separated from social
studies – or even from spelling?  Has acquiring skills (e.g., arithmetic, vocabulary)
come to be over-emphasized rather than seen as a means to the end of understanding
and communicating ideas?

5.  To what extent are students involved in designing the curriculum?  Is it a learner-
centered environment, or are lessons presented to the children as faits accomplis? 
How much are students involved in other decisions, such as room decoration,
classroom management, assessment, and so on?  Are teachers maintaining control
over children, even in subtle ways, so that the classrooms are less democratic than
they could be?

6.  Is assessment consistent with a progressive vision, or are students evaluated and
rated with elaborate rubrics[16] and grade-substitutes?  Do students end up, as in
many traditional schools, spending so much time thinking about how well they’re
doing that they’re no longer as engaged with what they’re doing?

7.  Do administrators respect teachers’ professionalism and need for autonomy – or is

there a style of top-down control that’s inconsistent with how teachers are urged to
treat students?  Conversely, is it possible that teachers’ insistence on being left alone
has permitted them to drift from genuinely progressive practice in some areas?

8.  Are educators acting like lifelong learners, always willing to question familiar
ways – or do they sometimes fall back on tradition and justify practices on the
grounds that something is just “the [name of school] way”?  Are teachers encouraged
to visit one another’s classrooms and offered opportunities to talk about pedagogy on
a regular basis?

9.  Is cooperation emphasized throughout the school – or are there remnants of an

adversarial approach?  Do students typically make decisions by trying to reach
consensus or do they simply vote?  Do competitive games still dominate physical
education and even show up in classrooms?  Do most learning experiences take place
in pairs and small groups, or does the default arrangement consist of having students
do things on their own?

10.  Is homework assigned only when it’s absolutely necessary to extend and enrich a
lesson, or is it assigned on a regular basis (as in a traditional school)?  If homework is
given, are the assignments predicated on – and justified by — a behaviorist model of
“reinforcing” what they were taught – or do they truly deepen students’ understanding
of, and engagement with, ideas?  How much of a role do the students play in making
decisions about homework?

11.  Does the question “How will this affect children’s interest in learning (and in the
topic at hand)?” inform all choices about curriculum, instruction, and scheduling – or
has a focus on right answers and “rigor” led some students to become less curious
about, and excited by, what they’re doing?

12.  Is the school as progressive and collaborative in nonacademic (social, behavioral)

matters as it is in the academic realm, or are there remnants of “consequence”-based
control such that the focus is sometimes more on order and compliance than on
fostering moral reasoning, social skills, and democratic dispositions?

Source:
Kohn, A. (2008). Progressive education. Retrieved from
http://www.alfiekohn.org/ article/progressive-education/ 

2.4.4 Article No. 4: Alfie Kohn Is Bad for You and Dangerous For Your
Children (A Critique)

Daniel Willingham - February 2, 2009

Alfie Kohn has been a leading voice in education for better than two decades. The
author of 11 books and numerous articles in high-profile outlets, he is an
influential go-to guy for education reporters seeking expert comments on everything
from standardized testing policy to student motivation.

Let me admit at the outset that I don’t really believe reading what he has to say is
bad for you.  But if Kohn were writing about his own work, that would probably be his
takeaway message.  Kohn has made a virtual industry out of finding interesting and
provocative insights in the psychological literature and following them off the edge of
a cliff.

It’s worth reading Kohn simply because others do, and he is helpful as a pointer to
interesting psychological literatures that have been ignored. I say “pointer to” rather
than “interpreter of” because his summaries of these interesting literatures are
usually incomplete and misleading. For that reason, I think of Kohn as the
honeyguide of education. The honeyguide is a bird that leads humans to bee
colonies. Once the human has opened the hive and taken the honey, the bird feeds
on the wax and larvae that remain behind. So it is with Kohn. He will lead you to
something interesting and useful, but if you want to use it, you will have to do the
work yourself.

I have not read all of Kohn’s sizable body of writing, but I have read pieces on three
of his major themes from the last decade:

 the role of homework in schooling,

 the role of praise and reward in motivation, and most recently,

 the role of self-discipline in academic achievement.

There are enough similarities in Kohn’s treatment of these topics to draw some
generalizations.

Kohn specializes in attacking conventional wisdom in education.  He takes a

common practice that people think is helpful and then shows it’s not helpful, and in
fact is destructive. Most people think that homework helps kids learn, praise shows
appreciation and makes them more likely to do desirable things, and self-discipline
helps them achieve their goals.  Kohn argues that each of these conclusions is wrong
or over-simplified. Homework may bring small benefits to some students, but it incurs
greater costs and overall is likely not worth assigning.  Praise doesn’t help academic
achievement, it controls children, it reduces motivation, and makes them less able to
make decisions. Self-discipline is oversold as an educational panacea, and in some
contexts may actually be undesirable.

Kohn consistently makes factual errors, oversimplifies the literature that he

seeks to explain, and commits logical fallacies.

For example, in this 2006 Education Week piece, Kohn questions the value of
homework.  He claims that the data showing that homework boosts academic
achievement in elementary school are soft and brushes aside data showing that it
boosts academic achievement in high school, saying that “more sophisticated
statistical controls” show that it doesn’t help at all. This summary does not
correspond with the conclusions of most researchers, (see, for example, this review
of the homework literature).  Kohn also argues that two common justifications for
homework—to automatize skills and to provide practice time for mastery—are based
on flawed assumptions. Kohn claims that time on task is not important to learning,
and that the only skills that can be automatized are behavioral, that is, physical
responses such as a golf swing. On both points, he’s in error. (Once could cite many
examples: two would be the chapter on automaticity in pilots’ perception by Mica
Endsley, and the chapter on practice time by Anders Ericsson, both in the Cambridge
Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.

In his book, Punished by Rewards, Kohn claims “Praise, at least as commonly

practiced, is a way of using and perpetuating children’s dependence on us.  It gets
them to conform to our wishes irrespective of what those wishes are.” (p. 104.) Kohn
also argues that praise and rewards for good behavior are destructive to motivation.
The truth is actually somewhat more complicated. Rewards can reduce motivation,
but only when motivation was somewhat high to start with. If the student is
unmotivated to perform some task, rewarding him will not hurt his motivation.
Praise can be controlling and exact a psychological cost, but its effect on the
recipient depends on how it’s construed: does the child think you are offering sincere
appreciation for a job well done, or sending the message that future behavior
had better be in line with expectations? There is important psychological work
showing that the role of praise and reward is complex. Carol Dweck is a leader in this
field and her book, Mindset, provides a good overview.

In a recent piece in the Phi Delta Kappan, Kohn argues that self-discipline has been
over-sold, and indeed, that it has a dark side—too much self-control may be
associated with anxiety, compulsiveness, and dampened emotional responses. He
notes that some researchers put few or no qualifications on their enthusiasm for self-
control, essentially arguing that more is always better. But Kohn proceeds from a
definition of “self-control” that differs from that used by these researchers (Roy
Baumeister, Angela Duckworth, Walter Mischel, and Marty Seligman), and indeed, by
virtually all of the important researchers in the field. They define self-control as the
ability to marshal your cognitive and emotional resources to help you attain goals that
you consider important. Kohn defines self-control as using willpower to accomplish
things that are generally regarded as desirable. Thus by Kohn’s definition, a child
shows self-discipline when she determinedly (and miserably) slogs towards a goal
that she does not value, but that her parents (or others) deem important.
Researchers use the former definition when they claim that they find no
disadvantages to self-control, and that they observe positive associations with
achievement, social adjustment, mental health. Kohn’s point—that authoritarian
control leads to negative outcomes—is not very startling and is shared more or less
universally by researchers.

Kohn falls prey to logical fallacies on occasion. In the same Kappan piece on self-
discipline, Kohn writes “Learning, after all, depends not on what students do so much
as on how they regard and construe what they do. To assume otherwise is to revert
to a crude behaviorism long since repudiated by serious scholars.” (p. 170). This is
a false dilemma. Kohn offers me the choice of agreeing with his version of a
constructivist learning theory or agreeing with a behaviorist theory. Actually, those
are not my only choices of learning theories. (I have yet to find a Kohn piece in which
behaviorism—a theory whose heyday was fifty years ago, and is now ignored by
most learning theorists—did not take a beating.)

Kohn’s work often makes use of misleading vividness, or perhaps better, a variant of
that fallacy. His articles are characterized by a long, vehement attack on the target
and a brief, subdued qualification of the attack. The pale qualification, though
important to an accurate characterization of the literature, is likely forgotten by the
reader. For example, the Kappan piece is an attack on three fronts (psychological,
philosophical, and political) on the usefulness of self-discipline. Kohn also notes
“While I readily admit that persevering at worthwhile tasks is good—and that some
students seem to lack this capacity—. . . .” This qualification indicates that an
important topic ought to be “when is self-control useful, and when is it destructive?”
But the message of the article is unqualified: self-discipline is bad.

Kohn is not bad for you nor dangerous to your children. Indeed, he’s helpful to the
field as a provacteur. In each case, the literature he cites (and mischaracterizes)
invites important questions for educators. Homework is associated with achievement,
but what are the drawbacks? Can we achieve those gains some other way? What
are the most effective types of homework?  Do we praise too much? How can we
know what is the right type of praise, and when to use it? How can we encourage
children to be self-disciplined, and at the same time guard against children
completely forfeiting their goals in favor of the goals of teachers, parents and
coaches? Kohn’s work can help us to formulate these questions, but should not be
read as a guide to the answers because it cannot be trusted as an accurate summary
of the research literature.

Source:
Willingham, D. (2009). Alfie Kohn is bad for you and dangerous for your children.
Retrieved from http://blogs.britannica.com/2009/02/alfie-kohn-is-bad-for-you-
and-dangerous-for-your-children/

2.5 Thomas Gordon's Discipline as Self-Control Model

The articles here were all taken from the internet.

2.5.1 Article No. 1 Overview of History and Theory

History of Thomas Gordon

Thomas Gordon dedicated his life to developing training systems that help
individuals improve their relationships with one another. Dr. Thomas Gordon’s
approach to psychology was revolutionary because it looked at relationships, rather
than individuals, to solve conflicts.

When Dr. Gordon began in the field of psychology he was dissatisfied with the
emphasis on statistics and scientific process. What Dr. Gordon was really interested
in was the relationships between people. On his website, there is a story about how
a young Dr. Gordon was inspired while watching a Sunday school teacher. The
Sunday school teacher, “created a climate in class that made the students feel good
about themselves and that encouraged them to enjoy learning” (Gordon Training
International, 2005-2007). Dr. Gordon was also influenced by his experience in the
Army Air Force from 1942-1946. As a student in the Army’s pilot training program he
suggested that the authoritarian style of discipline contributed to accidents and a
large drop out rate. After persuading his superiors to implement a program in which
fear was not the primary element, students in the training program became much
more successful.

After his time in the war, Dr. Gordon went to the University of Chicago to pursue his
Ph.D. with his favorite professor Carl Rogers. It was there that he discovered, “that
with training in reflective listening, and with an attitude of genuine acceptance and
trust in their clients’ ability to solve their own problems, positive and lasting changes
in their clients could be achieved” (Gordon Training International, 2005-2007). After
receiving his Ph.D. in 1949, he spent five years of teaching at the University of
Chicago. After that,Dr. Gordon took his experience and continued his career as a
private consultant.

Throughout his career Dr. Gordon has published works focusing on issues such as
organizational leadership, communications, counseling, discipline, parenting, conflict
resolution and democratic decision making. In addition to contributing over 50
published articles, Dr. Gordon also authored 9 books including Teacher Effectiveness
Training. During his lifetime he was involved in many different psychological
associations including Division of Peace Psychology and the National Peace
Foundation. In 1997, 1998 and 1999 Dr. Gordon was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize (Gordon Training International, 2005-2007).

References:

Gordon Training International.(2005-2007). Retrieved June 11, 2007 from

http://www.gordontraining.com.

Classroom Philosophy[edit]

The central tenet of Dr. Gordon’s approach to classroom management is the

importance of developing meaning and mutually beneficial relationships. Dr. Gordon
rejects traditional models of reward and punishment because they are based upon
an assertion of power and foster no intrinsic motivation. Instead Dr. Gordon focuses
on how student’s conflicts can be resolved in a way that will improve their
relationships with their teacher and peers.

Dr. Gordon recognizes that conflict is an inevitable part of relationships because

each person is an individual with unique values and needs. There will be times when
these needs come into conflict. However, conflict does not have to destroy a
relationship. By having open and honest communication, along with listening with
genuine acceptance and understanding, individuals are able to find their own
solutions. It is important that these solutions are agreeable to both parties involved
in the conflict. It is also important to tell someone if their behaviors are negatively
affecting you. The hope is that they will respect your feelings enough to change their
behavior (Gordon, 1978).

When conflict arises in the classroom setting Dr. Gordon suggests following a series
of steps. The first step is to use a graphic tool developed by Dr. Gordon called a
“Behavior Window.” The purpose of the Behavior Window is to determine if “a
problem exists, who owns it, and what skill can be used to solve it” (Gordon Training
International, 2005-2007). If the student owns the problem, the second step for the
teacher is to engage is active listening. Active listening occurs when a teacher listens
and reflects back to a student their understanding of the conflict. This process
communicates to the student that the teacher cares and is genuinely engaged in the
conversation. If the teacher owns the problem, Dr. Gordon suggests that the second
step of the resolution process begin with an “I-Message”. This means that the
teacher will initiate the conversation by explaining her feelings to the student. The
purpose of the I-Message is to confront someone else’s misbehavior without being
confrontational. The final step is the “No-Lose Conflict Resolution.” The purpose of
this final step is to come up with a solution that everyone can be invested in. If both
parities participate in creating a solution, the solution is more likely to work!

References:

Gordon, Thomas. (1978). A Credo for My Relationship with Others. Retrieved June
12, 2007 from http://www.gordontraining.com/popup-a-credo-for-my-relationships-with-
others.html

Gordon Training International.(2005-2007). Retrieved June 11, 2007 from

http://www.gordontraining.com.

Implementation
The implementation of Thomas Gordon’s theory of conflict resolution must be based
on helping student relations grow positively out of conflict, rather than degenerate.
This can be accomplished by discussing and agreeing on common resolutions in a
role-play situation before implementation into the classroom. The main components
of the theory should be modeled, discussed, and then actively practiced for proper
implementation. These components include active listening and the usage of I-
messages to form a common resolution of a dispute.

In an elementary setting, Thomas Gordon’s theory of conflict resolution can be

implemented through a “Peace Walk.” The peace walk is designed for two students
to walk together through specific steps that lead to peaceful resolution of conflict.
Each student is to practice active listening, as well as the usage of I-messages. One
student is the color red, while the other is blue. The steps include:
 Step 1: RED: use an I-message to tell how you feel.
BLUE: Listen and retell what you hear.
Step 2: RED: Suggest a solution.
BLUE: Listen and retell what you hear.
Step 3: BLUE: Suggest a solution.
RED: Listen and retell what you hear.
Step 4: RED: Agree on a solution.
BLUE: Agree on a solution.
In a secondary setting, Thomas Gordon’s theory of conflict resolution can be
implemented through a “Peace Table,” which is permanently located in a section of
each classroom. If a conflict among students occurs in a classroom setting, the
students are required to sit at the “Peace Table” and discuss their individual feelings.
The peace table is equipped with a graphic organizer, which lists the steps students
are required to take in order to resolve the conflict. The steps are as follows:

1. Student A uses I-messages to explain how he/she feels

about the present situation.
2. Student B practices active listening while Student A
shares his/her feelings.
3. Student B uses I-messages to explain how he/she feels
about the present situation.
4. Student A practices active listening while Student B
shares his/her feelings.
5. Students A and B agree on a common solution after their
discourse is complete.

Implementation of the peace walk and the peace table should be preceded with
appropriate modeling of the conflict resolution theory. Students should have the
opportunity to practice active listening and the usage of I-messages through role-
plays in the classroom.

In an elementary setting, a teacher can provide students with generated social

conflicts, which students may practice resolving through the peace walk process.
Students can practice active listening and the usage of I-messages. They can then
determine an appropriate resolution to the generated conflict, in which both
students are equally invested.

In a secondary setting, a teacher can create a role-play scenario, in which students

are to conference peacefully about a specific global issue. Students are required to
practice active listening while another is speaking. In discussing the global issue,
students are required to use I-messages to present information about the issue, as
well as express how they are personally feeling. Near the end of the discussion, all
students are required to agree upon a common resolution, in which everyone is
invested.
Professional Critique
According to Thomas Gordon, the basis for a manageable classroom is developing
positive relationships with students. Many other educators support this idea through
the use of I messages and active listening; some have even gone as far as to include
it as part of a curriculum.

Amy Martin, from the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, has
created lesson plans for teaching the use of I-Messages in the classroom. Martin’s
use of I-Messages supports Gordon’s philosophy in that it provides resources for
teachers and parents to resolve conflicts constructively with their children. Martin
focuses on the fact that I messages do not put blame on the individual, but rather
allow for a strong statement about one’s feelings while remaining positive. Similar to
Gordon, Martin recognizes that peaceful resolutions help individuals to grow in
positive relationships after a conflict. In addition to using this method in times of
conflict, Martin claims it is important to create a routine where students can practice
using I-Messages before hectic times of day such as recess and other transitions. She
states “These are times of the day when strong emotions can take over and interfere
with clear expression. Because our days are usually over-packed with teaching and
learning, it is important to really plan this activity into your schedule” (Martin)

Other curriculum companies such as Success for All have actually created manuals
like Getting Along Together to teach conflict management at the very beginning of
the year in order to create an environment filled with positive relationships. This
manual uses an activity called “The Peace Path” (Success for All, 2005). This activity
supports Gordon’s philosophy of creating positive relationships out of conflict by
giving students specific steps for resolving conflicts. The first step calls for one child
to use an I-Message to express their feelings. At this time, the other student must
use active listening to listen and restate what he or she heard. The next step has the
first student suggest a solution while the other student listens and restates the first
student’s solution. Then, the second student suggests a solution while the first
student listens and retells the other student’s solution. Finally, both students agree
on a solution (Success for All, 2005). This particular activity focuses on Gordon’s
primary components of conflict resolution and supports the building of positive
relationships in the classroom.

Resources

Martin, Amy. I-Messages and the Assertiveness Line. Retrieved June 15, 2007 from
http://www.teachablemoment.org/elementary/imessages.html

Success for All. (2005).

Thomas Gordon Critique:

While Thomas Gordon’s theory on classroom management has many positive

aspects, it is important to critique any theory before implementation in the
classroom. Thomas Gordon focuses mainly on how to solve problems in the most
kind and effective way possible. He believes that by using his method of solving
conflicts, relationships are going to strengthen. One might critique Gordon’s theory
because he focuses mainly on resolving conflict after it arises. Gordon does not take
any preventative measures in avoiding conflict. Theorist Jacob Kounin, however, is a
firm believer in preventing misbehaviors from occurring in the classroom by setting
expectations at the start of the year. If expectations are not set right from the start,
students are likely to misbehave, simply because they are unaware of how their
teachers expect them to behave. After teachers elicit clear and concise expectations
for their students, other forms in which to prevent misbehavior include the creation
of engaging lessons, teacher preparation and organization, and a focus on
movement. Kounin believes there are five important roles a teacher must exhibit in
the classroom: Withitness, Overlapping, Momentum, Smoothness and Group
Alerting. When a teacher is “with it,” he or she knows exactly what is happening in
the classroom at all times. Overlapping is having the ability to do more than one
thing at a time. Momentum has to do with the flow of the lesson. A teacher must be
prepared during a lesson, but also willing to be flexible if necessary. Smoothness
refers to the ability to stay on task within a lesson and refrain from using tangents.
Group Alerting is the way in which a teacher keeps students actively involved and
engaged in a lesson. If a teacher exhibits these five roles, students will refrain from
misbehaving in class. Thomas Gordon has also been critiqued on his usage of I-
messages. I-messages are ways in which a person can express him or herself without
placing blame on another person. They are designed to be used in a positive manner,
however, Dr. Jane Bluestein (2007) believes I-messages are ways in which to control
and manipulate others. Dr. Bluestein gives an example of a negative I-message in an
article entitled, “What’s Wrong with ‘I-Messages?’” Her example is as follows: “I feel
____ when you _____” (Bluestein, 2007). In other words, your behavior causes me to
have a specific, usually negative, feeling. Dr. Bluestein (2007) argues that one should
always take responsibility for how one is feeling and never place burden on another.
She writes, “We certainly don’t want to burden others, especially our children with
the overwhelming—and impossible—responsibility for our hap¬piness and well-
being. Remember that personal growth and self-responsibility typically involve
learning to separate who we are and how we feel about ourselves from other
people’s behav¬iors” (Bluestein, 2007). Everyone has very different needs, and when
a person attempts to please others, that person’s individual needs are often not
being met. Bluestein (2007) also argues that I-messages can create an opposite
reaction than they are intended. After hearing an I-message, a person may feel
resentment toward the other person and may not be willing to change behaviors for
the person. Instead of using I-messages, Bluestein argues that it is important to set
boundaries. If a child is misbehaving, an adult should step in and be assertive with
the child. Misbehaviors should not be supported or condoned, and the child who is
misbehaving should not have to feel responsible for how another person is feeling
about their behavior. That child should take responsibility for his or her own actions
without feeling blamed by another.

References:

Bluestein, J. (2007). What’s Wrong with I-Messages? [Electronic version].

Instructional

Our critique:

After carefully researching Thomas Gordon's classroom management theory and

articles from his colleagues, we have concluded that Gordon's theory is only one
piece of the puzzle. Gordon’s use of I-Messages and Active Listening can be a very
useful tool for addressing one’s own feelings. However, we believe that the use of I-
Messages still poses blame on another party. We feel it is important for students to
recognize that feelings from an action are subject to that individual’s personality; no
one can make you feel something. We believe it is important for students to take
responsibility for their own feelings and not blame them on another person. In
Gordon’s implementation of I-Messages as student would state: “I feel (feeling)
when you (action).” We disagree with the use of I messages in this format because
the blame is still being placed on another individual. Perhaps a way to change this is
by never using the word you in an I-Message. For example, “I feel (feeling) when
(action) happens.” One of Gordon’s goals in his management theory is for students
to develop positive relationships out of conflict; we believe there is a better way to
meet this goal than using Gordon’s model of I-Messages.

2.5.2 Article N. 2 How to Apply Thomas Gordon Model of Classroom

Management to the Classroom

by Jana Sosnowski, studioD

The Thomas Gordon model of classroom management focuses on communication

and relationships. Thomas Gordon, author of a model of classroom management
called Teacher Effectiveness Training, derived T.E.T. from principles of psychology in
an attempt to shift the responsibility for behavior from teacher to student. The
management style promotes problem-solving techniques, positive relationships and
communication strategies, and often includes school-wide strategies. There are four
basic components to T.E.T.: the behavior window, active listening, I-message and no-
lose conflict resolution.

The Behavior Window: Owning Problems

Gordon's classroom management philosophy is based on the behavior window, a

framework for problem ownership, he created in the late 1960s as part of parent
education. The initial framework divides parent view of children's behavior into
upper and lower portions, which represent acceptance and unacceptance of the
child's behavior. Later models included varying levels of acceptance and
unacceptance, but the goal was to determine how the adult view of the situation
affected acceptance of behavior and acknowledge that acceptance could change. In
the classroom, the behavior window is designed to help teachers recognize problems
that interfere with classroom instruction and determine ownership for the problems.
In the model, problems are owned by either the child, the adult, both parties or no
parties.

Active Listening: Understanding Messages

Integrating the Gordon model into the classroom includes the use of active listening
as a strategy for communication between student and teacher. The active listening
strategy is employed when the problem belongs to the student; it gives the student
an opportunity to express his feelings with the knowledge that the teacher will
understand and accept what he's feeling and saying. For example, if a student
routinely doesn't complete assignments, instead of creating consequence for the
disruption, the teacher would speak with the student privately and listen to the
student's reasons for his behavior.

I-Messages: Communicating Teacher Needs

When the problem is determined to belong to the teacher -- such that the teacher is
not able to perform her job because of interference from a student -- the I-message
strategy is employed. In this strategy, the teacher communicates to the student --
without blame, in a nonjudgmental way -- how the student is causing problems for
the teacher. The principle behind this communication strategy is that students will
develop a respect for the teacher's right to meet her own needs. For example, if a
student routinely disrupts classroom instruction, the I-message would include the
teacher's inability to complete her lesson plan and do her job.

No-Lose Conflict Resolution

In cases where active listening or the I-message strategies don't improve student
behavior, Gordon suggests six steps for no-lose conflict resolution. The goal of this
process is to find a solution that's acceptable to both student and teacher. The
foundation of no-lose conflict resolution should be implemented in classroom
language and atmosphere long before any problems appear. Students should know
that blame will not be placed and their needs will be listened to and considered.
Conversation focuses on concerns rather than sides of the two parties, a practice
that can also be implemented in both active listening and I-messages. The six steps
to the no-lose conflict resolution are to define the needs of teacher and student,
brainstorm solutions, evaluate solutions, choose a solution, implement the solution
and check the results.

2.5.3 Article No. 3 What Is The Gordon Method?

It is a comprehensive model he created that both establishes and maintains

successful relationships. He fully believed that when people use authoritative forms
of power it damages relationships, but when he coached them the people skills that
will lead to better communication and conflict resolution they established more
positive relationships. This training really has been successful in improving people’s
relationships. This was created over a length of time with a lot of research and
observations. Ultimately he noticed that when someone listens to another showing
acceptance and trust, healthier relationships are formed. With healthier
relationships problems can be solved much easier. The core message of his model is
that everyone needs equal consideration. This model focuses on character building
and training and not rewards and punishments. The focus is on creating an
environment of mutual respect. Equality for all is the common theme throughout his
method.

What Skills Did He Teach?

Active Listening- “the practice of paying close attention to a speaker and asking
questions to ensure full comprehension.” (Encarta)

It is a method of listening where one person reflects back their understanding of

what a person had just said.
Confirms whether or not a message was understood.
Allows speaker to correct what they had said if the message was misunderstood.
Ultimately it really does show an acceptance of one another's thoughts and
emotions.

I-Messages/ statements- “tell other people how you feel about their behavior.
Instead of blaming another person, which generally leads to negative emotions
such as anger, guilt, and hurt feelings, you focus on a particular behavior and how
it makes you feel.” (encyclo)

This is a device used for impelling others to change their behaviors because of its
effect on your ability to meet your needs.
This is an alternative to way to let others know about a behavior being unacceptable
that doesn’t point a finger and blame each other.
It concentrates on how it affects and makes you feel.
This allows people to peacefully confront someone without the other person feeling
like they are being attacked.
Makes people much more willing to change their behaviors versus other forms of
persuasion.

No-Lose Conflict Resolution- Which means that both parties win and it is not a win-
lose situation.

This is a six-step method for settling conflicts so that everyone is content with the
provided solution.
This is most effective when everyone participates because the solutions then
become higher quality.
More often than not, when everyone agrees the new pan becomes regimen.
The effectiveness of this can be more easily explained by the common sense
“Principle of Participation: People are more motivated to comply with decisions
which they had a part in reaching.” (McLeod, 2007)

Recognition of Behavior Windows- Recognizing that all relationships have

problems at some point and defining these problems accurately is of key
importance in order to take responsibility for the issue and solve it.

Can help people determine which communication skill is the correct one to use, how
to use it and when to use it.
Understanding this helps prevent disciplinary action.
Eliminate the requirement to understand each individual’s personality type.
We are familiar with these skills today, but they were not always known. Thanks to
Thomas Gordon these skills are known and used throughout the world!

What Synonyms Or Organizational Terms Are Used For The Gordon Method?

Participative management.
Student-centered teaching.
Democratic leadership.
Group-centered leadership model.

Why Is This Good For A Classroom Setting?

His methods focus on assisting students in taking control of their own behavior. If
used correctly these tools will become instinctual to students and are a benefit to
them because of the lifelong implications these skills have. It allows us as teachers to
influence our students' behaviors within the classroom. This allows teachers to
spend more time teaching and students to learn. In turn we as teachers learn how to
manage our classrooms in better ways that also encourage student cooperation and
participation. Students will learn the skills to deal with conflicts throughout their day
and even lives, whether it is with peers, teachers and/ or parents. They will carry
these skills throughout their lives and can adapt them to every relationship they
have.
ʚ Teachers become equals with their students.
ʚ Asks teachers to throw out class rules.
ʚ Use I-Messages when problems arise.

What Do I Have To Do To Use This Method In A Classroom?

ʚ In the beginning of every school year, semester or quarter we as teachers need to

talk with the students about our expectations and what we hope to accomplish with
them.

ʚ A behavioral agreement can be made at this time and as a group the class should
come up with several statements about the expectations of behavior in the
classroom.

This needs to be on display where everyone can see it and lead by example.
Do not be surprised if each class has slightly different behavioral agreements.
This is OK because we need to find what works best for everyone involved.

ʚ Lead by example through the use of I-messages when problems arise within the
classroom.
This will allow students to learn how to take ownership over issues or problems.
The “owner of the problem is the person who is affected by the behavior.” (KIMBER
W. MALMGREN)
When this involves two or more students that are in an argument the owner of the
problem is usually just one of the students.
When this type of student behavior interferes with class, it is the teacher who owns
the problem.
Whoever is the owner of the problem then needs to use an I-message to let the
other person know how the behavior makes them feel.
Example “When you take my lunch, I have nothing left to eat so I will be hungry later.
I won’t like that very much.”
ʚ As teacher we need to know how to solve problems through modeling problem-
solving methods. We cannot rely on the notion that students will know how to do
this alone.
Identify the problem.
The I-message helps identify the problem.
Present solutions (All students involved in the problem should present solutions)
Allow students to choose a solution they all agree upon.
Implement the solution.
Determine if the solution worked.

What Are The Steps In Developing Problem Solving Skills?

ʚ Identify the problem.

ʚ Identify multiple solutions to the problem.
ʚ Choose a mutually agreeable solution for all who are involved
ʚ Implement the solution.
ʚ Determine if the solution was successful.
What Do I Have To Do To Be Able To Develop These Skills In Order To Adopt This
Method?

First, a paradigm shift has to take place otherwise a teacher cannot be successful.

Redefine what misbehavior is.

It typically is an adult concept not a child’s.
Used to denote a child’s action that produces disagreeable outcomes for the adult.
Understand the concept “who owns a problem.”
If the only person who is affected by the behavior is the student, then it is the
student’s problem and they need to own the problem.
If the same student is interfering with the class, then the teacher owns the problem.
Find a mutual ground to try and change the behavior.

Second, Learn to apply three skills in dealing with students

Confrontive skills = teacher owns the problem

Apply in both a positive and non- confrontational manner.
Modifying the Environment and not the student. (Minimizes or eliminates problem
behaviors.)
enrich the learning and/ or environment
limit distractions
Identify and Respond to One’s Own Primary Feelings.
Understand that when undesirable behaviors occur, it is human nature to have the
feelings of: fear, worry, disappointment and/ or guilt.
Most often we revert to our secondary feelings when this occurs, like anger.
We cannot allow this secondary feeling to surface!

Send I-Messages Regularly.

As a teacher own the problem immediately with I-messages.
This communicates:
the problem behavior
the teacher’s feeling about the behavior
why said behavior is causing a problem.
Shifting Gears
When the I-messages incites a defensive response.
Listen with sensitivity to the conflict.
Shift from a firm posture to a more understanding posture.
Use a No-Lose Method of Conflict Resolution
Allows for everyone to find a mutually acceptable solution to the problem.
Helping skills = Student owns the problem.
Use Listening Skills and don’t try to solve the student’s problem.
Passive listening = posture, proximity, eye contact, alertness.
Acknowledgement responses = nods, smiles, frowns, body language.
Door openers = invites a student to talk about their problem.
Steer clear from Communication Roadblocks.
 Ex: giving orders, warning and preaching.
Instead use open and non-judgmental interactions.
Preventive skills = When neither the student nor the teacher own the
problem.
Preventive I-Messages have an influence on students’ future actions
thus circumventing problems from arising in the future.
Setting Goals Together allows everyone to share in creating the
expectations of the classroom learning environment.
Meets everyone’s needs.
Participative Classroom Management includes everyone making
mutual decisions on such things as room arrangement, seating and
desired activities.
Problem solving that work with the preventive skills:
Identify the problem.
Define the problem.
Generate alternatives.
Evaluate alternative suggestions.
Make a decision.
Carry out the solution and/ or decision.
Perform a follow-up evaluation.

Third, Identify student behaviors.

Assist learning.
Hinder learning.

Fourth, Hold discussions where the teacher voices concerns.

Fifth,Teachers have to assist students in learning ways to follow through with class
agreements.

Sixth,Help students in becoming more resourceful decision makers that make

choices to control their own behaviors.

How Is This Different Than Other Classroom Management Techniques?

ʚ Teachers are the ones promoting change in their student’s behaviors.

ʚ No rewards or punishments.
ʚ I-Messages are used by the person who has the problem to effectively explain how
they feel about the problem.
ʚ Teachers have to use active listening skills in order to communicate their
understanding to students.
ʚ Teachers have to model and teach problem-solving skills to students in order for
them to know how to deal with issues that may arise with their relationships
especially with peers.
ʚ No class rules.
 This is effective because students are working together to create “their”
agreement instead of the teacher telling them what the rules are, as they are
most often used to.
Calling these “rules” agreements puts a different notion in the student’s
heads. Especially those who are more often driven to push or break the rules,
to instead, follow them.
In the end rules or agreements, no matter what they are called, in essence
are the same thing.

ʚ Entire class makes a behavioral agreement that determines how they need to act
and interact during the school day.
ʚ Everyone in the classroom are equals.
Excellent leaders are not bossy instead they come from an angle that encourages
mutual respect. Thus eliminating power struggles.
Try and ensure mutual understanding. Everyone’s thoughts matter.
In the adult work world we all know that we get along better with those who do
not dictate, this is no different except they are not yet adults. No one likes to be
dictated to.
The decision making parts in our student’s brains are not fully developed, making it
imperative to model and help learn effective decision making skills.

Is His Method Effective?

Partly we can see the effectiveness of this model through the popularity of his
training sessions. Even though he has died, he still is alive through his teachings
across the US today. His teachings have evolved and are being adapted to our
society’s needs. The parents from his P.E.T thought that his techniques were so
effective that they had urged him to create programs for the schools as well. They
wanted their children to have the same structure, environment and experiences that
were used within the home at school. Because of this he began formulating the T.E.T
model. Because of the success of these two programs he then created the Leaders
Effectiveness Training (L.E.T.) and the Family Effectiveness Training (F.E.T.).

What Do Critics Say About His Method?

Often times they criticize his model because:

ʚ They state that the training takes too long.
ʚ The information given during these training are too intensive for some to
remember in order to use it effectively and recall all of the necessary information.
ʚ It takes time to master these methods and some want to be able to master it
immediately.
ʚ Teachers have to go through failures in order to get successes.
ʚ They question his motives and state that he was only in it for the money.