By: Samantha Matthies

A clinical psychologist
 Founder of Gordon Training International
(one of the largest human relations training
organizations in the world).
 Over 2 million people have taken his training
programs worldwide.
 Received the American Psychological
Foundation’s Gold Medal Award for Enduring
Contributions to Psychology in the Public
Interest.
 Parent Effectiveness Training (1970)

 Teacher Effectiveness Training (1974)

 Leader Effectiveness Training (1977)

 DisciplineThat Works: Promoting Self-

Discipline in Children (1989)
 Gordon saw classroom discipline as being
greatest achieved by aiding students in
acquiring an inner sense of self-control.
 Of reward and punishment Gordon wrote,
“Using rewards to try to control children’s
behavior is so common that its effectiveness
is rarely questioned…the fact that rewards
are used so often and unsuccessfully by so
many teachers and parents proves they don’t
work very well…”
 Gordon believed the only way of achieving
student self-control in the classroom was if
the teacher gave up his/her controlling
power over the students.
 Gordon says, “You acquire more influence
with young people when you give up using
your power to control them… [and] the more
you use power to control people, the less
real influence you’ll have over their lives”.
 Gordonbelieves in using I-Messages rather
than You-Messages.
 Examples of an I-Message: I cannot focus when
there is so much noise in the room
 Examples of a You-Message: You boys need to be
quiet, you are making too much noise.
*You messages exhibit blame*
1.) Influence rather than control
2.) Preventive skills
3.) Determining who “owns the problem”
4.) Confrontive skills
5.) Helping skills
6.) No-lose conflict resolution
 Controllingactivates student’s coping
mechanisms (fight, flight, and submitting)
 Using non-controlling mechanisms do not cut
off communication and student cooperation.
 Use preventive I-messages- to influence
students’ future actions.
 Collaborative rule setting- students and
teachers work together to decide how to
conduct themselves and come up with
classroom rules
 Participatory classroom management-
teachers share power with students in
making decisions. (classroom arrangement,
rules, activities, seating, ect.)
 Gordon explains that the individual who is
effected by the problem is the one who
“owns the problem” making it their job to
handle the confrontation.
 Example: If a child is misbehaving in accordance
to what the adult wants, the adult owns the
problem.
 Example: If a child is being picked on by other
children, the child being picked on owns the
problem.
1.) Modifying the physical environment, rather
than the student
2.) Send I-messages regularly
3.) Shifting gears
 Use the right types of listening skills
 Passive listening: the teacher shows he/she is
listening by verbal cues, but is mostly silent
 Door openers: invite students to discuss their
problems
 Active listening: the teacher mirrors back what
the students says
 Preaching
 Advising
 Lecturing
 Criticizing
 Name calling
 Analyzing
 Praising
 Reassuring
 Questioning
 Withdrawing
 As future teachers we will be dealing with these
sorts of issues every single day and need to
establish what we believe is appropriate and
inappropriate for our classroom. Get into groups
of four or five and discuss these questions.
 1.) Do you agree that all 10 of those things are
communication roadblocks? Why or why not?
 2.) Do you believe only the person being negatively
effected is solely the owner of a problem? Why or
why not?
 3.) Do you believe that giving some of your control as
a teacher to your students will improve their overall
behavior?