20th and 21st Century Classroom Management Pioneers

By

Discipline through Assertive TacticsLee and Marlene Canter

• Believed teachers should be in charge of their classrooms by being “calm, insistent and consistent” in their interaction with students

• Developed the idea of student & teacher rights• Suggested that student behavior is tied to meeting

student and teacher needs• These ideas were known as “Assertive

Discipline”

• Classified three types of teachers:• ◦         Hostile: “view students as adversaries”• ▪         takes away fun & trust• ◦         Nonassertive: “overly passive”• ▪         causes student insecurity & frustration• ◦         Assertive: model & express clear

expectations• ▪         meets student & teacher needs

Discipline through Assertive Tacticscontinued

• Encourages teachers to write out discipline plan that includes:

• ◦         Rules: express how students should behave• ◦         Positive Recognition: rewards students who keep

class expectations• ◦         Corrective Actions: must be consistent, shows

students they've “chosen the consequences”• ◦         Discipline Hierarchy List: shares “corrective

actions and the order in which they will be imposed within the day”

• Suggest that students must be taught the discipline plan

Discipline through Assertive Tacticscontinued

• Created the concept of rights in the classroom

• Insisted teachers have a “right” to be supported by administration & parental support

• Provided procedures for efficient correction of student misbehavior

Discipline through Assertive TacticsContributions to Discipline

Discipline through Democratic Teaching

Rudolf Dreikurs • Supposed that students behave best when they

believe that good behavior has social value• Self control can be seen when students “show

initiative, make reasonable decisions, and assume responsibility”

• Suggests that teachers & students working together to decide how the class should work, creating a democratic classroom

• ◦         Autocratic & Pessimistic classrooms don't have good discipline

Discipline through Democratic Teachingcontinued

• Believes students want to behave & belong, this is their “genuine goal”

• ◦         Students feel they belong when the teacher & their peers provide “attention, respect, involve them in activities & don't mistreat them”

• When students don't belong, they:• ◦         seek attention• ◦         seek power• ◦         seek revenge• ◦         feel inadequate

Discipline through Democratic Teachingcontinued

• When students misbehave, they're pursuing mistaken goals

• ◦         teachers should correct students by identifying their behavior & discussing the faulty logic

• Also suggested students & teachers create class rules together

• ◦         Rules need logical consequences for following & breaking the rules

• Believed punishment should never be used

Discipline through Democratic TeachingContributions

• First to base discipline on social interest• First to suggest democratic structure of classroom management• Suggested teachers use encouragement• Made several suggestions for teachers about encouragement, a

few:• ◦         “Always speak in positive terms”• ◦         Encourage students to seek improvement• ◦         Focus on student strength• ◦         Offer comments to encourage students• Teachers felt his system was difficult to “implement” & didn't

stop immediate disruptions

Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorFritz Redl & Wattenberg

• Believes students behave differently in a group then when they're alone

• Felt group dynamics “strongly affect behavior” • Suggested students take on different “roles” in

the classrooms• ◦         Class clown, leader, follower, etc.• Determined that students have roles teachers are

expected to fill• ◦         role model, referee, judge, etc.

Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorContinued

• Determined that student behavior an be influenced by techniques like:

• ◦         supporting student self control• ◦         offering situational assistance• ◦         appraising reality• Believes that punishment should be rarely

used, never physical, and only consist of pre-planned consequences

Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorContributions

• Identified group behavior as different from individual behavior

◦         Made it easier for teachers to understand confusing classroom behavior

• Provided an organized discipline techniques that used humane strategies

◦         This helped develop and maintain positive student-teacher relationships

• Stressed understanding why students don't behave◦         Addressing causes for misbehavior will eliminate it

Discipline through Influencing Group BehaviorContributions continued

• Said students should be involved in making decisions about discipline

◦         This technique is now encouraged by most everyone• Showed the negative effects of punishment◦         Explained why it should not be used in the

classroom• These techniques were not used widely◦         Difficult for teachers to understand, put into practiceIdeas helpful, implementation difficult to do

Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:

B.F. Skinner • Believed that voluntary action is affected

by immediate reinforcement• ◦         Rewards help motivate action• Reward= reinforcement stimulus• ◦         Must be given immediately after the

good behavior• ◦         Can be results, awards, free-time,

praise, etc.

Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:Continued

• Created techniques to use in shaping student behavior• ◦         Constant reinforcement: teacher provides every

time student behaves well • ◦         Intermittent reinforcement: after students

understand the classroom management system• The result of these techniques is success

approximation:• ◦         When “behavior comes closer and closer to a

preset goal”• Believed punishment should not be used because “its

effects were unpredictable”

Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:Contributions

• His ideas led to “behavior modification”

• ◦         Still used today for “strengthening and encouraging” learning

• Not used as much in upper grades

• ◦         Didn't tell students what “not to do”

• ◦         Teachers ignored misbehavior

• Lengthy process

Improving Discipline through Lesson ManagementJacob Kounin

• Suggested teachers could manage a classroom well if they knew what was going everywhere in the classroom at all times

• ◦         Teachers who know what's going on can anticipate problems and address them before they occur

• Called teacher awareness “withitness”• ◦         Created “overlapping,” which means a

teacher was involved with two or more classroom events at the same time

Improving Discipline through Lesson ManagementContinued

• Believed that lessons played a huge part in classroom management.

• ◦         Group alerting: the whole class is paying attention before a teacher gives directions

• ◦         Momentum: keeps students focused by making transitions, efficiency, etc.

• ◦         Smoothness: also helps with management, as the teacher presents lessons and teaches them without changes.

• Lesson should keep students from boredom and frustration

Improving Discipline through Lesson ManagementContributions

• Connected teaching to student behavior & discipline

• Not wholly adopted because didn't address how to deal with disruptive misbehavior

Discipline through Congruent CommunicationHaim Ginott

• Suggested that learning happened in real time• Encouraged teachers not to pre-judge students as

learning is personal• ◦         Teachers should use “congruous

communication,” which “stresses situations, not students' character or personality”

• Teachers don't “preach, moralize, impose guilt or demand promises”

• ◦         These are teachers at their best• ◦         Teachers at their worse “label... belittle... and

denigrate” the characters of their students

Discipline through Congruent CommunicationContinued

• Teachers shouldn't dictate, but “invite cooperation” from students

• ◦         Good teachers use the question “how can I be most helpful to my students right now?”

• Good discipline involves using “I” instead of “You” messages

• Suggested that “appreciate praise” is better than “evaluative praise”

• ◦         Evaluative praise praises what “students have done, rather than referencing the student him or herself”

Discipline through Congruent CommunicationContinued

• Suggests teachers should respect student privacy• ◦         Teachers should be available, but not too

curious• Suggests teachers avoid sarcasm & punishment• Determines that teachers should avoid behaving

in ways that they don't want their students to behave

• Believes classroom discipline is a process

Discipline through Congruent CommunicationContributions

• “Showed the importance of the teacher being controlled”

• Showed how valuable being on the same wavelength as the students is for teachers

• It's easy to see these ideas in modern discipline systems

• Some teachers feel the ideas don't stop misbehaviors quickly

References

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