DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 408 735 EC 305 606

AUTHOR Latham, GlennTITLE Behind the Schoolhouse Door: Eight Skills Every Teacher

Should Have.INSTITUTION Utah State Univ., Logan. Mountain Plains Regional Resource

Center.SPONS AGENCY Special Education Programs (ED/OSERS), Washington, DC.PUB DATE Jan 97NOTE 19p.

CONTRACT H028A30009PUB TYPE Guides Non-Classroom (055) Reports Research (143)EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Behavior Change; *Behavior Disorders; *Classroom

Techniques; *Developmental Delays; Elementary SecondaryEducation; Expectation; *Inclusive Schools; Interviews;Mainstreaming; Positive Reinforcement; *Teacher StudentRelationship; Teaching Methods; Time on Task

ABSTRACTThis guide describes eight skills every teacher should learn

that were derived from a study of 252 schools in 50 states, Americanterritories and protectorates, and 14 foreign countries over a 16-year period(1980-1996). Interviews were conducted with 769 teachers, 253 administrators,and 23 other school personnel. The skills include: (1) the ability to teachexpectations; (2) the ability to get and keep students on task; (3) theability to maintain a high rate of positive teacher-to-pupil interactions(including ensuring positive interactions with students who havedevelopmental delays); (4) the ability to respond noncoercively toinappropriate behavior that is consequential; (5) the ability to maintain ahigh rate of risk-free student response opportunities; (6) the ability toserve problem-behavior students in the primary learning environment; (7) the

ability to avoid being trapped into responses (criticism, sarcasm, threats,questioning, logic, arguing, force, and despair); and (8) the ability tomanage behavior "scientifically." Along with the description of each skill isan explanation of why teachers need to learn the specific skill and adiscussion of supporting research findings and observations. (CR)

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00 Behind theSchoolhouse Door

Eight Skills Every Teacher Should Have

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Glenn LathamUtah State University

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U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of Educational Researcn and Improvement

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

ViThis document has been reproduced asreceived from the person or organizationoriginating it.

Minor changes have been made toimprove reproduction quality.

Points of view or opinions stated in thisaocument do not necessarily representofficial OERI position or policy.

Behind the Schoolhouse DoorEight Skills Every Teacher Should Have

Glenn LathamUtah State University

January 1997

The story is told of a boy who was seensearching frantically for a coin he had lost. It was-dark. The boy was down on his hands and kneesbeneath the corner street light looking for his coin.He was very intent. A man happened by andasked the boy what he was looking for. It wentlike this:

Boy: "I dropped a coin and I'm trying tofind it."

Man: "Where did you drop the coin?"Boy: "Oh, I dropped it over there," as he

pointed to a spot well beyond thearea illuminated by the streetlight.

Man: "If you dropped the coin overthere, why are you looking for itover here?"

Boy: "Because it's lighter over here."

Like that little boy, the education decisionmakers of America, over the centuries, have spenttheir time and energies wasted their time and

1 A partial and preliminary research report, prepared forpresentation to the Advisory Committee and Staff of theMountain Plains Regional Resource Center, Denver, Colo-rado, October 15, 1996.

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energies looking in all the wrong places forthe answers to education's most compelling andperplexing problems. Rather than looking foranswers where the problems are, that is, in theclassroom where education takes place, they havebeen looking elsewhere. In fact, they have beenlooking almost everywhere else. With what effect?Nothing of substance has changed. That is, theprocess of teaching children has not changed norimproved systemically in any measurable way.This is a centuries-old dilemma with which edu-cation has just never come to grips. In 1632, JohnAmos Comenius, the father of modern day groupinstruction, in his book The Great Didactic noted,"For more than a hundred years much complainthas been made of the unmethodological way inwhich schools are conducted but it is only withinthe last 30 that any serious attempt has been madeto find a remedy for this state of things. And withwhat results? Schools remain exactly as theywere."

In 1993, Dr. David Brite, President of theChildren's Television Network, noted, "Schoolstoday are one of the few places in our society thatour grandparents would easily recognize" (Brite,1993). Modern day educational researchers have

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come to the same conclusion noting that, "Teach-ing patterns [have remained] unchanged over thepast century (Needels and Gage, 1991, p.7)."

Having experienced what works, and know-ing what the data say about effective instruction,I began in 1980 to visit schools and classroomsacross the United States and throughout theworld to observe what actually happens in class-rooms between teachers and learners, and to askeducators what can be done to improve teachers'ability to function successfully in the classroom.The study took me into 252 schools in all 50 states,all American Territories and Protectorates, and 14foreign countries. Interviev s were conductedwith 769 teachers, 253 administrators, and 23"other" school personnel, primarily school coun-selors and psychologists. Observational data weretaken in 303 classrooms, of which 134 were in el-ementary schools, 69 were in middle /jr. highschools, 51 were in high schools, and 49 were"others," including alternative schools, privateschools, special schools, and residential schools.Geographically, 97 schools were located in ruraland remote areas, 128 were urban/suburbanschools, and 27 were inner city schools. Eighty-eight percent of the schools were selected at ran-dom. Visits to schools in foreign countries were

To teach teachers to teach

To teach teachers to manage student behavior

To teach support personnel to aide teachersserving behavior-problem students

typically not randomly selected since there wereoften governmental regulations prohibiting spon-taneous visits to schools. Also language barriersmade it necessary that arrangements be made inadvance.

These visits were conducted over a 16 yearperiod (1980-1996), with results ranging from de-lightful to distressing.

The findings which produced the greatest de-light were that, universally, teachers are remark-able people who are extremely concerned for theeducation and general well-being of their stu-dents, and who want to do a good job servingtheir students. From these interviews and visitscame touching accounts of teachers who laboredunder immense personal, economic, political, andorganizational /administrative constraints toser.re the children in their classes.

Among the most distressing findings werethe frustrations and even anger teachers ex-pressed for how poorly they were trained at theuniversity college of education level to teach andto manage student behavior. When I asked teadi-ers to rate the adequacy of their college of educa-tion teacher training programs in preparing themfor their work in the classroom, as shown in Fig-ure 1, the average rating of all responses (on a

2.41

1

Inadequate2 3 4 5

Poor Fair Good Adequate

Figure 1. Teachers' ratings of the adequacy of preservice personnel preparation programs.

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five point scale, 1 being inadequate to 5 being ad-equate) was 2.41. When asked to rate the ad-equacy of their training in preparing them tomanage student behavior, using the same scale,the average of all responses was 1.71. When askedto rate the quality of the support services avail-able to them through school psychology andcounseling programs in working with teachersserving behavior-problem students (again, usingthe same 5-point scale), the average response was1.27. It is no surprise to any knowledgable per-son in education that college of education teachertraining programs are simply not as a ruledoing an adequate job preparing teachers for thework that lies ahead of them in the classroom(Rigden, 1996, p. 64).

It seems doubly tragic that even though weknow what works for both instruction and themanagement of student behavior, what is known

is not being universally taught in our college ofeducation teacher training programs. Occasion-ally,. when I came upon classes where splendidthings were happening and teachers were beingremarkably effective, by the teachers' own admis-sion, the Wills they possessed which accountedfor their remarkable success were rarely if everlinked to anything they had learned in their col-lege of education teacher training programs. Theynoted to me time and time and time again, had itnot been for their practicum experiences and stu-dent teaching opportunities (which were rarelylong enough), their preservice training programswould have been "a total waste."

One particular instance, by way of example,comes to mind. Through random selection, Ifound myself in the class of a teacher who a shorttime before had been honored as the outstandingteacher of the year for her state. As I sat in theback of her classroom taking data, I began to re-alize that it was no wonder why this woman hadbeen selected as the outstanding teacher of theyear. She was doing everything right.

After the class period ended, we went to thefaculty room where we sat at a round table to dis-cuss my observations. I said to her, "Well, it is nowonder to me why you have been chosen as thisstate's teacher of the year. You did everythingright." She answered with some surprise, "Oh,what did I do that was so right?" I then spreadthe data on the table before her and pointed outwhat she had done that was so noteworthy, andwhich accounted for her success. With each datapoint, her eyes got larger and larger until at lastshe exclaimed with excitement, "Did I do all ofthat?" I assured her she had and asked where shehad learned to do those things. She answered, "Idon't know. I guess I just learned through trialand error." She was fascinated at the data, andasked me if I would send her some materials thatrelated to our discussion which I did. A fewweeks later, I received a lovely letter in which shesaid, "I have learned more during the two hoursof our visit and from the material you sent meabout how to create an effective learning envi-ronment than I learned in college all the waythrough to a masters degree." Though I was de-lighted that she had learned so much from ourbrief visit and what I had sent, I thought howtragic it was that through seven years of collegeshe had been taught so little about teaching andclassroom management.

Unlike medicine and dentistry, in which thetransition from school to practice is relativelysmooth and seamless, the transition from the col-lege class to the school classroom is abrupt, trau-matic, and confusing. What is covered in teach-ers' preservice training programs typically bearssuch little resemblance to what actually happensin classrooms that new teachers are left almostentirely to their own devices in knowing what todo next, "...totally unprepared for the impact ofteaching itself" (Rigden, 1996). Left to their owndevices, they quickly turn to other teachers forhelp, learn through trial and error, and muddle

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Table 1Approaches to Problem Solving

Other Professions By Educators

EngineersRefer to laws, principles, formulasrelated to force, stress, motion, pres-sure, etc.

PhysiciansRefer to their knowledge to physiology,anatomy, microbiology, chemistry, thecentral nervous system, the flow andcirculation of body fluids, etc.

LawyersRefer to constitutional law, statutes,precedent, logic, courtroom proceduresand knowledge of the judicial system,etc.

"It seemed at the moment to be a goodway to handle the situation.""I've used it before and it's workedwell.""It was suggested to me by a fellowteacher/a supervisor/a professor/theprincipal.""That's the way the teacher's manualsaid to do it.""I was taught to do it that way at theUniversity.""I don't really know. I never thoughmuch about it.""I just fly by the seat of my pants."

their way through doing the best they can untilthey learn what works and how to survive.

This struggle to survive prompted me to lookat how members of other professions approachthe solving of problems common to their profes-sions. I randomly selected 20 engineers, 20 phy-sicians, 20 lawyers, and 20 educators and askedthem to describe for me a problem commonlyexperienced in their work. I then asked them howthey set about solving that problem, includingwhat it was that formed the basis for their solu-tion. I also asked them if other members of theirprofession would approach a similar problem ina similar way. Table 1 summarizes the responsesto those interviews. You will notice that engineersreferred to laws, principles, formulas related toforce, stress, motion, pressure etc. Physicians re-ferred to their knowledge of physiology, anatomy,microbiology, chemistry, the central nervous sys-tem, the flow and circulation of body fluids, etc.

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Lawyers referred to constitutional law, statutes-1-precedent, logic, courtroom procedures, andtheir knowledge of the judicial system, etc.Teachers' responses made absolutely no refer-ences to any kind of science, any body of pro-fessional literature, any principles or laws toexplain what they did. Rather, they said thingslike, "It seemed at the moment a be good wayto handle the situation," "I've used it before andit's worked well," "It was suggested to me by afellow teacher," "That is the way the teachersmanual said to do it," "I was taught to do it thatway at the university," "I don't really know. Inever thought much about it." The most fre-quently given response was, "I just fly by theseat of my pants." Surely, as a profession, wecan do better than this. Surely, we can do a bet-ter job, a more professional job, in preparingteachers to assume the heavy responsibilitiesthey face in the classroom at any level.

From a practitioner point of view, teaching isan art form. When I asked principals and teach-ers "Is teaching an art or a science," the over-whelming response nearly 100% regardedteaching as an art; aided, at best, by science. Onlytwo teachers and one principal responded thateffective teaching was dependent on a soundknowledge of the science of instruction and hu-man behavior. This is astounding!

In this regard, while questioning principalsabout their roles as instructional leaders (a rolevery few principals related to!), I asked, "Whenyou visit a classroom what do you see that tellsyou whether you have an effective or an ineffec-tive teacher?" One elementary school principalanswered (and she was serious), "I know I havea good teacher who, when she screams at the kids,can be heard for a mile and a half!" Though thisis an extreme example, it nevertheless points to a

serous problem in education; that is, teacher ef-fectiveness is measured in terms of personal char-acteristics not professional skills. An analysis ofprincipals' responses to the above question, asshown in Figure 2, reveals that 81% of those re-sponses related to personal characteristics (e.g.,dress, grooming, demeanor), 13% were related toexperience (e.g., years teaching, degrees held, va-riety of teaching assignments), and only 6% wererelated to skills.

From my observations and interviews inschools over the past 16 years, I have identifiedeight skills every teacher should have as they re-late, particularly though not exclusively, to ef-fectively managing the learning environment.Teachers who possess these skills are better ableto create and maintain the kind of learning envi-ronment in which children both learn what theyneed to learn, and enjoy doing it. These skills are:

It is not reasonable to suppose that classroom-based in-struction and the management of student behavior are sepa-rate and distinct as far as the establishment and mainte-nance of an effective learning environment is concerned.Like love and marriage, "You can't have one with out theother."

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PersonalCharacteristics: 81%

Experience: 13%

Skills: 6

Figure 2. Principals' assessments of what is descriptive of "effec-tive" teachers.

Skill #1: The ability to teachexpectations

Jn classrooms where teachers' expectationsare reasonable and clearly understood, the behav-ior of students tends to be appropriate. From myobservations,t1 have concluded that children mustknow exactly what is expected of them, and whatthe consequences are of meeting or failing to meet,those expectations. For expectations to serve theroles for which they are intended, I have observedsix conditions that must be met, as follows:

A. Expectations should be taught "situationally."This means that children should be taughtwhat is expected of them in the variety of situ-ations and settings in which they find them-selves. For example, John Reed (1993) of theOregon Social Learning Center found thatwhen students are taught exactly what is ex-pected of them relative to their behavior whileentering school and before class instructionbegins, when going to the cafeteria and dur-ing lunch, and when exiting school, referralproblems for inappropriate behavior were re-duced by 40%. This means, simply, that not

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only are students taught what is expected ofthem, they are taught what is expected of themin the variety of situations and settings encom-passed within the school day.

B. Expectations should be taught in a very formalmanner using role-playing, modeling, and prac-tice. Certainly, such instruction must be pre-sented in an age-appropriate way. But no mat-ter what their age, students need to be taughtin a direct and formal way exactly what is ex-pected of them, and in a manner that makes itpossible for the teacher to know, by what thestudents say and do, that they understandthose expectations perfectly.

C. Expectations should be kept to a maximum of 4 or5. It is important that expectations be kept toa small enough number so that everyone, in-cluding the students and staff, can rememberthem. Long lists of expectations are counter-productive.

D. Expectations should be stated in instructive ratherthan prohibitive language. For example, ratherthan "Don't shout," the expectation would be"Speak quietly." When stating expectations, itis important for teachers to tell students whatthey are expected to do rather what they areexpected not to do.

E. Expectations should be emphasized over rules.Though this is a subtle matter, it neverthelessreinforces an important point about classroommanagement; that is, the emphasis should beon positive things rather than negative, pro-hibitive things (Foxx, 1996, p. 226-227).

F. Expectations should be respected by the teachers. Itis not at all unusual for teachers to violate theirown expectations. For example, an expecta-tion might be that students are to raise theirhands to be called on to speak. However, dur-ing a class discussion, a student blurts out ananswer without raising his/her hand, and theteacher attends to that student by saying some-

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thing like, "Right. That's a good answer.Thanks." True, the child might have given theright answer, but if in giving the answer, thechild has violated the teacher's classroom ex-pectation and has been rewarded for it byteacher attention, the probability is high thatthe teacher's expectations will not be respectedby the students.

Skill #2: The ability to get and keepstudents on task

I have observed that a key to on-task behav-ior is to quickly engage students in the learningactivity. I have found that the sooner teachers getstudents on task, the easier it is to keep them ontask and the easier it is to get them back on taskshould they get off task. In classrooms wheremore than even a minute elapses from the timeinsiruction is to begin and instruction actuallydoes begin during which time students getinvolved in a lot of distracting behaviors it be-comes increasingly difficult for the teacher tobring order to the classroom environment and toget instruction started. It is important, therefore,to begin instruction immediately.

Secondly, to assure a high rate of on-task be-havior, the teacher should engage in what GeoffColvin (May 27, 1996) calls "active supervision.""Active supervision" finds teachers (1) movingaround the class and being close to students, (2)looking around, and (3) interacting with students.This is absolutely consistent with what I haveobserved in classrooms all across the globe. Inclassrooms where teachers are up and around andphysically close to students and interacting withthem, students tend to be on task and produc-tive. It worries me when I'm in classrooms whereteachers give students assignments, then taketheir seats at their desks, not to stand up until theclass period is over.

Managing by walking around is a powerfulantidote to inappropriate student behavior. Re-

garding proximity, I have found that there is adirect relationship between how close a teacheris to students and how well students behave: thecloser the proximity the better the behavior.

I was recently in a classroom for behavior-ally disordered students. There were 12 studentsin the class. During the hour I observed, there wasnot one incident of inappropriate student behav-ior. After the period was over, I asked the teacherhow she accounted for the fact that though shehad 12 of the school's worst behaving studentsin her class, I didn't observe one single behaviorproblem, nor were the students off task duringthe entire class period. She answered, "I never sitdown. I am constantly walking among the stu-dents and interacting with them. As you will no-tice, I don't even have a desk in my classroom." Iwas startled when I looked around to note that,

_indeed, she didn't even have a desk and a chairfor herself.

Skill #3: The ability to maintain ahigh rate of positive teacher-to-pupil interactions.

A basic; rinciple of human behavior teachesus that behavior responds better to positive thanto negative consequences. Most people under-stand this, but despite it, there is a strong tendencyon the part of classroom teachers to attempt tomanage the classroom environment coercively.There remains a strong inclination among teach-ers, particularly though certainly not exclu-sively above the third grade, to espouse thephilosophy that you must never smile 'til Christ-mas at the earliest.

I recently gave a talk to a large group of schoolteachers and administrators on the topic of non-coercive, positive methods of classroom manage-ment. Afterward, I received an anonymous notefrom a high school teacher. It read in part as fol-lows: "Dr. Latham is a fine, funny, intelligent littlegentleman (I liked that part) whose policies

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would work if tempered with severe punishmentto stop the inappropriate behavior, with behav-ior modification techniques used afterward. Thereare no rewards for not running a stoplightthere's only punishment if you do run the light.That's reality" (emphasis not added).

This mentality is destroying the quality oflearning environments all across America, creat-ing coercive environments from which studentswant to escape. As noted by Dr. Murray Sidmanin his marvelous book Coercion and It's Fallout(1989) "Many students would leave school im-mediately if they had the choice." The fact of thematter is, about a million students a year do leaveschool, whether given the choice or not. They arecalled dropouts. And why do they. leave? Theyleave because, in large measure, school environ-ments, particularly at the upper grades, are be-coming more and more coercive, a circumstancethat encourages students to escape and avoid.

This sad situation exists not only in the sec-ondary grades. Recently, a distraught wcman inour community who volunteers a few days aweek in a nearby first-grade class, called abouther concern over all the "shouting and scoldingand criticizing by teachers that goes on continu-ally, even in kindergarten classes." The distraughtparent of a second grade student called me won-dering what she should do: "My son tells me ev-ery day he wants to die because his teacher is somean to the students." A similarly distressing callcame to me from the mother of a 15 year-old girl.

My data reveal that teachers allow over 90%of all of the appropriate things their students doto go unrecognized; yet, when student misbehave,teachers are 2 to 5 times more likely to pay atten-tion to that behavior than they are to pay atten-tion to appropriate behavior. Since teacher atten-tion is one of the major variables that accountsfor how students behave, the attention given byteachers to inappropriate behavior is typically ofsuch a nature as to increase the probability that

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the inappropriate behavior will be strengthened;i.e. it will occur again and again and again pre-dictably.

Conditions are even worse for students whoare "different." A group of researchers reportedthat 82% of students who are developmentallydelayed never receive positive feedback fromteachers even when they comply with teacherrequests, and that teacher disapproval statementsdirected at such students outnumber approvalstatements by a ratio of 15 to 1 (Shores, Gunter,and Jack, 1993).

Speaking to a gathering of special educators,called by the United States Office of Special Edu-cation Programs, Katherine Larson (1994) of theGraduate School of Education, University of Cali-fornia, Santa Barbara, reported that "many LDand SED students are afforded greater dignitywhen they are incarcerated in youth prisons thanwhen enrolled in schools." Her experience in bothschools and in youth detention facilities revealedthat "staff in youth detention facilities are morecourteous, more respectful, more compassionate,upbeat, and more friendly than educators inschools;" a circumstance she felt was "the resultof a negative or adversarial relationship betweenstudents and adults in schools" (p. 8). (See Foxx,1996, for a profound explanation of how such athing can be.)

Dr. Sidney Bijou (1988) instructs us that "re-search has shown that the most effective way toreduce problem behavior in children is tostrengthen desirable behavior through positive re-inforcement rather than trying to weaken unde-sirable behavior using aversive and negative pro-cesses," (p. 444-451). This is what research hastaught us, and this is what educators must learnto do. There is simply no alternative. So long asthe notion prevails that "severe punishment" isthe way to manage behavior, schools will con-tinue to be coercive environments, and studentswill be anxious to get away from them, to per-

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form badly within them, to strike out against them(countercoercion) and to be disinclined as adultsto support them.

We know exactly how to create a positivelearning environment where students behavewell to enjoy the positive consequences of behav-ing well rather than to simply avoid the negativeconsequences of behaving badly (Johnson andLayng, 1991). Once teachers learn to create anenvironment that is free of coercion, where ap-propriate behavior is properly recognized, stu-dent behavior will improve, student performancewill improve, and students will remain in school.

I have observed that in classrooms where theratio of negative to positive interactions is nevergreater than one negative interaction to eightpositive interactions, the learning environmenttends to be noncoercive and student behaviortends to be appropriate. This is quite consistentwith the recently reported data of Dr. Betty Hartand Dr. Todd Risley (1995) regarding their re-search on verbal behavior in families. Low riskhomes were characterized by environments-inwhich parents said five times more positive thingsto their children than they did negative things.High risk homes were homes where parents saidtwice as many negative things as positive things.The research is clear on this matter! Teachers havesimply got to learn to be much more positive andencouraging than negative and discouraging.

The literature on positive reinforcement inclassroom settings is abundantly clear on thismatter (Eisenberger and Cameron, November,1996). Our college of education teacher trainingprograms have simply got to access that litera-ture and teach it to students who are preparingto become teachers. Contemporary student be-haviors are simply too complex to be dealt withon a trial-and-error, conventional-wisdom, back-to basics basis. It is irresponsible for our collegeof education teacher training programs to gradu-ate students who have not been thoroughly

taught how to manage behavior in the classroomusing scientifically sound, positive rather than co-ercive and aversive, methods. Ignorance is theparent of coercion. Only those who do not knowa better way persist in using coercive methods tomaintain or attempt to maintain order in theclassroom.

When teachers skillfully acknowledge appro-priate behavior using positive verbal and non-verbal interactions, dramatic things can happen.I observed such an effect while doing some workfor a school district in a nearby state experienc-ing difficulties in retaining high-risk students inthe regular education classroom. The districtserved a large population of high risk students,and was concerned that a disproportionate num-ber of those students (80%, in fact) were classi-fied early in the school year as mentally retarded,behaviorally disturbed, socially maladjusted, at-tention deficit hyperactivity disordered, and soon. I was asked by the school district to see whatcould he done to reverse this problem. After ob-serving in classrooms for a few days, the prob-lem became evident to me. I found that teachersand their aides were averaging 34 negative inter-actions during each, class period, while havingonly 9 positive interactions. I simply taught theteachers and their aides to reverse their approachto interacting with students by properly payingattention to the things students did well, whileignoring the inconsequential, annoying thingsstudents did (98% of which could be ignoredwithout problems arising). After training, teach-ers and their aides were averaging 167 positiveinteractions per class period and only 4 negativeinteractions. The result was that during the nextschool year, placement of students in special edu-cation dropped dramatically from 80% to 11%(Latham, 1992).

The ability to do this is a skill that is remark-ably characteristic of teachers whose classroomsare generally devoid of outlandish and inappro-

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priate student behavior, and where studentachievement is high.

Skill #4: The ability to respondnoncoercively toinappropriate behaviorthat is consequential.

Occasionally students will do things in classthat are so disruptive and potentially dangerousto person and/or property, that they can't be ig-nored; something has to be done, now. It has beenmy experience that such behaviors are rare, spon-taneous, and when responded to properly, arequickly over and instruction continues with onlya slight interruption. The following event exem-plifies such a response. It occurred in an alterna-tive high school classroom while the studentswere engaged in individual seatwork. The roomwas quiet as the teacher circulated among the stu-dents.

Without any warning whatsoever, a studentleaped to her feet and began wildly cursing an-other student she was accusing of "tormenting"her. As I typically do, when assessing the effectsof treating such behaviors, I quickly set my stop-watch to record how long the disruptive behav-ior continued, given the teacher's response to it.

To my delight, the teacher retained his pro-fessional dignity beautifully. His face registerednot the slightest annoyance. In complete controlhe approached the enraged girl and quietly said,calling her by name, "It seems that you are upsetabout something. Would you care to tell me aboutit?" All eyes were glued on these two disparatefigures standing before them, one with faceflushed, trembling, loud, profane, and out of con-trol. The other serene, composed, calm, and quiet.In the presence of such a teacher, the girl, thoughtrembling and very angry, grew slightly calmer.

"I hate this (expletive)," she said loudly,pointing to the boy in the seat beside her. "All hedoes is make my life miserable. He doesn't know

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nothin"cept how to make my life miserable. Iwish that (expletive) would die right here andnow. Right now! Right where he's sitting!"

Empathetically and quietly the teacher re-plied, "I can understand you'd be upset. No onelikes to be tormented. I'm sorry this happened."In a room so quiet you could hear a pin drop thetwo just stood there looking at each other. Theanger drained from the girl's face.

Quietly, almost pleadingly, she asked, "Mr.Porter, would you ask him to please leave mealone?" She sat down, put her head on her armswhich were folded across her desk, and quietlycried.

The teacher turned to the boy and gently,softly said," I know that sometimes it's fun toprovoke people and to get a rise out of them, butwhat is the appropriate, mature thing for a youngman your age to do?"

The boy, hardly able to make eye-to-eye con-tact, meekly replied, "1 know, Mr. Porter. I'm sorry.It won't happen again. Honest."

Mr. Porter, as he said thanks, patted the boyon the back. Turning to walk away, he gentlytapped the girl's elbow. I looked at my watch.Fifty-seven seconds! It was over in 57 seconds!Furthermore, the entire class was similarly com-posed, as everyone returned without incident totheir seatwork.

The teacher had done everything right: hewas calm; he kept his voice low; he wasempathetic and understanding; he stood close, yetunintimidating or threatening; he was composed;he was prepared. It has been my experience, hav-ing taken data on many, many disruptive behav-iors, that when teachers respond as did Mr. Por-ter, 81% of such disruptions are over within 30seconds, and 94% are over within a minute and45 seconds (Latham, March 18, 1996). When teach-ers are reactive, coercive, and angry, the rage con-tinues, escalating with every angry exchange until

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the learning environment has been reduced toshambles, students are being kicked out of class,and whatever instructional time is left has beendestroyed.

After class, I asked Mr. Porter where he hadlearned to respond as he had done to such diffi-cult, spontaneous behaviors. "In the military, "hequickly replied. "Whatever I learned about teach-ing and behavior, I learned in the military." "Whatabout college?" I asked. The fire in his eyes, anepithet, and simply, "A complete waste of time. Iwas cheated," convinced me to pursue anotherline of questioning.

The ability to respond non-coercively to in-appropriate behaviors that have become conse-quential, and which become a threat to the learn-ing environment and those within it, is a skillteachers must learn if they hope to survive andsucceed in the classrooms of today's schools.

Skill #5: The ability to maintain ahigh. rate of risk-free studentresponse opportunities.

I have observed that in classes where studentshave frequent oppofuunities to respond free of therisk of criticism and free of the risk of failure, stu-dent behavior problems are minimal, a circum-stance cited in the literature of teaching (Reward,et. al., 1995; Winter, 1995; and Binder, 1996). It iswhat I call a risk-free learning environment. Class-room teachers, as well, have reported that in set-tings where students are "safely" involved, freeof risk, academic success increases as well(Pigford, 1995).

Failure is a terrible teacher, and to use it as ateaching tool is simply irresponsible. Certainly,we all learn from our mistakes and failures, butusing failure and mistakes as teaching toolsshould be avoided. From the research on preci-sion teaching (Lindsley, 1992), direct instruction(Becker and Carnine, 1981), mastery learning(Bloom, 1986), and the Personalized System of

Instruction (Lloyd and Lloyd, 1992); is found animmense body of literature on how to establishand maintain an environment in which studentsare able to learn free of the risks of failure andcriticism. It is patently irresponsible for educa-tion generally, and for teacher education pro-grams particularly, to ignore what that literaturehas to teach us!

Skill #6: The ability to serve problem-behavior students in theprimary learningenvironment (that is, theclassroom).

Across the length and breadth of America, Ihave observed a burgeoning of programs de-signed to remove students from classrooms as ameans of managing inappropriate behavior andof maintaining an in-control learning environ-

-ment. Certainly, there are times when a student'sunmanageable behavior becomes so outrageousthat it destroys the quality of the learning envi-ronment for all students. In such instances, stu-dents need to be removed from the classroom.But it is my.experience that had classroom teach-ers been taught effective, scientifically-sound be-havior management strategies, the need to re-move students to alternative programs (such asin-school suspension, time out, expulsion, and soon), would rarely occur. It is becoming more andmore evident that such programs are function-ing as little more than a quick fix for educators'lack of effective behavior management skills.

When out-of-class alternatives are needed fordealing with inappropriately behaving students,three conditions must be constantly monitored,as follows:

1. Student's in-class behavior should steadily improve.There needs to be solid evidence to verify thatwith the use of out-of-class placement options,students are taught to behave better in class.Simply taking a student out of class to pro-

BEST CORY AwkiLkiJ 13

vide relief for the classroom teacher is not suf-ficient.

2. The need for such programs throughout the schoolyear grows steadily less; i.e. fewer and fewer stu-dents are being referred for out-of-class place-ment.

3. Teachers' ability to manage student's behavior inthe classroom steadily increases; i.e., they becomeincreasingly more skilled at managing theclassroom environment so that the need forout-of-class placement options steadily de-clines.

In all of my visits to schools acrossAmerica, in not one single instance have I everbeen shown data (even when requested),which documented a remedial effect of out-of-class placement alternatives. Never! As istypically the case, this is another approach toshaping our educational programs in a data-free environment; an environment in whichwe have our feet planted squarely in midair.It is shameful, indeed.

A basic principle of human behavior teachesus that behavior is largely a product of its imme-diate environment. What this means for educa-tors is that students must be taught to behave wellin the primary learning environment; that is, theclassroom. Taking students out of the classroomto teach them appropriate behavior, without fix-ing the classroom environment from which theywere taken, will only find these students regress-ing to their previous levels of inappropriate be-havior once they return to that environment.Something has to change in the classroom to makeit more reinforcing for students to behave wellthan to behave inappropriately. It is as simple andstraightforward as that!

Skill #7: The ability to avoid beingtrapped.

Teachers (like parents), tend to get themselvestrapped when they attempt to manage the class-

11

room environment using conventional wisdom,intuition, common sense, coercion, and anv othermythical approach that has no hope for ultimatesuccess. Indeed, these counterproductive mea-sures typically get teachers trapped into a quag-mire of reactive, out-of-control responding thatcreates a coercive environment which studentswant to escape and avoid (Sidman, 1988, p. 94-95).

Briefly, the following eight traps are the onesI have found during my observations in class-rooms to be the most common:

1. Criticism, meaning finding fault.

2. Sarcasm, meaning to make fun of a studentthrough ridicule.

3. Threats, meaning to warn students of some hos-tile act by the teacher if the student doesn'tbehave better quick!

4. Questioning, meaning asking students to ex-plain why they misbehave.

5. Logic, meaning trying to reason with studentsin an attempt to improve their behavior/per-formance.

6. Arguing, meaning trying to convince studentsthat the teacher is right and the students arewrong.

7. Force (physical or verbal), meaning to hit, orshout at, students to make them behave.

8. Despair, meaning to portray a sense of hope-lessness.

(For a more thorough treatment of these"traps," see Keys to Classroom Management, avail-able from Glenn I. Latham, Mountain Plains Re-gional Resource Center, Utah State University,Logan, UT 84321-9620, (801) 752-0238.)

Skill #8: The ability to managebehavior "scientifically."

As one looks historically at America's at-tempts to improve education, the emphasis has

12

been on outcome findings rather than "treatment-outcome research," where the emphasis is onwhat produces outcomes (Dubois and Brook, 1988;and Wennberg, 1989). Treatment-outcome re-search, characteristic of pharmacology, medicine,and dentistry, for example, looks for explanationsof why a treatment does or does not work.

When the emphasis is only on outcomes, theapproach to remediation is to increase goals andraise standards as the means of improving thoseoutcomes. Virtually nothing is said in education,in the broad sense, about how one improves out-comes except to address such broad generaliza-tions as "improving teaching," "individualizinginstruction," "making education available to allstudents," "decreasing dropout rates," "reducingviolence," and on and on and on (Bateman;Carnine). (Both documents are undated.)

It reminds me of when I played for my highschool golf team. Our golf coach was also the driv-ing instructor. He didn't know much about howto teach driving a car, and he knew absolutelynothing about driving a golf ball. After a matchwe lost but should have won, he said to us, "Asyou prepare for your next match, you are all go-ing to have to shave a few strokes off your game.You'll never win the next match unless you areall able to shoot consistently in the 70s or low 80s.It's going to be a tough match, so get out thereand shave some strokes off your games." We allknew that, but no one asked him the embarrass-ing question, "What do you suggest we do toimprove our ball-striking ability?" He had nosuggestions before he gave us the charge to im-prove our games, so he stayed in comfortable ter-ritory where the light was good, sticking withhigh sounding goals which we all knew wouldimprove nothing. The five members of the golfteam got together and instructed one another asto how we could improve our ball-striking abil-ity, which we did, and we won the next match.We engaged in a form of treatment-outcome re-search.

1 'Ix'''.

As with improving one's golf game, educa-tion is never going to improve until something isdone to improve teachers' ability to teach! Highsounding rhetoric in the form of grand, over-arch-ing goals (such as America 2000) are absolutelynot going to improve by one iota how childrenlearn and how teachers teach! Until education'sdecision makers begin seriously paying attentionto "treatment-outcome research" rather than out-come research only, nothing will improve (Slavin,1996, and Biddle, 1996).

Margaret Wang and her associates (Decem-ber 1993 /January 1994) have reminded us of thisin their insightful study entitled "Synthesis ofresearch: What helps students learn." They noted,"An analysis of fifty years of research reveals thatdirect influences like classroom management af-fect student learning more than indirect influ-ences such as policies" (p. 74). In their study, Dr.Mang and her associates looked at "relative in-fluences on learning" in an effort to find out whatreally improves student performance (i.e., "treat-ment-outcomes research"). They looked at 28variables ranging from "classroom management"to "district demographics". It was certainly notsurprising to learn that the very thing that edu-cators spend. the great majority of their time ad-dressing in their efforts to improve educationthat is, crafting policies was the next to theweakest influence of all on how well studentslearn. From the work of Wang and her associatesand others, we can simply come to no other con-clusions than that the things that politicians andeducation decision makers are spending all oftheir time on is tantamount to the boy lookingfor his lost coin in a place other than where it waslost. We are looking in all the wrong places. Inthis regard, Wang and her associates noted, "Un-less reorganization and restructuring strongly af-fect the direct determinants of learning, they of-fer little hope of substantial improvement. Chang-ing policies is unlikely to change practices in class-

rooms and homes where learning actually takesplace."

It is tragic to realize that the educational es-tablishment is afloat in a sea of knowledge abouthow to improve instruction yet refuses to drinkof it. It is altogether safe to say that our professionhas a data-base that is so robust and so broadlyarrayed that we know exactly how to establish andmaintain an effective learning environment, anenvironment in which all children can learn totheir potential. We know how to do it, absolutely!But as a profession, we refuse to do it, which raisesthe question, "Why not?" This question was askeda few years ago by Dr. Ogden Lindsley in a pro-vocative article entitled "Why Aren't EffectiveTeaching Tools Widely Adopted?" (Lindsley,1992). In the article, Lindsley notes, "Effectiveeducational methods are available. They havebeen available for a long time" (p. 1). He furtherobserves, "The fate of highly productive educa-tional methods in public instruction is a nationalshame. No highly effective educational methodor program has ever been widely adopted inNorth America," which Dr. Lindsley character-izes as "scanualous" (p. 1).

A few years ago, as part of a study to whichthis work is related, I made an attempt to deter-mine why effective methods of instruction don'tget broadly and systemically adopted in America.Published under the title "The Birth and DeathCycles of Educational Innovation" (Latham,1988), I found that changing how one teaches isjust too difficult for most teachers to handle. This,coupled with the lack of any incentive to change,tends to spell doom for any method of instruc-tion that is different, even though it promiseswith near absolute certainty to improve aca-demic outcomes for students. In fact, as I foundin another study I published under the title,"Mainstreaming: A Victim of Disincentives"(Latham, 1988), not infrequently teachers whoperform particularly well, using effective meth-

1513

ods, are the ones who find themselves teachingthe most difficult students in school. Time andtime again, while interviewing teachers over thepast 16 years about what needs to be done to im-prove education in America, including how teach-ers teach, I was told that teachers do themselvesno great favor when they become recognized asparticularly effective because they soon find thatthe most difficult to teach and manage studentsbecome placed in their classes.

We know that the most effective approachesto instruction are those which form the founda-tions upon which Precision Teaching, Direct In-struction, Mastery Learning, a_lcl the PersonalizedSystem of Instructir.,r1 are built. Given the data-base which supports these approaches to instruc-tion, for anyone to seriously challenge their ef-fectiveness is tantamount to spitting in the wind.So why don't we accept them and use them andserve children well with them? With frustrationand anxiety ringing in his words, Dr. Lindsieysummed it up this way:

"It is hard to keep your humor when youaccept the fact that you invested 25 yearsin developing methods that can helpyour nation out of the educational abyssinto which it is racing. You made thesemethods inexpensive. You made themclear. You helped illustrate their worth.You made them attractive. Yet they areignored or rejected because of popularmyth and bigotry" (p. 26).Therein lies the sum and substance of the an-

swer to his compelling question "Why aren't ef-fective teaching tools widely adopted?:" "mythand bigotry." Indeed, this is a shameful circum-stance, a circumstance which can be easily andquickly remedied if education will put to workwhat works, and will equip teachers with theskills they need skills that, using "treatment-outcome research" methods, have been provento be effective.

14

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

End Note:

In time, this document will be expanded intoa book preliminarily entitled Behind the School-house Door: A L Kok at Education from Within. It will

report in considerable detail the data from myobservations and interviews in those settingswhere the "coin" is lost. The book will concludewith specific suggestions about what must bedone to reform education the way education mustbe reformed.

Despite the endless stream of education re-form rhetoric that has invaded humankind'ssenses for centuries, education has not been, andis not being, reformed. It has only been, and isonly being, remodeled, redecorated, and embel-lished.

Recently, while spending the Christmas holi-day with our daughter and her family in Detroit,we visited the Henry Ford Museum. As I ob-served the evolution of forms of transportation, Iwas struck with the sharp contrast between ani-mal-drawn forms of transportation and transpor-tation powered by the internal combustion en-gine. Prior to the paradigm shift from muscle tomachine, so-called advances were little more thantrimmings and embellishments: a buckboard withshock absorbing springs beneath it and padded,upholstered seats; artistically arrayed features,designs, and dressings; a surrey with a fringe ontop; enclosures against the weather and dust, andeven wood-burning heaters. But no matter whatwas done to beautify and make it more functionalit, it was still a horse-drawn buggy.

And so it is with education. Today, as it hasbeen for centuries, education remains a matter oftelling students what they need to know, assign-ing them related things to do, testing them on howmuch they can recall, then attaching a symbol ofsome sort as a measure of success or failure. Inthe name of reform, decorations, trimmings, andembellishments have adorned education: indi-

vidualized instruction (a term without meaning),back-to-basics (education is the only enterprise Iknow which is heading into the 21st Century withits eye fixed keenly on the rear view mirror!),classrooms without walls (a euphemism for aninvitation to chaos), graduation requirements,teacher pay and performance requirements, com-pliance standards, LRE, Ebonics (just one moredata-free embellishment) and on and on, not oneof which assures an improved, adequate learn-ing environment.

Virtually every current so-called educationreform issue could become reality, and nothingwould improve, systemically, between the teacherand the learner. As noted by Wang and her asso-ciates, and others, teacher-learner issues are givenlittle more than a patronizing pat on the head. Asa part of my study of the past 16 years, I havereviewed the minutes of boards of education

meetings. Using a systematic random samplingtechnique, I have read the contents of every nthpage of boards of education minutes. Never oncedid I find an item that dealt with what needed tobe done to improve the quality of instructionwithin the district's classrooms. Virtually allboard business addressed matters of finances,facilities and equipment, personnel, public rela-tions, and legalities and litigation. One board ofeducation, serving a large farming community;spent the entire board meeting in heated discus-sion over whether the district should purchase aFord or Chevrolet pickup. And when what hap-pens in classrooms is given board attention, it istypically, as noted by the International Institutefor Advocacy for School Children (Bateman), aparading before the board of "smiling childrendraped over a dinosaur [in) saccharine proseabout the wonderful, cooperative, learning effortsof Mrs. Davis' class" (p.11).

Finances are important, and must be seriouslyaddressed. But to what ultimate end? Facilitiesand equipment are likewise, important. But to

what ultimate end? Personnel matters are impor-tant. But to what ultimate end? Until education'sattention is locked on the answer to that ques-tion, there will be no systemic improvement ofwhat happens behind the schoolroom door.

Though framed in the language of reform,the very essence of education remains static; es-sentially no more than a matter of telling studentswhat they need to know, assigning them relatedthings to do, testing them on how much they canrecall, then attaching a symbol of some sort as ameasure of success or failure. The paradigm Isparalyzed, and so as long as it is, like the horseand buggy, the best we can hope for is somethingthat looks good referred to in scientific par-lance as face validity.

As with transportation's advance to the in-ternal combustion engine, science offers educa-tion a new paradigm, one that is as dramatic asthe shift from muscle to machine. It is found inthe literature of education, psychology, and be-havior under such headings as "fluency;" "free-operant conditioning," "schedules of reinforce-ment," " precision teaching," "celeration," "criti-cal learning outcomes," "learning channels" (notrelated to TV), "elimination of procedure-im-posed ceilings," "component-composite rela-tions," "instructional momentum," and moremuch more (Binder, 1996; Lindsley, 1996; Foxx,1996; Hofmeister and Lubke, 1990).

These terms are as foreign to the educationestablishment of today as was the language ofphysics and engineering to the makers of horse-drawn carriages and buggies. But it is the lan-guage of education's future; that is, if educationhopes to have a future that is anything more thanan embellished extension of its antiquated past.

More will be said on this matter in my book,"Behind the Schoolhouse Door."

17 15

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Glenn Latham, Ed.D. is Professor Emeritus of Education, Utah State University,Logan, Utah, and Principal Investigator of the Mountain Plains Regional ResourceCenter, 1780 No. Research Parkway #112, Utah State University, Logan, UT, 84341.(801) 752-0238. Fax: (801) 753-9750; Email: latham@cc.uSu.edu.

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This document was developed by the Mountain Plains Regional Resource Center,an affiliate of the Center for Persons with Disabilities, a University AffiliatedProgram at Utah State University.The Mountain Plains Regional Resource Center operates under Grant No.H028A30009 with the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), U.S. De-

partment of Education. Partial support is also provided by Utah State University. The content of this document does notnecessarily reflect the position or policy of OSEP or USU and no official endorsement should be inferred.This information is available in alternative format, including large print, Braille, audio or diskette. Format and CoverDesign by Cindy Budge.

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