Classroom discipline shake up?
Well, this is my first reading. It’s entitled Every Student Can Suceed and is written by William Glasser, M.D.
Its talking about incorporating Choice theory into your classroom practise. He goes on to explain what that is at the end of the book which is a little irriating as I have only read the first two chapters.
But here is what I has gleened so far:
The 7 deadly habits that destroy relationships:
criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing and rewarding people to control them.
Better the 7 good good habits;
Caring, supporting, contributing, encouraging, trusting and befriending.
Relationships in the classroom are central and must be kept positive: “few [children] work in school because they think an education is valuable to them. They work for you because they like you and because they see the sense in what you are trying to teach.”
Third and final point was made:
Keep in mind that the success of any human endeavour [learning in school included] is directly proportional to how the people involved in the endeavour get along together.
He was also talking about external control and how that ‘reward/punishment’ scenario is most popualar in school. He was making the point, I think, that children need to internalize motivation and that the ‘reward/punishment’ does not lead directly to that ultimate goal. What ever “Change Theorpy” I sense that it is a completely different mindset for a teacher, which will probably make it very hard to adopt, it being against our training and instinct in classroom management….. More later.
