I looked forward to reading this chapter because I expected to learn about effective practices in classrooms throughout the country. I enjoyed reading the short vignettes from first-year teachers who have found their management niche. When I began teaching, classroom management — discipline, as I thought of it then — was my biggest concern. My first teaching assignment (apart from substituting) was in summer school following my college graduation in May. I was so excited to have a job! Every morning that summer I taught World History to eighth graders from 9:00 to 12:00, then taught Tennessee History to seventh graders from 12:30 – 3:30 in a school with no air conditioning. I almost gave up teaching altogether that summer. Those students didn’t like me, and I didn’t particularly like them because they were so rowdy and I couldn’t identify with them. They had already spent a full school year listening to their more experienced teachers , and I had no special background in history, so they really knew more than I did! I was truly “wet behind the ears,” and I was miserable because I could not manage their behavior. I kept telling myself that a “real” classroom would be different and the students would be more attentive and respectful. I had a lot to learn.
When I finally did get my own classroom I used a behavior management system the other teachers at that school were using, but then I changed schools, and that same system did not work. I kept remembering a classroom management video I had been shown in college that was produced by William Glasser. He showed a man driving a car that had gotten stuck in a ditch. The driver kept gunning the engine, but the car remained stuck. The man got out of the car, inspected the situation, then returned to the driver’s seat and continued to gun the engine, but the car became stuck even more deeply in the mud! It was humorous, but it was meant to show us that often our tendency is to keep doing things that don’t work. Glasser applied that to classroom management. In my college classes I learned about token economies and Skinner’s behavior antecedents and consequences, but I couldn’t make those work for me. This was in the 80’s, so I soon learned about Lee Canter and his Assertive Discipline program that is described in this chapter. I was teaching first graders by that time, so my partner teacher and I began using the color strips and posted a chart very similar to the one on p. 259 of our text. At the same time, our school became a pilot school for the True Colors learning styles program, and we learned about Gardner’s multiple intelligences research. My classroom management skills improved, but still I struggled to find a comfortable, non-cumbersome way to have a “well-disciplined” class.
Then I moved to Stockbridge, Georgia, into a culturally diverse school unlike anything I had ever known. I was shocked at the behavior of some of my first graders, and I felt incompetent and defeated because nothing I tried seemed to help them stay on task and behave. During an especially difficult year, I became part of the first Behavior Support Team at my school. We learned about Positive Schools and hired a consulting firm to help our entire school change the behavior of students as well as teachers throughout our school. I noticed improvement in my students, especially during the first 3 years, but a change in administration, coupled with a high turnover of staff resulted in a reduced emphasis on the program. We still use the basic framework, but I think we have lost the gains we saw in the beginning.
Many teachers in my county have been trained in Jim Fay’s Love and Logic approach to discipline. I like this philosophy that makes students responsible for their actions. It’s an attitude that students can do anything they want to as long as their actions don’t cause a problem for another person. If a student has a problem, the teacher can just say, “Wow! I’m sorry for you. What are you going to do about that?” There has to be genuine empathy without a trace of sarcasm, but I’ve seen this work. There are workshops for parents as well as teachers to offer support for using the principles. I like it because it is respectful, caring, and nonjudgmental. So, can you guess what I use in my classroom?
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