I became aware of the problem when my teaching assistant told me that despite her admonishments, every single day Damian seems determined to make a huge mess of his sandwich.  She described that first, he pulls it all apart.  Then he takes each separate ingredient (bread, ham, cheese slice, lettuce) and drags it around his Kindergarten placemat creating big greasy smears.  Sometimes, my assistant said, she can get him to eat little bits of cheese or maybe ham, but that’s it; most often he just plays with his food.  When he gets tired of playing with it, he takes what is left and squeezes it tighter and tighter into a disgusting little ball, which he sneakily throws in the garbage when she’s not looking.

Especially bothered by the fact that whenever she speaks to him about it, Damian becomes extremely sullen and shoots her dirty looks, she said she’s given up trying to get him to eat.  She asked if I could speak to him about his behavior and make him put the remains of his sandwich back into his lunch kit––instead of the garbage––so Debbie, his new foster mom will know that he isn’t eating properly and is wasting good food.

So the next day at lunchtime I watched––and saw that what she said was true.  Damian did indeed systematically destroy a healthy and delicious looking sandwich, lovingly prepared for him by his foster mom.  What confused me though was the look on his face.  Despite the fact he didn’t see me watching and no one else was telling him to stop what he was doing, he didn’t seem to be playing.  He actually seemed to be trying to accomplish something, growing increasingly more angry as time went on.  Since it wasn’t apparent to me what he was doing, I decided just to ask him to tell me what was up.  But talking to Damian is no easy feat.  Sometimes he refuses to talk at all and sometimes he will try to speak but if the listener has trouble understanding he begins growling instead (literally!)

It took a bit of persistence, but gradually by asking quite a few questions and eventually deciphering his replies, I came to understand.  Damian really hates mustard!  In his own 5 year old way, he was doing the best he could to try and solve his problem; wiping his sandwich parts across his placemat in an effort to remove the hated yellow stuff so he could eat his lunch!  Because I wasn’t emotionally involved at all, it was fairly easy to figure out what was really happening and deal with it.  I explained that as a temporary solution we could use a knife to scrape the mustard off and then, after school we could really solve the problem.  He could let Debbie,  know that he didn’t like mustard.  He could ask her to just use the mayonnaise.

What looked like misbehavior wasn’t that at all!  And the sliver lining to this cloud is that this incident has really helped Damian move forward in other situations too.  Now when we see him getting angry, we are able to remind him how the lunch problem was solved.  Because the mustard experience ended successfully, he is far more willing to believe that talking can actually work for him––as long as he doesn’t give up and remains willing to keep the communication going.

Turns out that every night Debbie asks Damian if he wants mustard on his sandwich just like his older sister, Connie.   Up until recently he always answered yes.  Either he wanted to be just like his older sister––he adores her!––or he had no idea what “mustard” was!

By starting home phone calls so quickly, she generally has only positive comments to make––usually kids are on their best behavior on the first days of school!  This gets her off on the right foot with the parents of these kids.  Not only does she gain insight from the parent’s perspective regarding each child, this first phone call puts the parents in a positive frame of mind toward the teacher. Many parents have never received such a phone call or ever been asked how their child feels about coming to school. They immediately feel connected to a teacher who is showing interest in the parent’s viewpoint.  Often, the parents themselves will then bring up behavior concerns they have at home which easily opens the doorway for future productive communication about what is happening at school.

By keeping in close contact and phoning about only positive things very early in the year, she establishes strong relationships with these families.  The parents know that she likes their child. Then, when that inevitable problem comes, she’s already established that she’s interested in the welfare of the child.  Parents see her as an ally, not an enemy. She gets incredible support. She can be honest and frank but the parents know that she wants the very best for their child.

Another thing she began to do last year––and I followed suit because I saw it brought such great benefits in creating a positive relationship with parents––is phoning each time a child goes up a reading level after a leveled book test. Often we phone at noon and simply leave a message if the parent isn’t home:  ”Just phoning with some good news.  Johnny had a little reading test and went up a level today. Thanks for your help at home. It’s really paying off for Johnny!”

Now we routinely make these “reading phone calls” because:

1. Not only do we have purely positive news to share each time we phone (the child is moving forward in reading.)

2. But we also are able to help the parent become a better reading coach for their child. We pass on a little tip or two during the conversation that will help the parent support the child in some small way. For instance, we might remind them that following the reading of a book, they might ask their child to retell the story or answer a few comprehension questions. Or we might explain that we’ve pointed out to the child how to read with expression when a word is printed in italics or bold font. The kids become better readers when both parent and teacher focus on the same skills. Even parents who didn’t initially read with their children on a consistent basis began to do so after getting one or two of these phone calls!  The phone calls not only motivated the children to make progress in reading, it motivated the parents to make reading with their child a nightly habit!

These phone calls take time but I’m certainly convinced that they’re worth the effort. Like I said, when the parents then are faced with hearing about a behavior problem, they are more interested in working with us because they trust us from past experience. I don’t think I would ever consider writing or emailing home about problems.  Written words don’t always convey the teacher’s genuine concern for the child. We come across as more “human” on the phone!  In my experience phone calls get better results than writing.

Here’s the gist of his ideas regarding good intentions:

As adults we should actively look for times when a child is displaying or expressing good intentions––and then we should nurture those intentions.  Despite the fact that the young person may NOT be able to carry out their good intentions, and that the situation may actually turn out negatively in some sense, we can applaud their initial desire to do the right thing.  By pointing out that the intention was good, we can encourage the child to keep aiming in the right direction––the direction of following their conscience to do the right thing.

Of course this sounds like a sensible approach to working with people but it’s often the opposite of what we teachers actually do!

Often we discount good intentions if a child doesn’t follow through on them––and so lose the opportunity to influence and encourage a child to continue to AIM in the right direction.  Gordon points out that if a person isn’t AIMING in the right direction, he’ll never get to where he’s going.  So what could be more important than AIMING?  AIMING is a critical part of getting somewhere!

Regardless of how the immediate situation actually works out, it’s the AIMING that we should take care to nurture.  Over time, we will have an impact.  If we can convince a student to continue to AIM in the right direction, then one day––when they have developed the maturity that will enable them to follow through successfully on their good intentions––they’ll more often achieve the results we all hope for by actually DOING the right thing.  Gordon teaches that when a child displays good intentions, it’s our job to focus on those intentions and highlight the importance of them.

I found these ideas regarding good intentions to give me a lot of relief.  Before I understood these ideas, I always felt that as a good adult, it was my job to more or less berate a child who goofed up!  I hope you understand what I mean by this.  I felt that if a child said that they had really wanted to do something the right way, it was my job to point out that that didn’t count if the end result was that they had goofed up.

Since receiving the ideas I’ve shared above, I feel free to take on a much more positive approach to situations in which a child has goofed up.  That’s a great relief.  I can see that my job is not to berate or correct them in any way but to empathize with them and believe in them, thus encouraging them to try again.  I can reinforce my belief in them––that one day they will be able act appropriately in certain situations.  As Neufeld says,  I can keep encouraging them “to aim.”  I can put myself in the position of the coach who will cheer for them and help them as they move closer to their goals.  I don’t have to approve of their behavior but at the same time, I don’t have to dwell on their failures or try to teach them what to do better.  They already know what they need to do.  I simply have to encourage them to aim, thus nurturing their good intentions.

I can give you an example of how these understandings helped me with one student currently in our grade one class.  We have a little fellow this year who can only be described as a little monkey!  Surely, you know the type!  (Well, my principal actually calls him a little turkey but he means the same thing!!)  He’s quite a charming little fellow but he’s always pushing the limits and getting into trouble.

Early in the year, some older children taught him a few choice words which he used liberally out on the playground.  Of course, news of this kind of talk always spreads fast and he ended up in our principal’s office.  I took him over myself!  On the way over, we discussed inappropriate Level B behavior and he told me that he had not wanted to say these words in the first place, that he thought he was simply saying them in his head and didn’t realize that other people could hear him. He said he planned never to say these words again!

That was my opportunity to preserve the relationship and nurture his good intentions (as I had learned from Gordon) by saying that I believed him and that although he had goofed up and I couldn’t expose other children to the possibility of this particular kind of language at the moment, we could get past this event.  Then, rather than focusing on how he had goofed up and coming up with negative consequences, I simply felt free to encourage him to aim again.

I reinforced my belief in him by saying that I thought he certainly could live up to his good intentions by not letting those words come out of his mouth again.  I expressed that I was sure he could hold to that good intention.  Then I simply gave him a little hug and explained that whatever happened in the office, we could get past it and he’d be welcome back in the classroom to take another shot at talking appropriately with others.

Ever since becoming acquainted with DWS, I have felt that although students need to be aware of Level A and B, the key is really for the teacher to put the greatest energy and focus on Level C and D and the difference between these two acceptable levels.  This summer, the understandings I received from Gordon Neufeld really helped me understand why this is so. He gave me a way to respond to certain situations of misbehavior with positivity––another crucial part of Discipline without Stress.

For the month of June Darlene and I decided to work with our grade one class to create a musical circus performance for our school.  We knew it was a crazy time of year to do a major production but earlier in the year we’d promised the kids that we would make a circus in May.  When various school-wide plans interfered with that timing, we felt we had to keep our promise and do the circus show in June.

We gathered all the costumes and circus music we could find.  Kids signed up for at least two parts each.  We had a lion, a tiger and an elephant (and of course, their trainers!)  We had a troupe of four dogs and their master, Heidi!  We had two ticket sellers, a tightrope walker, six clowns, seven acrobats, five beautiful bareback (hobbyhorse!) riders etc. etc. You get the idea!  Along with all the other year-end duties in June such as report cards and classroom clean up, a Tea for Parent helpers etc., a circus added to our to-do list was a bit much.  Just organizing the costume and make-up changes was a nightmare alone!  We were tired!

One thing that took a lot of time was creating the props and decorations for the show. We invented a way to make plates twirl on a pole for the “Shanghai Plate Twirlers,” sewed a tutu and made a miniature flowered umbrella for Tina, the tightrope walker.  We turned a puppet theater into a ticket booth and decorated the gym by having the students paint life-size clowns and a “Welcome to the Circus” mural.  We found out that it’s a lot of work to run a circus when there are only two roustabouts!

Although we did have a lot of fun and our students were very excited about our upcoming circus, in the days leading up to the real shows, Darlene and I were no longer tired––we were exhausted.  Needless to say, we were just barely holding it together.  One of the major frustrations was that most of our homemade props were quite fragile.  After we’d re-glued and re-hammered the “twirling plates” on to the doweling many days in a row, the whole idea of plate twirling and circus-making was quickly losing its appeal for us!

One afternoon in the last week, we were having a final rehearsal in the gym.  The kids who weren’t actually performing at any one time were seated at different heights around the floor space.  We had a variety of stools, boxes, short stepladders etc. for them to sit on to make the backdrop of the circus more visually interesting.  On this day, one of our cutest, youngest and most playful “dogs” was seated on the highest two-level box.  Of course, he couldn’t manage to sit still and over he went, off the box, onto the floor, landing on the strongman’s most fragile (and most difficult to repair!) set of 1000 kg dumbbells––snapping the pretend weight off on one end!

Immediately, our little dog ran over to tell us what he had done and in looking in the direction in which he indicated, I immediately saw a problem that would result in yet another repair job.  In frustration, I let out an audible groan and sigh, which I instantly regretted as I saw his little dog eyes fill up with little dog tears!   With only the slightest of pauses––in which I could tell she was deliberately searching for something positive to say––Darlene pointed out,  “Well, thank you for doing the right thing.  You came right over to tell us when you broke something.”  Immediately, the tears were gone.  Relief and a happy look returned to his little dog face as off he went to climb back up on to his post to sit quietly for the next act.  All I could think of was how lucky I was to have a quick-witted partner who could jump in to to save the situation and make everything right again for this little fellow.

This is just a little story, but I think it highlights an important DWS skill––finding a positive response even though the situation might be negative.  As Dr. Marshall points out, “People do better when they feel good.”  In this particular incident, what good would have come from focusing on the fact that this little dog didn’t sit as still as was expected?  Of course, nothing productive could have come from it and we would have all felt worse, rather than better, at the end of it.  I know that in time, this dog will eventually develop the maturity that allows him to sit as still as all the other dogs, but it’s TIME––not negative discipline–-that will accomplish this.

For me, it was a good lesson in keeping my priorities straight too––people and their feelings are more important than things.

It featured the following quote that spoke of an ancient form of what I would call “discipline positivity!”

In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused. Then each person in the tribe, regardless of age, begins to talk out loud to the accused, one at a time, about all the good things he has done in his lifetime. Every incident that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths and kindness are recited carefully and at length. The tribal ceremony does not cease until everyone is drained of every positive comment s/he can muster about the person in question. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person symbolically and literally is welcomed back into the tribe. (Author, Alice Walker)

Click here to read the interesting blog comments of Alyson Schafer, a Canadian psychotherapist.

What is the best way to explain the difference between internal and external motivation––in other words, the difference between DWS Levels C and D?  I am having trouble with this.

RESPONSE:

Initially I use very concrete examples connected directly to the classroom.

I describe Level C as the level where students do the right thing––what’s expected of them by the teacher––because the teacher is clearly expecting them to do it.

Some simple examples:

• The student will pick up toys off the floor when they are asked.

• The student will walk quietly in the hallway when a teacher is supervising.

• The student will clean up a mess he/she has made when they know an adult is near enough to notice the situation.

The main point is this:  At Level C, persons always need something outside of themselves to motivate them to act correctly.

Level C is okay––but but there is a higher level.

Level D, the highest level, has a different feel to it.   Level D is even higher than Level C because the person has a different reason for doing what they do.  He/She does the right thing because they want to do the right thing––because they choose to do the right thing.

As the school year progresses, I also start discussing the following concepts:

• On the outside, (if someone happened to be observing the situation,) Level D looks just like Level C.  As an example, at Level C a person walks appropriately in the hallway and at Level D a person also walks appropriately in the hallway.  The difference is not on the outside.  The difference is on the inside of the person.  At Level D, people don’t need anyone outside of themselves to make them walk appropriately or even influence them to walk appropriately. At Level D, people CHOOSE to walk appropriately in the hallway, simply because they know it’s the expected and reasonable thing to do. They don’t want to hurt anyone accidentally or disturb classroom proceedings, so they walk rather than run, and walk quietly rather than create unnecessary noise.  Whether an observer is present or not, they choose to do the appropriate thing––they choose to walk quietly.

• Only people themselves can know if they are at Level C or Level D. How do they know? They feel it!  Level C doesn’t feel particularly special inside. It’s just an ordinary feeling inside.  In contrast, conscious awareness of Level D feels wonderful inside.  It feels satisfying. When you choose to act on Level D, you feel proud of yourself. You feel capable. You feel a warmth in your heart, right inside of you.  This feeling is telling you that you’re doing the right thing because you WANT to. You feel powerful because you are doing the right thing BY CHOICE!

Because young people are no different than adults in this respect, one of the three principles that form the foundation of the Disicipline without Stress Teaching Model is Positivity.

Dr. Marshall reminds teachers to develop a coaching mindset from which misbehavior is viewed as the child’s best effort in THAT moment to fix a frustration.  He suggests that teachers word all their communications in a positive way.  In other words, a goal for DWS teachers is to train themselves to consciously choose positive wording in every situation––even discipline situations that would typically be perceived as negative.  Although developing this skill initially can be a challenge for most teachers, becoming more positive in our teaching holds enormous benefits for students and teachers alike.

Another important aspect of the Positivity Principle is for the teacher to proactively create a positive classroom environment in which students are so involved in their learning that they have little desire to misbehave.  It makes sense!  Why would a child want to misbehave when they’re engaged in meaningful tasks, familiar with the highest level of the DWS Hierarchy (acting with internal motivation,) and fun activities are routinely included in lessons?

As we start back to school for another new year, I thought I’d share one small way I incorporate some laughter and fun into my own elementary school teaching.

Over the years I’ve collected a large number of riddles suitable for younger children.  Each September I xerox these riddles onto a variety of colored papers, cut the riddles apart and fold each one in half.

Some years I store the riddles in a brightly decorated box and have the kids pull out one or two whenever we have a moment to spare.  Often this might be at the end of the day or in that minute before the bell rings for lunch time.  Depending on the age of the children, I might read the riddle to the class myself or turn that job over to the child.  If no correct guess has been made after three tries, we simply share the answer.

Then I always take a moment to ask why the riddle is funny.  Experience has shown me that little kids will laugh uproariously over a riddle answer even if they don’t understand the humor! They simply know that all punch lines are supposed to be followed by a laugh.  Over the course of a year, this little activity provides many opportunities to discuss double meanings of words, puns, famous sayings etc. I find that sharing riddles makes the kids more creative and flexible in their thinking, so our daily joke session is educational as well as fun.  It offers a bit of reading practice too for those old enough!

Other years, I have created a “job” in my classroom as Class Comedian.  Each student becomes our Comedian for a week at a time, taking home an envelope of 5 riddles in order to practice reading them.  This is always one of the most appealing jobs in the classroom.

If you are currently a teacher who substitutes in other people’s classrooms, you may find that these riddles are useful to you as well.  Most well-prepared “guest teachers” that I know tend to carry a positive bag of tricks with them wherever they go!

Click here for a PDF of My K-5 Riddle Collection

Some related posts featuring the Principle of Positivity:

Using a positive challenge!

I need help with positivity.

A DWS Mindset: Misbehavior as an Opportunity to Learn

Improving the Quality of Homework

Focusing on the positive!

After first reading Marv’s DWS book more than ten years ago, I started to become conscious of the importance of deliberately planning for “choice” in my teaching.   Certainly, as I took on a job at a local Alternate High School six years ago––working one-on-one with sullen, illiterate and often, ashamed teenagers––providing choice was a major consideration in any lesson.  There, the first choice always offered was simply “Would you be interested in a reading lesson today?”  Darlene, my teaching partner, and I quickly (and painfully) learned that without at least some tiny initial buy-in from these students, we were going nowhere fast––and it wasn’t gonna to be pretty!

Now this year, back in Kindergarten full time, choice is still an important consideration.  Like others who use DWS, whenever possible I try to ensure my Kindergarten students have choices when we do projects, play games or have story time.  In discipline situations I try not to back any child into a corner and instead endeavour to make sure they feel they have some freedom of choice with regard to their own behaviour and its consequences.  Yet, the most powerful teaching experience I’ve ever had with “choice” wasn’t planned at all.  It developed gradually over a period of about 3 months and all quite unintentionally.  I’d like to tell you about it!

Although the Kindergarten mandate in my province is to provide a play-based learning environment, just before Christmas I realized that a couple of students were ready for more formal reading instruction.  They already knew all their alphabet sounds, they could automatically and correctly write a letter symbol for each sound and their oral phonemic awareness skills were excellent.  One child, Mary, was especially eager; I decided to start with her.

Although I’ve taught nearly 300 grade one students to read in a regular grade one classroom setting, I’ve never before taught a Kindergarten student to read within a play-based environment.  The main reason I chose to move to full day K when Darlene retired last June was to be able to continue to develop the beginning reading program we created in our grade one classroom and used successfully with older struggling readers in the alternate school system in our district.

Although I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to approach reading instruction in Kindergarten when I started in September, this year is an experimental one for me.  I’m testing out ideas, lesson formats and activities in order to find out which might work best, and in which sequence.  Currently, many First Nations students in our province are not successfully learning to read well over the course of their schooling.  I want to do my best to provide good beginning reading instruction for all my 14 students, but I’m especially concerned that 11 of them are already statistically at-risk––even before they start!

Over the Christmas holiday, I considered how I might go about teaching, first Mary, and then eventually others, to learn to read.  Since I personally find individualized instruction more productive than small group work, I knew I wanted to keep each child’s learnings recorded in some individual way, for their own reference.  I debated how best to do this and finally decided to use a notebook. But I wanted this notebook to be different than the others we use in Kindergarten––I wanted it to be somewhat special.  After all, learning to read is very exciting!  The dollar store had a sturdy black notebook for sale so I bought a few and taped a name tag on for Mary.

In my school, eating times are supervised by teachers.  The procedure I’ve taught is that after eating and cleaning up lunch things, students are to get organized back at their table spot for “Book Look” time.  I spotted an opportunity to begin working with Mary on her own because it just happens that she typically eats her lunch more quickly than all the other children.  When I quietly suggested that we could use the remainder of eating time to start learning to read, she was all smiles.  I showed her the notebook and we began.  Each following day after her lunch, Mary and I would spend five minutes or so to practice the words and sentences in her “Key Book.”  Then we would add a new phonetic pattern that would allow her to tackle more words.  Because Mary is so keen on learning to read, it’s a delight to work with her.  We have a lot of fun together!

Lunchtime seating in my class is determined by small named placemats.  As students wash their hands, I put out plastic placemats at three tables.  Because I move the mats around––to different tables, with different companions––each day Mary sat with a new group of children.  As others at her table wondered aloud what the two of us were doing, I would explain and invite them to listen in to Mary’s reading lesson if they were interested.  Eventually, the two students who were near ready to read themselves, asked if they could have a reading lesson––just like Mary.  Happily, I was able to show them that I had already purchased Key Books for them too.  Since they were interested, I could certainly give them a little lesson.

Things progressed well and I went back to the dollar store several times to buy more black notebooks. Every couple of weeks, another child would ask if they too could have a reading lesson.  Generally students didn’t seem to ask to be taught to read until they had acquired a certain skill level with phonemic awareness and alphabet sounds.  This was perfect!  Our Book Look times just naturally started to increase in length.  More and more kids automatically started to go to the bin and retrieve their Key book when they finished their lunches. Without any suggestion from me, they would practice reading the familiar pages, while waiting for a turn with me to add the next concept to their books. Then one child had a new idea.  Each day after reading, he began getting a pencil to spell three letter words, write the names of classmates and copy favorite words from book titles into his own notebook.  Soon that idea caught on too and I developed a procedure; pages on which I taught reading concepts were just for the teacher, any other empty page could hold student writing.

Eventually though, a couple of students who did not have the necessary foundational skills to easily learn to read began to ask if they could also have lessons with a Key Book.  My heart fell as the first thought to cross my mind was “But you’re not ready yet.  This will be too hard for you!”  Luckily, biting my tongue (as a result of diligent practice with DWS Principle, Positivity) saved me!  Instead of blurting out my first (and very negative) thought, I forced a bright smile and said (without a lot of inner confidence,) “Sure!  Any student who wants to learn to read can do so!”   What else could I say?

But then, pretty quickly, I remembered that years ago I went to individualized instruction for a reason!  My less ready students did not yet have the ability to actually blend letters into words to read but I could have them practice more basic skills that would move them to that point.  I could use their Key Books to review alphabet sounds.  They didn’t need to know that others in the class were working on more advanced skills.  To date, 12 of my 14 students have Key Books and two students have not yet asked for them.  Not surprisingly these are the two students that I have recommended to my principal as candidates for another year in Kindergarten.

Here’s what I experienced first hand this year:  When learning to read is a choice, motivation is high.  When motivation is high, every lesson is welcomed.  When lessons are welcomed, learning fuels further motivation.  This experience may have developed accidentally for me this year, but next year I will deliberately plan to make learning to read a “choice!”

I would like to share a situation that happened recently in my Grade One class.  I have been using DWS for a few years now I firmly believe that we have to approach behavior issues as learning opportunities.  Although I must admit that sometimes it is difficult for me to remain focused on using positivity, choice and reflection in all situations, here’s the growth one child experienced in my class as a result:

All of my students were sitting with me at the carpet working on a math lesson recently.  After sending them back to continue the work at their desks, I noticed that some glitter had been spilled out of a small container at the side of the carpet and I commented on it.  As six- and seven-year-olds are prone to do, one quickly announced the name of the student believed to be responsible.  I ignored the comment and went to my desk.  I casually called the child whose name had been mentioned over to my desk and she approached looking ashamed.  I asked her what had happened with the glitter.  She denied having had anything to do with it.

I asked her that if she had done it and then told me about it, what was the worst thing that would happen?  She guessed that I would call her mom.  I asked her if she had ever seen me calling other moms when something like that happened, and she said no. I asked her if she thought I would do that this time and then confirmed that I would not.

I asked what was the next worst thing that could happen?  She said that I would spank her.  I asked her if she had ever seen me spank anyone and she said “No”  I asked if she thought I would do that this time and then confirmed that I would not.

Again, I inquired,”What’s the next worst thing that could happen?”  She said that she thought I might yell at her.  I asked her if she has ever seen me yell at anyone.  She said no.  I asked her if she thought I would do that this time and then confirmed that I would not.

Then I asked her what was the best thing that could happen and she said that she would get a hug.  This took me off guard so I asked her the question again and this time she admitted that she had made the mess, after finding some glitter that didn’t belong to her.  I asked her what she should have done instead when she found some glitter and, of course, she knew what was an appropriate thing to do.g We worked through what she could do if something similar ever happened in the future.

Then I asked her if I could give her a hug and I did.  I said I was proud of her.; even though she didn’t do it right away, she did tell me the truth.  I asked her if she felt good about it and she did.  I then asked her what level she had been on and she responded appropriately.  I asked her what needed to be done now to solve her problem.  She said that she needed to clean it up, but that she was concerned about missing Math.  I assured her that the lesson she had just learned was more important than Math today!

Later I reflected on the experience and thought about how similar ones in the past had turned out so differently!  If I had raised my voice to her or pressured her to “confess,” it would have turned her against me, eroded her fragile self-esteem and left her feeling very negative.  Instead, I truly believe that she learned from her mistake.  As for me, I re-learned that it is always worth every extra second it takes to empower kids by using positivity, choice and reflection, rather than overpower them.

Marie Swift

Who should make the procedures?  Is this something the teacher dictates or something the kids come up with?  For example, I have been thinking about how I want to teach my first grade class to “turn and talk.”

I want them to:

• Find someone who is nearby (rather than go across the room to find a friend.)
• Politely say yes if someone asks, “Will you be my partner?” (To avoid hurt feelings.)
• Turn their bodies to face each other (sitting “criss-cross applesauce.”)
• Figure out who will talk first. (Not sure how we’ll do this––I need to think more about it.)

Then:

• The person who is talking first will raise a hand.
• Once I see every group has a hand raised I will tell them to begin.  (I am hoping that after a while they will be able to just turn and talk without me intervening at all.)

Is it okay for me to just tell them this set of procedures or is it important that the students to come up with their own?

RESPONSE:

You seem to have a pretty clear picture of how you want your students to operate in this situation. You understand that when students have an exact set of procedures to follow, they  1) won’t waste any time in getting started and,  2) will be empowered to stay on task.

Think about whether or not (in any particular situation or activity) you are willing to negotiate your procedures.  If you are, you could involve the students if you want.  If you’re not, simply teach the procedures you know will work well.  Dr. Marshall explains that it is the teacher’s responsibility to plan procedures. You’re the one with the training, so you make the decisions about how your classroom will operate.

Although in the DWS approach expectations/standards are used instead of classroom rules, the question you pose (and the situation you describe,) is similar to the situation a teacher faces when involving students in formulating classroom rules. By asking students to suggest rules, teachers unwittingly put themselves in the position of asking for student suggestions––but not being willing to accept those that are ineffective. Do most teachers sincerely intend to give their students the freedom to make the rules of the classroom?  In most cases, teachers simply manipulate the conversation so that students are led to the rules the teacher had in mind anyway––prior to the discussion.  What if a child comes up with a ridiculous “rule” (as young children sometimes do.)  Could a teacher accept it?  No, of course not.

So if you’re not really planning to accept something that doesn’t match with what you already have in your head, why involve the students?  Involve students in decisions and choices that truly can be theirs.

A related post:

When might students be involved in creating procedures?