One day last February we learned that a new boy would be joining our grade one class. In an effort to be proactive, my teaching partner, Darlene, planned a class meeting the day before he arrived. She wanted to encourage the students to welcome the new child and she also hoped to avoid a situation [...]
10-15 students are arriving late – every day!
QUESTION: I am currently in a situation where I am the permanent teacher, taking the place of another teacher. I have been in this position for about 3 weeks now, and I have noticed that many students arrive late every day. Not just one or two but 10-15 students are arriving late to my class! [...]
Sharing My Latest DWS Success!
Posted by J.E., a member of the Discipline without Stress mailring. Here is my latest success: Last Friday, three third graders left their homeroom in route to my class (science) and on the way, chose to yell and scream and play an impromptu game of tag. (At my school, we don’t walk the kids from [...]
It seems that every year my teaching partner and I introduce the DWS Hierarchy a bit differently from the year before. As we’ve become more familiar with the bigger picture of using DWS throughout the course of an full school year, we worry less and less about the initial introduction. Over the years, we’ve experienced [...]
An example of developing procedures proactively to avoid problems.
The more I use the Discipline without Stress approach, the more I appreciate that Step One of the Teaching Model is key to the whole plan. We’ve just started a series of swimming lessons at our local Community Center for all the primary students in our school. This year I decided to be more proactive [...]
DEVELOPING POSITIVE HABITS IN DISCIPLINE SITUATIONS
Recently I was glancing through a book from the public library: THE BOOK OF NURTURING–Nine Natural Laws for Enriching Your Family Life by Linda and Richard Eyre. In the chapter on discipline, a little story caught my eye because it contained a very PROACTIVE and POSITIVE suggestion that could be used by anyone who wanted [...]
A DWS MINDSET: MISBEHAVIOR AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN
Recently, I attended a community workshop. Over the lunch hour I happened to sit with a very interesting lady. After a few minutes, our conversation turned to what we did for a living and I explained that I was a teacher. She told me that she worked for the Ministry of Social Services, a government [...]
IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF HOMETASKS
The following post was originally shared on the DWS mailring. It highlights an important DWS teaching attitude–that of choosing to view a negative situation (students doing a poor job of completing and returning homework) as an opportunity to help students to take responsibility. In addition to demonstrating the Principle of Positivity, this post also illustrates [...]
QUESTION: I’m having a hard time with the first principle of DISCIPLINE without STRESS–the Principle of POSITIVITY. I’m not sure how I can say something positive in a discipline situation–when a student is doing something that he/she shouldn’t be doing! I need some examples. RESPONSE: Dr. Marshall encourages teachers to think, speak and act with [...]
My teaching partner and I have always provided a home reading program for our grade one students. We give each one a ziplock bag in which to store their home reading books and every morning they make an exchange, taking two new books home. Well, that’s the theory of it anyway! In reality, we have [...]
