QUESTION:
I found out about Dr. Marshall’s DWS on the Internet when I visited a primary classroom website. I noticed that although this teacher used DWS, there was also a “color change board” in the classroom where student behavior was noted. Certain misbehavior was followed by certain consequences. Personally, I thought this contradicted Dr. Marshall’s techniques but would like to hear your opinion.

RESPONSE:
Yes, behavior boards based on behavior modification techniques of reward and/or punishment would be contradictory to the thinking behind DWS.

Sometimes, people don’t initially understand DWS well because the ideas are so new to them. Sometimes they feel that it’s perfectly sensible to combine bits and pieces of various discipline philosophies based on both types of motivation–-internal AND external. After all, we do that sort of thing in academics all the time. As teachers, we take bits and pieces of various approaches and combine them to form a program that suits our teaching style and the needs of our particular students.

The difference would be this:

In academics, teachers can generally recognize if they are doing two things that contradict each other. The teacher whose website you visited, probably doesn’t realize that what he/she is doing in this case, is contradictory and therefore rather self-defeating. Some people find it difficult to understand the difference between internal and external motivation when they first begin to use the the DWS approach.  As I said, the thinking is very new to them.

On the other hand, some teachers do realize that they have bits and pieces of contradictory things happening in their classroom but feel most comfortable in switching over to a new mindset by making changes slowly. The teacher whose site you visited, may simply be in the process of switching over to a new way of thinking about discipline but perhaps doesn’t feel secure enough yet to let go of an older mindset completely.

Sometimes teachers mistakenly think that color change boards are based on internal motivation because students do seem motivated to behave themselves. What these teachers often don’t consider is that while the students are keeping themselves in check, it’s because they are motivated EXternally, not INternally. What perhaps looks like self-discipline on the surface is actually externally motivated behavior. Rather than being internally motivated to be self-disciplined, some students may actually be externally motivated:

• as a result of wanting to please their teacher/parents, or perhaps from;
• a bit of fear that they might displease their teacher/parents.

It could be that the teacher who is using a color change board (at the same time as DWS) doesn’t understand this.

To determine if acceptable student behavior is motivated internally or externally, one might ask what happens when the teacher leaves the room for a span of time? Are the students able to remain well-behaved all on their own when they notice the teacher is gone? If so, then the teacher could assume that their behavior is internally motivated. If not, then it would be clear that the students’ acceptable behavior is motivated externally in some way.

A related posting:

Do weekly behavior reports match the DWS approach?

 


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Posted In: B. General Questions
posted On: July 5, 2007: 10:48 am: By Kerry Weisner
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