Discipline for Smart People    

SUGGESTION: If you deal with young people at all, make time to read the following in its entirety. It is only slightly edited from the original post at the mailring.
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ORIGINAL POST QUESTION: You work with older alternative students as well as with young children. Can you explain the difference between working with them?
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RESPONSE:
I’d love to tell you a bit about the new job that Darlene and I took on. Although in this particular job we make great use of the three principles of positivity, choice, reflection, we aren’t using the program to handle discipline problems in the same way as we do with our primary students. I’ll have to describe the job, the students, and the school to make sense of that for you.

I teach almost full time, sharing two jobs with a partner teacher. We take turns teaching K/1 for half the week, and for most of the other half of the week we teach 16-19 year olds who either couldn’t read at all when we first met them or couldn’t read much past a primary level. Many people think that we have two quite opposite jobs, but we find that in many ways they are very similar.

In both schools we teach exactly the same reading skills in almost exactly the same way. Although many of our older students have beards and in some cases children of their own, their maturity level is often not much more than that of our little kids. Definitely, our older students are much more emotionally fragile than any of the smaller kids whom we have in our primary job. We must always keep this in mind or we couldn’t work with them at all. They are extremely sensitive and very rigid in their thinking.

Almost all of them have “hardened hearts,” as Dr. Gordon Neufeld would say, and it took a lot of time before they began to “soften” even the slightest bit. In the beginning, it was rough. Many of them didn’t accept us easily, and it wasn’t until nearer to the end of the year that some of them would even call us by our names. Many of them never did this year, but I suspect that in our second year at the school they’ll find it easier to be “personal” with us.

Often I found my eyes welling up with tears on the way home from this school thinking about the harsh lives that these young people have lived. One of our favourite students, a 16 year old who is due to have a baby in August, had her mom die of multiple sclerosis in the last week of school. She has been nursing her mother almost single-handedly since she was about 12 years old. She had only been to school about 60 days total in the last two years. Another boy from a very violent family lost his dad to an alcoholic suicide. His father threw himself in front of a train when this boy was eight. Each one has their own story to tell. Every story is full of pain, frustration, anger, and disappointment. When I go
home, I often spend time to think of how unbelievably fortunate my own children are simply for the “boring” normality of their lives.

The school has about 150 students “on the books” but with attendance a huge problem, on a typical day there might only be about 30-40 students in attendance. Almost every one of the students attend this school because they have been expelled for behaviour reasons from two of the five regular high schools in our district. There are also a few “genius” type kids who have been picked on in regular schools and so have found this school to be a refuge.

Half of the students have “labels” such as “Extreme Mental Illness,” “Extreme Behaviour,” “Learning Disabled,” etc. The other half would meet the requirement of a label but don’t have one simply because many of their previous schools wouldn’t have had them tested—either because they were such poor attenders or because their families wouldn’t have known to insist on testing. Probably at least 95% of them come from very dysfunctional homes and as a result many live on their own, are in foster care, or move from relative to relative or friend to friend. Drugs, alcohol, smoking, run-ins with the law are all part of daily life for almost all of these students.

Many of them are hungry, too. Although the school runs a breakfast program for the cost of $1.00 and a student can receive a great meal every morning, the students we see are so poor and come from such unbelievable homes that they can’t usually afford to eat—even at this great price. Darlene and I started bringing baking and sandwiches from the beginning in September and this has been a very much appreciated part of our program all year long. Each student has their favourite snack and we try to accommodate them all at some point. The food has allowed us to get to know many of the “regular” students in the other part of the school as well—the ones who can’t resist coming in to see what’s for snack today!

Originally, when we first got this job, it looked as if it might be a classroom job—in other words teaching a literacy course. Before a couple of days into the school year, it had evolved into a one-on-one job. Each of our students is at a very different place in their reading ability—all the way from total non-reader right up to someone who can read the driver’s manual well but has only one strategy for learning new words, namely, straight memorization of the word as a whole. He has an incredible memory, but boy, what a stressful, ineffective way to read!

Basically all of the students we see have exactly the same problems; they have poor reading habits, i.e., reading past punctuation, not looking inside the words to look at all the letters, not looking to the end of a word to see if it ends in “ing,” “ed,” “s”—no self-correcting, no re-reading when they make a mistake, etc., and they have absolutely NO understanding of how to decode.

In other words, although most of them have memorized a certain number of primary sight words and can “read” a bit, none of them knows how to tackle a word that is new to them. This means that when they come to a word they have never seen before, they are totally stumped; they simply make their best guess. Because they over-rely so heavily on figuring out words from context, they cannot read names of any type (street names, names of people, businesses, cities, etc.). Even simple words are an impossible challenge for them.

To give you an idea, they could read the word “jump” or “bump”—perhaps because they would have memorized these words at some point during their school lives, but if you gave them the nonsense word that follows the same pattern as bump and jump, such as “zump,” they would have no idea of how to read it. Needless to say, it is impossible for them to read much past primary books because of the need to read vocabulary other than the Dolch words. Because they can’t sound out words at all, they cannot spell at all either.

With such individual needs, the only way we could truly help them in any meaningful way was one-on-one. So, depending on how many of our students show up in a day, they receive an individual lesson of 20 - 40 minutes. Most days, lessons are about 20 minutes long, but we do have some students who are so keen to have longer lessons that they will give up their lunch hour or break time to read.

Darlene and I work in a portable with another teacher who runs the classroom. This allows us to take kids aside (in the cloakroom if you can believe it!) for their reading lessons. Next year, they’ve moved us into the main building to the anteroom of the furnace room. We haven’t decided yet if this is a step up-or down from the cloakroom!

Despite the fact that basically all of the students have been sent to this school as a result of “behaviour problems,” for the most part, poor behaviour isn’t really as much of an issue as you would think. I know that sounds ridiculous, but these students are all really very nice. They are fairly well-behaved kids who learned to mask academic difficulties by becoming behaviour problems. These kids often introduce themselves to any new adult in the building, are polite, hold doors, get along well with their teachers, and are usually willing to help if asked. Despite the fact that sometimes there are behaviour incidents at this school—someone angry at his girlfriend smashed his hand through a window; another stabbed a knife into a wall in a fit of anger at another student and was taken away by the police, DVD players and video cameras that aren’t locked up are quickly stolen. THERE IS ALMOST NO NEGATIVITY OR COERCION AT THIS SCHOOL AT ALL BECAUSE THE STAFF ALL REALIZE THAT IT WON’T GET THEM ANYWHERE (caps added). The students find this refreshing that they can be the nice people they really are instead of engaging in counterwill as they always did previously.

On the down side, most of them are very immature, quite rambunctious, have little self-control, little ambition, are quite loud, have extremely short attention spans, and the swearing is enough to turn your ears blue. They aren’t swearing AT teachers; it’s more or less just the way they talk. Some of them want to curb their swearing. In our classroom, for those who want to quit swearing, a thing started where all the adults make a clucking sound with their tongue if an individual who wants to stop swearing, swears unconsciously. It sounds a bit crazy, but it seems to be helping. (NOTE: A PROCEDURE WAS ESTABLISHED FOR AWARENESS AND REDIRECTION.)

Working one-on-one, Darlene and I have almost no discipline problems to deal with. However, we constantly use the three principles. Positivity is the biggest one! We very quickly learned that we had to word everything we said in positive terms. If we make ANY negative comments or make a joke that a student “can’t take,” we immediately see our students shut down or get angry and defensive. Some of them are so fragile/sensitive that we can’t even speak in a regular speaking voice with them because it will scare them away. With one particular boy, we almost have to whisper during his actual lesson times.

We can NEVER tell any of them they have made a reading mistake. Within a day or two we quickly learned to be proactive—a way of thinking that we picked up from Discipline Without Stress. For example, before they begin to read their passage for the day, we ask them (principle of reflection) what types of things will make them a good reader, but we NEVER correct them if they make an error as they are reading as we sometimes might with our smaller, but more resilient beginning readers who haven’t experienced years of reading/school failure. These older ones simply CAN’T TAKE even the smallest dose of failure.

It’s been a great thing for us to see that this focus on being proactive has really worked academically, too. Despite the fact that we never mentioned ANY errors they were making in their reading, they’ve all become increasingly more accurate as time went by. With a focus entirely on what they SHOULD be doing to become a better reader BEFORE they begin reading, they have all become VERY accurate readers at their own developmental level. It’s been so exciting to see this growth in each of them. Seeing this happen has made us use the same tactics more often with our little kids, too:

—Be proactive in our teaching by telling them what they SHOULD do,
—Point out any specific examples of good things that they are doing, and
—End with a comment such as, “Continue doing THAT.”

We’ve found that this is not only a positive way to teach but it’s effective, too. Although we knew this in theory before, as a result of this job—where the ONLY possibility for working pleasantly with a student is to be 100% positive (not 99%!)—we have now experienced it in a very real way.

Because of our crash course in the need for extreme positivity, we are finding that it’s becoming easier for us to be positive in both of our jobs. We have a lot more patience with our smaller kids now because of our experience with the damaged older kids that we work with. For the older kids, school has been such a negative experience with so many bad memories and resentments that WE SEE FIRST HAND HOW MUCH DAMAGE CAN BE DONE TO A CHILD WHO IS NOT TREATED RESPECTFULLY AND POSITIVELY BY THEIR TEACHERS (caps added).

All of these kids relate stories of their bad memories of trying to learn or get along in elementary school. One boy, who is actually very bright but has some incredible learning disability that makes reading VERY difficult for him, described painfully how he was through the years—often put behind cardboard dividers so he “could concentrate better.” Because he could speak so intelligently and articulately, most of his teachers found it impossible to believe that he COULD NOT read. They thought that he was simply misbehaving and putting on an act. Although I am sure his teachers felt they were trying to do something positive and helpful for him by using a cardboard screen in front of his desk to help him maintain focus, he felt as if he was being singled out for punishment and put in prison. Heartfelt stories like this really hit home and make us think about how we treat each and every one of our little students—especially the ones who are the most challenging and annoying in their behaviour.

So in a nutshell, that gives you a bit of a picture of our job. As I said, we don’t use the hierarchy in a regular classroom discipline sense, but we do use the thinking behind it to motivate the kids. For example, when they choose do something that shows initiative such as telling us that when they write their grocery list they think about some things from our reading lessons that will help them spell more accurately, we have the words and concepts (from the hierarchy) to be able to explain to them that this small thing that they have done is a sign of the highest possible level of human behaviour. CHOOSING to try and improve their literacy skills is concrete proof that they are taking some initiative in their lives. As the kids come to accept and trust us more and more, we are finding ways to offer them valuable Discipline Without Stress understandings. It’s definitely a learning experience that we find challenging but are enjoying.

Kerry

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COMMENT: Darlene and Kerry have established a relationship of trust and noncoercion. These two factors are the foundation of any successful relationship for influencing others in a positive way. For a moment, just think of a friend. Chances are that if that person continually attempted to coerce you or if you did not trust that person, the friendship would not last.

In my own classroom, students would admit to and redirect their inappropriate behaviors based on these two factors. Students knew that my only interest was for them to become more responsible—that I had absolutely no interest in punishing them. I also had positive expectations for them by continually referring to the Hierarchy of Social Development and prompting them to reflect when they behaved inappropriately.

More of Kerry’s posts can be read at Discipline Answers.

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Posted In: Promoting Learning On: June 30, 2008: 7:47 am: By Marvin Marshall

Responsible people are happy people.
Happy people are responsible people.
Responsibility and happiness feed on each other.

Dr. Jim Sutton expanded on this concept when he wrote in his blog:

Dr. Marvin Marshall (www.marvinmarshall.com), my friend in California and founder of the acclaimed “Discipline Without Stress” ‘program, suggests young people sometimes misbehave for two clear and addressable reasons:
1. They are unhappy.
2. Their behavior is their attempt to “fix” the problem.

We best not lose the message of these two statements in their simplicity. They come very, very close to saying all we need to know about behavior in children and adolescents. Unfortunately, it is often the case that we consider neither of these reasons in working with the disruptive and defiant child; we simply want the behavior to stop.

James Sutton, Educator and Psychologist
James D. Sutton, Ed.D, CSP

Blog: http://itsaboutthem.wordpress.com
Website: http://www.docspeak.com
Author of the bestseller, “101 Ways to Make Your Classroom Special”

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Posted In: Increasing Effectiveness On: June 27, 2008: 7:50 am: By Marvin Marshall

Dad, can I speak to you about something?” asked Tom.

“Let me guess. You want to borrow the car?” his dad joked.

“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s about Jim and something that happened at school today.”

“Isn’t Jim that kid on the track team with you?”

“Yeah.”

“You two are pretty good friends, aren’t you?”

“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. You see, there’s another guy on the team named Eric who got into a fight with Jim after practice. I tried to break it up, but the coach pulled all three of us aside. I told the coach that I was only trying to keep the peace, but then I defended Jim.”

Suddenly Tom was quiet.

“Okay, so what happened next?” prompted his dad.

“I found out later from some other guys on the team that Jim has been bullying Eric for a long time and that today Eric just snapped. They told me about all kinds of rotten things Jim had done when I wasn’t around. Dad, I feel like such a jerk for sticking up for him. I feel like I don’t even know who he is.”

“Well, don’t be so hard on yourself. We all make mistakes. Yours was sticking up for someone without knowing all the facts.”

“You can say that again,” said Tom.

“But the real lesson here has more to do with friendship than anything else,” said Tom’s dad.

“It does?”

“Absolutely. It would be easy to walk away. But friends don’t let each other down. You’ve got to tell Jim that you are disappointed in him.”

“I doubt that he’ll care,” mumbled Tom.

“I disagree,” said his dad. “Jim wanted you to see only the good side of him and that’s why you never knew about the bullying. Since he wants your approval, let him know that you expect more from him. If you do that, he’ll come to expect more from himself. And once that happens, he’ll change and be the kind of friend you won’t mind sticking up for.”

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Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: June 26, 2008: 11:35 am: By Marvin Marshall

I had the pleasure of presenting at the William Glasser Institute’s International Convention in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Dr. Glasser is a psychiatrist whose first contribution was REALITY THERAPY, one of the earliest of what is now referred to as “cognitive psychology.” He then started working with schools and made perhaps his most significant contribution to the field of education when he introduced CLASSROOM MEETINGS. He then extended his ideas by developing “CHOICE THEORY” (originally referred to as “Control Theory), which basically proposes that all we can do is control ourselves by the choices we make. From W.Edwards Deming, Dr. Glasser introduced “LEAD MANAGEMENT” (vs. “Boss Management”). His current thrust is to bring achieving MENTAL HEALTH to the general public.

I propose that if you practice POSITIVITY to yourself as well as with others, if you become conscious of the CHOICES you continually make, and if you REFLECT on how to handle adverse situations (the three principles to practice of Discipline without Stress), you will have good mental health.

Dr. Glasser refers to a person’s “quality world” and that we do things to satisfy our quality world (the pictures in our minds) and avoid those things that don’t. I refer to this as one’s “self-talk”—the conversations we have with ourselves. The most important point to remember here is that if you change the pictures in your quality world—or change your self-talk—you will find it easier to change your behavior.

Here are two thoughts from William Glasser, M.D.:

—All we do is give information to others.
People choose their responses to this “information” that is conveyed in words, tone of voice, gestures and other external stimuli.

—One’s behavior is an attempt to a solve problem.
If you look at a young person’s irresponsible behavior as an attempt to fix a frustration, your chances of working with the person—rather than doing something “to” the person—will increase.

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Posted In: Increasing Effectiveness On: June 25, 2008: 7:29 am: By Marvin Marshall

I was asked what sets my discipline approach apart from others. Without hesitation, I said, “The hierarchy and self-monitoring.”

The next question came, “Whose hierarchy?”

I responded, “Mine.”

“Do you refer to it as ‘My Hierarchy’ and, if not, what do you call it?”

I responded, “The Hierarchy of Social Development.”

The conversation concluded with the question, “Since it is
YOUR hierarchy, then why don’t you call it the ‘Marshall
Hierarchy’?”

I pondered the question and concluded that when I refer to other hierarchies, I refer to them preceded by the name associated with each, viz., Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Jean Piaget’s hierarchy of cognitive development, and Lawrence Kohlberg’s hierarchy of moral development.

Perhaps reference to the Marvin Marshall Hierarchy of Social Development may satisfy some ego, but I do not plan to attach my name to it. If other’s do now and/or in the future, that is their decision. But as far as I am concerned it is just the Hierarchy of Social Development.

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Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: June 24, 2008: 12:09 pm: By Marvin Marshall

Here is an interesting e-mail I received that deserves sharing:

I teach in a school in Sydney, Australia. I recently did a course in Choice Theory and saw your book at the course. Having read it, I decided I would try to implement your ideas. I was also curious to find out more and discovered your site when I did a search. Although I am still a novice, I can say that your system does work, and for the first time this year one of my most difficult classes has finally settled down and there is real learning happening.

Mersina

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Note: “Choice Theory” is a registered trademark of the William Glasser Institute. It is the basis for training in REALITY THERAPY, QUALITY SCHOOL EDUCATION, and LEAD MANAGEMENT. More about the institute can be fund at www.wglasser.com.

(I am “Glasser certified” and speak at the institutes’s international conferences. The concepts of noncoercion and accepting responsibility for one’s decisions are prime characteristics of William Glasser’s and my approach.)

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Posted In: Increasing Effectiveness On: June 23, 2008: 7:51 am: By Marvin Marshall

Discipline Without Stress (DWS) uses no coercion of any kind. This does not mean that the approach is permissive, “soft,” or lacks authority. The message is that, one way or another, DWS will help young people help themselves to become more responsible, more successful, and more pleased with themselves.

IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR IS AN INDICATION OF NOT BEING HAPPY.

Irresponsible behavior is also an indication of not feeling successful. POOR BEHAVIOR IS AN ATTEMPT TO SATISFY A PROBLEM. The DWS approachis is o help the student using the Discipline Without Stress Teaching Model.

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Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: June 20, 2008: 7:22 am: By Marvin Marshall

QUESTION:

I believe in the Discipline Wihout Stress approach, but what should I do with the students who prompt me to yearn for that ditch digging job that I hated as a kid?

RESPONSE:

1. Revisit the impulse management link. You may even want to copy and learn the dialog. Continue to repeat the mantra, “Do you want to remain a victim?” If the procedure established was not effective, then repeat the conversation, “Let’s try another procedure so that you will not continue to be a victim of your impulses.”

2. Re-read “Solving Circles” on pages 156-157 in the book. Select that student as one of the participants and yourself as the other.

3. Ask for help. Even Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince” that receiving something from your subjects will gain as much loyalty as your giving something to them. A conversation with a student sounds like, “Lee, I have a problem and the only one who can help me is you. Are you willing?” (Of course, Lee is the problem. Share it.)

4. Empower the student. Put the student in charge of the activity. It is nearly impossible to do the opposite of that for which you are in charge.

5. Of all the reflective and self-evaluative questions suggested in the book, use the four questions for changing behavior (pp.19-20): (1) What do you want? (2) What are you choosing to do? ((3) What is your plan? (4) What is your procedure to implement the plan? Notice that self-evaluation and reflection are built into these questions because what the youngster is doing is not getting what the youngster wants.

6. Hold a classroom meeting (pp 128-140). “We are all in this together and Lee is having a problem rising to Level C or D. What do you (class) suggest we do to help Lee? (Lee must be present, and Lee will get an understanding of how his behavior affects others, and students will suggest ideas that you would never have thought of yourself.} See “Classroom Meetings” “at Sample Chapters

7. Spend some time tutoring the student (pp. 126-127). Even if it is for one minute, you will notice or create some positive comment about the student that will prompt good feelings and lead the way to bonding.

Having the student bond with you by your positive and empowering remarks will do more than anything else to promote responsible behavior and a desire for the student to do what you desire the student to do.

Notice that all of these use the three principles of positivity, choice, and reflection described in depth in Chapter I of the book and outlined in the Discipline Without Stress Teaching Model.

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Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: June 19, 2008: 8:27 am: By Marvin Marshall

When turtles are born, they know everything they need to know to live for 50 or so years. Since learning is one of the joys of living, I don’t think turtles have very much fun.

Learning brings growth, and both the process and result of learning can be enjoyable. Watch anyone at any age who is involved in any mental activity for any length of time and ask the person the reason for the involvement. The response will inevitably include the fun factor.

A characteristic of successful leaders, teachers, and parents is that they make learning enjoyable; they make it fun.

On the other hand, think of someone who has given up learning because, like the turtle, the person already knows everything.

As you think of such a person—someone who knows everything, someone who doesn’t listen to you because that person knows better—don’t you find that the person isn’t any fun to be around?

More information on this and similar topics are available at the articles link.

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Posted In: Promoting Learning On: June 18, 2008: 8:10 am: By Marvin Marshall

If you ask yourself how you know someone cares for you, one of your responses is likely to be that you know because the person listens to you.

Ask a husband about a good wife, and he is likely to say that he knows his wife cares for him because she listens to what he has to say. Ask a wife about a good husband, and she’ll respond that he listens to her.

When the parent says, “It’s about time you started listening to me,” the youngster may be thinking, “It’s about time you started listening to me.”

Even if we are saying something that is not really worth listening to, we still want someone to listen to us.

Ask a person in a poor relationship why the person feels that way, and the person will say that the other person “doesn’t care about me.” Ask, “How do you know?” and more often then not the response will be, “He doesn’t listen to me.”

Caring and listening are prime sources of good relationships. They are so intertwined that if you experience one, you also experience the other.

More information on this and similar topics are available at the newsletter index.

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Posted In: Improving Relationships On: June 17, 2008: 7:50 pm: By Marvin Marshall