Discipline for Smart People    

Here is a simple but highly effective idea to improve relationships:

Periodically ask yourself, “Am I a joy to be around?”

 Print This Post
Posted In: Improving Relationships On: July 10, 2008: 7:52 am: By Marvin Marshall

We often want to assist people by telling them what to avoid. Upon analysis, you will discover that so often when you tell a person what to avoid, the opposite results. The reason is that the brain does not envision “don’t” or any other negative-type word. The brain envisions pictures, illusions, visions, and images.

Here is an example: Don’t think of the color blue. What color did your brain envision?

Here is another example:
Think of any house pet—except a little white kitten with a bright red bow around its neck.

The park sign, “Don’t walk on the grass” is less effective than “Please use walkways.”

The teacher who tells the student not to look at his neighbor’s paper is having the student’s brain envision looking at the neighbor’s paper.

I saw an incident reinforcing this point. A mother sitting next to her three-year old son told him to keep his feet off of the seat in front of him. I watched as the child stretched out his feet against the seat.

The evening of this incident, I spoke to 100 parents. I gave the example of the mother whose youngster wets his bed and her admonishing the child not to wet his bed the next time he goes to sleep. The image that the mother inadvertently prompted was a wet bed. I suggested that greater success in reaching the desired goal would be achieved if the mother would have said, “Let’s see if we can keep our bed dry tonight.”

The next day during the school staff in-service, Larry Ouimette, the superintendent of the Lac de Flambeau School District, related to me a story. His 4-year-old son had often wet his bed. After hearing me talk, he told his son, “See if you can keep your bed dry tonight.” The next morning, the youngster ran to his father who was in the kitchen and proudly pulled him to the bedroom to point out that he had kept his bed dry all night.

The brain is a marvelous instrument that is easily swayed by external factors, such as images presented to it.

The points here are two:
(1) The brain conjures up pictures, not text. The words,”Don’t” and “Avoid,” simply do not register so much as what comes after these words.

(2) When the EXPECTATION OF WHAT IS DESIRED is articulated, chances are greater that people will do what is suggested. Simply stated, always conjure up what you do want, not what you do not want.

 Print This Post
Posted In: Increasing Effectiveness On: July 9, 2008: 12:03 pm: By Marvin Marshall

When students are standing around watching bullying behavior, they become accomplices. The bully wants to show off. A person on Level D of the social development hierarchy—one who understands that democracy and responsibility are inseparable—will TAKE THE INITIATIVE in an attempt to disperse the crowd and remove a prime motivational factor for the bully.

How do you get people to WANT to take the initiative to act responsibly? I believe it’s done by understanding the relationship between the brain and the body—by communicating ideas so that positive emotions kick in. Only by tapping into positive emotions will young people feel that they WANT to do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do—regardless of peer influence. It is through positive emotions that young people WANT to behave responsibly and WANT to put forth effort to learn because they understand that doing so is in their own best interests—in addition to the best interests of others. This is a description of Level D motivation on the hierarchy of personal and social development referred to above.

 Print This Post
Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: July 8, 2008: 8:21 am: By Marvin Marshall

To be most effective, communicate not only to prompt thinking but to also prompt good feelings. This is especially the case when you would like to put a stop to irresponsible behavior—such as bullying. The approach described below was first posted at the mailring by Joy Widmann from Robert Redmond, a 4th grade teacher.

Explain the MOTIVATION of those students whose behavior is on Level B of the levels of social development—those who boss and bully others.

Use a ruler or a meter stick (yard stick in the U.S.A.) to demonstrate a teeter-totter (see-saw). Hold it flat, parallel to the floor, and describe that this is how it looks when people are balanced with themselves and with others—when they are making responsible choices.

However, when one person starts to pick on another person, the teeter-totter gets out of balance. The person who is picked on starts to feel as if he/she is “lower” than the other person. But, in reality, the bully who forces the tilt is actually the one who is out of balance and feeling bad about her/himself. (Tilt the teeter-totter out of balance to show this.)

The bullying behavior is actually an attempt to pull the other person down to the bully’s level–to try to bring things back into balance from the bully’s perspective. (Balance the teeter-totter by bringing the higher side down.)

People should see the bully as someone who is having a bad day or feeling bad for some reason. Challenge students to keep this in mind as they decide how to respond to bullying behavior.

With younger kids, prompt them to say, “Sorry you are having a bad day.” The usual result is that the bully is left speechless. Many times the choice is simply to recognize what is going on and walk away, realizing that the one with the problem is the bully.

Having youngsters understand that bullying behavior indicates that the bully is “out of balance” is empowering and very liberating.

The discussion also opens the eyes of the bully. No one wants to be known as someone who has problems. These students usually have never thought about their own behavior in this way.

 Print This Post
Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: July 7, 2008: 7:51 am: By Marvin Marshall

Among many questions asked during my school presentations around the world, one in particular prompted me to really reflect. The question was, “What is it that makes your approach so successful?” My response was that I think of how the brain and body are so interrelated that one affects the other. Therefore, I think of how the brain and body react whenever I communicate.

For example, if I compliment you, a good feeling is prompted. In contrast, if I tell you to do something, or criticize you, or blame you for something, then a negative feeling ensues. The mind first processes information (external stimuli); then emotion kicks in. But we oftentimes do not act on cognition; it’s emotion that prompts us to act. Think of any purchase you have recently made. Did you purchase it because you just found out about it, or did you purchase it because you found out about it AND LIKED IT?

In learning,
Emotion drives attention.
Attention drives learning.
Emotionally blocked,
Learning stops.

 Print This Post
Posted In: Promoting Learning On: July 4, 2008: 11:39 am: By Marvin Marshall

This topic of the teen-age brain has been an interesting one to me since so much of what I have read suggests that the development of teenagers’ brains is somewhat “arrested” and that this may be the cause of so much of their behavior.

It has been said that it is easier for adults—in contrast to teenagers—to suppress bad responses to peer influence. Adults are better able to keep themselves doing what is appropriate, rather than subscribing to temptation.

“Discipline without Stress” teaches (a) a hierarchy so young people understand the differences between internal motivation and external motivation—and to be cautious about negative peer influences (b) impulse management—the necessity for having a procedure to redirect impulses and temptations, and (c) choice-response thinking—that a person can always choose a response to any situation, stimulation, or urge.

To point to the brain as the cause of temptation is wrong because both thinking and experiences change the brain. We live in a society where kids are isolated from adults, so they learn from each other. And that can be a recipe for disaster. When a society raises adolescents to experience a smooth, swift transition to adulthood, much of the angst assumed to be a given with teens is absent.

Adolescents in certain cultures are not racked with the turmoil of American teens, indicating that environment, not inherent brain development, may underlie troubled behavior.

 Print This Post
Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: July 3, 2008: 11:51 am: By Marvin Marshall

Thank you for your book! It so nicely synthesizes what we know about “best practice” teaching and classroom management. I love the framework and the language that you use. Since discovering your book, many people on our staff have been doing a book study and plan on implementing your system in our classrooms.

I used much of the system last year and it was my best year of teaching ever!

I am not great at “posing” questions yet, but, “You cannot learn a skill and be perfect at the same time.”

Thanks for writing that!

Sonya Overman
Chamberlain Elementary School
Northern Indiana

Sample chapters from the book are online at the book.

 Print This Post
Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: July 2, 2008: 7:44 am: By Marvin Marshall

Posts at the mailring:

QUESTION:
I received my “Discipline Without Stress” book and started introducing the levels and changing my behaviors. My question is how do I set everything up for the beginning of the year? What do I communicate to parents? I have to turn in a class discipline plan to my principal. What would it look like on paper? I usually send this same plan home to parents. Before I have always had the standard (1) warning, (2) 5 minutes time out, (3) 15-minute time out, (4) note home, and (5) trip to office. Very concrete, easy for principal and parents to understand, but it did not work.

RESPONSE:
The book has excellent forms in the back that you can use in your class to introduce the system. I used the parent letters and reflective essays almost word for word—just signed my name! I also made each child a copy of the hierarchy for them to refer to throughout the year to keep in their notebooks. I also made a big poster-sized version of it to hang on the wall. I made it look kind of like a stop light with a red, green and yellow circle for each level. Good luck! The book is very helpful!

 Print This Post
Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: July 1, 2008: 11:23 am: By Marvin Marshall