What is Positive Classroom Discipline?
ByOften these days, when it comes to classroom management, ‘positive’ methods get confused with positive results.
To me, a positive environment is one wherein students are attentive, quiet, respectful, and on task or otherwise engaged in learning subject matter.
This kind of classroom discipline is achieved through leverage and accountability, not always through kind words. I have written a manual (Classroom Discipline 101) which outlines classroom discipline techniques and classroom management strategies I have developed over the last twenty years to get any classroom in order. These are culled from real world experience.
There are a lot of movies, administrators and policy makers who do not live in the real world that teachers face in the classroom, where students are often rude, disrespectful, unprepared, shout expletives at teachers and are even sometimes outright nasty.
Hollywood, the L.A. Times, and most policy makers from the Board of Education would have you think differently. They would like to paint a picture of student as victim, with lots of meany teachers telling them how stupid they are as they wait there passively for just one teacher who believes in them to come along and change their life forever by believing in them.
According to Hollywood we are a bunch of vindictive incompetents who just don’t believe in these kids or we would get the same results as Hilary Swank. Please. We need less teachers who want to save the world and more who want to teach.
With poor premises you get poor conclusions.
When it comes to classroom management techniques, if you address it from a perspective that students will behave as long as you are positive and believe in them, your premise is off and things may fall apart quickly.
If you address classroom discipline from the premise that you need accountability from the students for their behavior in every case, and leverage to insure that accountability, you get a respectful, attentive classroom.
That is a very positive thing–that is my idea of positive classroom discipline.
Here’s to enjoying your classroom experience–
Craig Seganti
Wow, I love this, “To me, a positive environment is one wherein students are attentive, quiet, respectful, and on task or otherwise engaged in learning subject matter. This kind of classroom discipline is achieved through leverage and accountability, not always through kind words.” How often do you hear this today. It is usually the “kind words” approach. You know, talk about it, reason.
Cristy
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