Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community

1. Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community Kristin Anderson Mike Goetz Sarah Rotarius Mary Gawlik

2. Who is Alfie Kohn? • He has written extensively on education. • Titles include: • No Contest; The Case Against Competition (1986/1992) • The Brighter Side of Human Nature (1990) • You Know What They Say… (1990) • Punished by Rewards (1993) • What to Look For In a Classroom (1998) • The Schools Our Children Deserve (1999) • The Case Against Standardized Testing (2000) • What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? (2004) • Unconditional Parenting (2005) • The Homework Myth (2006)

3. One analyst says this about Alfie Kohn (Joseph Milnes, 2001) • “Alfie Kohn firmly believes that students need to be taught how to be responsible and respectful. Once this is accomplished, all other "content" can be learned at a more "reasonable" rate, with a greater threshold of proficiency. "Adults who are respectful of children are not just modeling a skill or behavior, they are meeting the emotional needs of those children, thereby helping to create the psychological conditions for children to treat others respectfully" (Kohn 1997a). The goal of education is to help students realize that they can think, learn, act, and change things.”

4. One writer who does not agree with Alfie Kohn (Daniel Willingham, 2009) “Kohn specializes in attacking conventional wisdom in education.  He takes a common practice that people think is helpful and then shows it’s not helpful, and in fact is destructive. Most people think that homework helps kids learn, praise shows appreciation and makes them more likely to do desirable things, and self-discipline helps them achieve their goals.  Kohn argues that each of these conclusions is wrong or over-simplified. Homework may bring small benefits to some students, but it incurs greater costs and overall is likely not worth assigning.  Praise doesn’t help academic achievement, it controls children, it reduces motivation, and makes them less able to make decisions. Self-discipline is oversold as an educational panacea, and in some contexts may actually be undesirable.”

5. What makes classrooms extraordinary? • Some classrooms never seem to have discipline problems • So what are these teachers doing or what are they not doing?

6. Is this the only style of classroom management that works?

7. Definition of classroom management – in Kohn’s words The raison d’être of discipline or classroom management is almost always to secure children’s compliance with adults’ demands (Kohn, p xii). It is ... a teacher-directed model, one in which expectations, rules, and consequences are imposed on students. (Kohn, p xii).

8. Why do teachers assume that bad things will happen when we don’t impose rules? Why do we blame the students when things go wrong in our classrooms? Kohn, p xiii

9. In Kohn’s view, classroom management is a short term fix and only stops bad behaviors. • It does not help children become “good people.” Kohn, p xv

10. The nature of children • Is there chaos without rules? • Do children need to be told each and every rule to know what to do? • Is positive reinforcement the only way? • Do children need to be taught to control their impulses?

11. Other theorists say…. • Dreikurs – Children act out to feel significant. • Jones - Working independently is a problem – while the cat’s away, the mice will play. • Canter – Children are not motivated to behave in school.

12. So do we blame the kids? • Or should we blame what we are asking of them?

13. What about the curriculum? Many problems in classrooms stem from what students are being asked to learn. Is the work too boring? Or too hard? Or not meaningful to the student(s)?

14. Do students act up …. to pass time? When students are off task, our first response should be to ask, “What’s the task? “ (Kohn, p 19)

15. “How students act in class is so intertwined with curricular content that it may be folly itself even to talk about classroom management or discipline as a field unto itself.” (Kohn, p 21.)

16. Chapter 3 • Bribes and Threats If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right and wrong according as he finds either of advantage to himself. -Immanuel Kant, Education

17. Disciplinary Techniques Coercion=Power When an adult has the power, they can compel the student to do whatever they want.

18. Punishment • It must be deliberately chosen to be unpleasant. • It must be intended to change the student’s future behavior.

19. Incarcerating students = detention • Exiling students = suspension • Forcibly isolating students = time out

20. The Price of Compliance • Returning to the same strategy means it isn’t effective. • Research shows punishment not only fails to solve problems; it can make them worse. • It teaches a disturbing lesson= power • It warps the relationship between the punisher and the punished. • Punishment impedes the process of ethical development.

21. Why We Punish • Quick and easy • Temporary compliance • We live what we know • It’s expected • It makes us feel powerful • Desire for justice

22. Rewards Do this! --------------------------Get that! Do rewards work? Yes! They give us temporary compliance. Are we genuinely concerned about helping students become caring people? Rewards and punishments only manipulate someone’s actions.

23. Chapter 4 • Punishment Lite: ”Consequences” and Pseudochoice

24. Repackaged Punishment Logical consequences: When you do this, then that will happen.

25. Pseudochoice • Obey or suffer • You punish yourself • Choose……and suffer What message do adults send when they deliberately allow something unpleasant to happen to a child even though they could have intervened?

26. Conventional Punishment vs. Logical Consequences With conventional punishment, a child is left with a sense of self intact and the capacity to stand in opposition to the punisher. Unlike logical consequences which tries to turn the child against herself.

27. Chapter 5 • How Not to Get Control of the Classroom

28. What are our actual goals?(in the classroom) • Conformity and obedience? • Maximize “time on task”? • Promote depth of understanding? • Quiet behavior? • Promote life-long learning? • Promote concern for others?

29. What are our actual goals?(in the classroom) • Alfie Kohn’s contention is that our actual goals are rarely identified. • The idea of classroom management enfolds within it certain goals, and these goals may be problematic.

30. Traditional discipline programs • Assertive Discipline The chief concern is getting students to obey. The methods recommended include dictating, controlling, threatening (except not using those words). We are encouraged to “tell children exactly how we want them to behave”, to impose “limits” as we see fit, and to announce exactly what will happen to anyone who disobeys.

31. Traditional discipline programs • Assertive Discipline Additional goals that are mentioned include developing “responsibility” and “self-esteem”. The underlying principle is that the teacher ought to have unilateral control. This is never explicitly stated. The belief that the teacher should be in control of the classroom just to get students to comply is the common assumption.

32. Traditional discipline programs • Assertive Discipline Overall, (according to Kohn) most of the published research shows the technique to be detrimental or, at best, to have no meaningful effect at all (Emmer and Aussiker 1990; Render, Padilla, and Krank 1989). p. 57

33. New discipline programs • Assertive Discipline (“Sit down and shut up”) • New Disciplines (“Be seated and refrain from talking”)

34. New discipline programs • New Disciplines (“Be seated and refrain from talking”) These programs still accept the premise that the teacher must be in control. The only issues are how benevolent that control will be, and how respectfully that control will be maintained.

35. The problems with the goal “Compliance” • When children are rewarded or threatened into compliance, they will likely feel no commitment to what they are doing. • The more we “manage” students’ behavior, the more difficult it is for them to become morally sophisticated people who think for themselves and care about others. pg. 62

36. Making Moral Meaning • Constructivist model of learning – for both academics and morals: Students must be brought in on the process of devising and justifying ethical principles! • Maximize the opportunity for students to make choices. • Create a caring community in the classroom.

37. Making Moral Meaning Discipline programs can (temporarily) change behavior, but they cannot help people grow.

38. Chapter 6 • A Classroom of Their Choosing

39. Story (pg. 79)

40. Beyond Self-Discipline • Accepting someone else’s expectations is a far cry from developing one’s own. • If we want children to take responsibility, we must first give them responsibility, and plenty of it. pg. 84

41. Beyond Self-Discipline • Structure versus control • What distinguishes an acceptable classroom structure from a mechanism of control is the input students have. • Use classroom meetings as a vehicle for developing the classroom structure.

42. Reflections on Decision-making • Voting is just “adversarial majoritarianism” • It is experience with decisions that helps children become capable of handling them.

43. Reflections on Decision-making • Classroom meetings: • ... a place for sharing • ... a place for deciding • ... a place for planning • ...and a place for reflecting

44. Paradox • A curriculum that urges problem solving and critical thinking... and a management system that requires compliance and narrow obedience!

45. Chapter 7 The Classroom as Community

46. What is a Community? “It is a place in which students feel cared about and are encouraged to care about each other. They experience a sense of being valued and respected; the children matter to one another and to the teacher.” - Kohn

47. True and authentic communities are best created: 1. Over time where trust can be developed. 2. When there are fewer numbers in the classroom and ideally in smaller schools. 3. When the teacher is also a member of a community of adults within the school. PREREQUISITES FOR BUILDING A COMMUNITY

48. Strategies for Building a Community 1. Student relationships with the adults. * Be a person first * Is it alright to leave yourself vulnerable? * Remember details about your students 2. Student to student relationships * Encourage continuous work, play, and reflection with other students 3. Community within the classroom and entire school * Class meetings: discuss problems and rules together * Look at “misbehavior” as How can we help each other? 4. Using academic instruction * Mini-lessons * Discuss problems from the homework

49. *An elementary school program designed to apply the idea of a caring community. * Based on how a community can be created and why its important to build this community. * Stronger the community feel, the more students reported liking school and the more they saw learning as valuable. * Students demonstrated better conflict resolution and caring for others. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

50. Why would the idea of community lack support? What are ways a community can be destroyed? • * Can be a challenge • * Goes beyond teacher-student interactions. We need to look at classroom structures. • * How does the classroom system work? • * Competition and grouping by ability are community destroyers OBJECTIONS