Positive Discipline in the Classroom

Adults are here to mentor and protect children. Too many adults believe that children can't learn without suffering. Punishment seems to be a popular method for "making" kids behave. In this excerpt, you'll discover why punishment doesn't work and what you can do instead.  

Excerpt from Positive Discipline in the Classroom

Focusing on Solutions Instead of Punishment

"There are no ills created by democracy that can't be cured by more democracy."
—Rudolf Dreikurs

ANY FORM OF punishment or permissiveness is both disrespectful and discouraging. Punishment is based on several false premises:

1. To make children do better, we first have to make them feel worse.
2. It is more important to make children pay for what they have done than to learn from what they have done.
3. Children learn better through control and intimidation than through exploring the results of their choices in a nurturing environment.

Would any of these methods inspire you to improve your behavior? Would you want to work for a boss who used these methods? How would you feel if your spouse treated you this way? When looked at in this light, these methods of discipline do not make sense, and yet they are used "in schools all the time.

Common forms of punishment found in our schools include sending students to the principal, having students pick up garbage on the grounds (even though they didn't put the garbage there), calling home to tell parents their children are in trouble at school; putting students' names on the board, humiliating students in front of their classmates, giving students punitive time-outs, and giving them detentions and suspensions.

Good Intentions Do Not Necessarily Equal Good Results

MOST TEACHERS MEAN well when they administer punishment. They believe punishment is the best way to motivate students to behave properly. If the misbehavior stops for a while because of punishment, teachers may be fooled into thinking they were right. However, when teachers become aware of the long-range effects of punishment on students, they naturally want to learn more respectful methods of motivating students to behave properly.

The long-range results of punishment are rebellion or compliance. Compliance may seem like a good thing, but not when the price is low self-esteem, reduced confidence, and blind obedience. Some students who are punished comply. However, their behavior is often motivated by the fear of getting into trouble instead of the desire to cooperate out of respect for self and others. Other students openly or passively rebel in response to punishment. In any case, punishment creates the development of an external locus of control instead of an internal locus of control based on self-discipline and social interest.

Change Is a Process of Education and Practice

WHEN YOU FIRST begin to hold class meetings, you may notice that students tend to think up very punitive suggestions while brainstorming. Many of their ideas are modeled on their experiences with punitive parents and teachers. Children live what they learn. Punishment has no place in the Positive Discipline classroom.

To create a nurturing, respectful environment that is conducive to learning, teachers must take the first step to eliminate humiliation and punishment. Teachers can help young people follow their lead by teaching skills for finding non-punitive solutions. You will need an entire class meeting (after forming a circle and compliments) to teach the eighth and final building block for effective class meetings. Explain that the meeting will be dedicated to learning another important form of encouragement, using non-punitive methods for dealing with problems. The focus will be on finding solutions instead of using punishment.

Building Block 8: Focus on Non-punitive Solutions

Start with a discussion that helps your students increase their understanding of the negative effects of punishment. Use one or both of the following discussion topics: "What does punishment invite?" or "Do you have to feel worse to do better?"

What Does Punishment Invite?

Ask the following questions and write students' answers on the board or on flip chart paper. (Writing down what students say is a good way to show them that their answers count and that you are taking them seriously.) You might want to use a different sheet of paper for each question.

What is the first thing you want to do when someone hurts you? What do you want to do when someone bosses you?
What do you want to do when someone calls you names or puts you down?
How many of you think any of these things help you behave better? What would help you behave better?

Don't be surprised if some students believe that punishment motivates them to do better. This belief may be due to several possibilities. (1) Students may believe this because they have heard it from adults for so long. But students' behavior doesn't match their belief. In other words, even though students believe that punishment motivates them to do better, they don't do better after being punished. Dreikurs used to say" "Watch the movement." Pay more attention to the tongue in the shoes (what people do) than to the tongue in the mouth (what people say). (2) It may be true that a fear of punishment motivates students to do better, but often only when they think they might get caught. In other words, students have developed an external locus of control. (3) A fear of punishment motivates improved behavior, but the price is low self-esteem and a fear of taking risks. These students become "approval junkies" and depend on the opinion of others for their sense of self-worth.

Look at the list of ideas generated by your students when answering the question, "What would help you behave better?" Discuss with students which of their suggestions would be considered encouragement and which would be discouragement. Write an "E" next to those that would be encouraging and a "0" next to those that would be discouraging.

Do You Have to Feel Worse to Do Better?

Ask a volunteer to make the following poster to help the class remember that encouragement is more effective than punishment.

Where did we ever get the crazy idea that to make people do better, we first have to make them feel worse? People do better when they feel better.

Now, ask students to think of a time when someone tried to motivate them to do better by making them feel worse. If students don't mention grounding, spanking, scolding, and taking away privileges, make sure you add them to the list. Ask students to remember exactly what happened, as though they were reliving the event, and to recall how they felt. Discuss what they decided about themselves, about others, or about what to do as a result of that experience. Share the following chart with your students. Ask, "How many of you think that the student in the chart is deciding to be more responsible and cooperative in the future? What other things do you think this student might be deciding to do in the future?

Invite a student to give an example of how he or she would answer the same questions. Write the student's responses on the board or on flip chart paper. Then ask all students to think of how they would answer the same questions. Ask if anyone would like to share his or her answers.

Ask students if they would be willing to learn more respectful ways to help each other improve their behavior-ways that don't include any punishment. There are probably not many students who would resist this invitation. Tell your students that they can learn how to brainstorm for solutions that are better than punishment-and even better than consequences.

Going Beyond Consequences

Although children hate being punished, they can be very reluctant to give up the power to punish others. It takes time for them to learn to use power in positive ways instead of trying to have power over others. One way for them to learn this is to have it modeled by teachers. Therefore, teachers have to learn positive ways to model and teach respectful behavior. The first step is to go beyond consequences.

In the first edition of this book, we encouraged the use of logical consequences. For several reasons we are now discoursing that concept and encouraging people to focus on solutions.

1. Too many teachers and students misuse the concept of logical consequences. They try to disguise punishment by calling it a logical consequence.
2. Rudolf Dreikurs taught that logical consequences are appropriate only for the goal of Undue Attention, yet most adults and students try to use consequences for all behaviors. Dreikurs also said that logical consequences are only on possibility for dealing with Undue Attention.
3. Misused consequences often make class meetings seem more like a kangaroo court than a nurturing place where students can help each other explore the natural consequences of their choices in a safe environment and learn from their mistakes. (Notice that helping students explore the consequences of their choices is much different from imposing a consequence.)

An amazing difference in brainstorming takes place when students focus on solutions instead of on consequences. Experiment for yourself. Use the following activity to see what your students do when focusing on solutions.

More......

Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott and H. S. Glenn. Three Rivers Press, New York, revised 3rd Edition, 2007.