20th and 21st Century Classroom
Management Pioneers
By
Discipline through Assertive Tactics
Lee and Marlene Canter
• Believed teachers should be in charge of their
classrooms by being “calm, insistent and
consistent” in their interaction with students
• Developed the idea of student & teacher rights
• Suggested that student behavior is tied to meeting
student and teacher needs
• These ideas were known as “Assertive
Discipline”
Discipline through Assertive Tactics
continued
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•
•
•
•
•
Classified three types of teachers:
◦
Hostile: “view students as adversaries”
▪
takes away fun & trust
◦
Nonassertive: “overly passive”
▪
causes student insecurity & frustration
◦
Assertive: model & express clear
expectations
• ▪
meets student & teacher needs
Discipline through Assertive Tactics
continued
• Encourages teachers to write out discipline plan that
includes:
• ◦
Rules: express how students should behave
• ◦
Positive Recognition: rewards students who keep
class expectations
• ◦
Corrective Actions: must be consistent, shows
students they've “chosen the consequences”
• ◦
Discipline Hierarchy List: shares “corrective
actions and the order in which they will be imposed
within the day”
• Suggest that students must be taught the discipline plan
Discipline through Assertive Tactics
Contributions to Discipline
• Created the concept of rights in the
classroom
• Insisted teachers have a “right” to be
supported by administration & parental
support
• Provided procedures for efficient
correction of student misbehavior
Discipline through Democratic Teaching
Rudolf Dreikurs
• Supposed that students behave best when they
believe that good behavior has social value
• Self control can be seen when students “show
initiative, make reasonable decisions, and assume
responsibility”
• Suggests that teachers & students working
together to decide how the class should work,
creating a democratic classroom
• ◦
Autocratic & Pessimistic classrooms don't
have good discipline
Discipline through Democratic Teaching
continued
• Believes students want to behave & belong, this
is their “genuine goal”
• ◦
Students feel they belong when the
teacher & their peers provide “attention, respect,
involve them in activities & don't mistreat them”
• When students don't belong, they:
• ◦
seek attention
• ◦
seek power
• ◦
seek revenge
• ◦
feel inadequate
Discipline through Democratic Teaching
continued
• When students misbehave, they're pursuing
mistaken goals
• ◦
teachers should correct students by
identifying their behavior & discussing the faulty
logic
• Also suggested students & teachers create class
rules together
• ◦
Rules need logical consequences for
following & breaking the rules
• Believed punishment should never be used
Discipline through Democratic Teaching
Contributions
• First to base discipline on social interest
• First to suggest democratic structure of classroom
management
• Suggested teachers use encouragement
• Made several suggestions for teachers about
encouragement, a few:
• ◦
“Always speak in positive terms”
• ◦
Encourage students to seek improvement
• ◦
Focus on student strength
• ◦
Offer comments to encourage students
• Teachers felt his system was difficult to “implement” &
didn't stop immediate disruptions
Discipline through Influencing Group Behavior
Fritz Redl & Wattenberg
• Believes students behave differently in a group
then when they're alone
• Felt group dynamics “strongly affect behavior”
• Suggested students take on different “roles” in
the classrooms
• ◦
Class clown, leader, follower, etc.
• Determined that students have roles teachers are
expected to fill
• ◦
role model, referee, judge, etc.
Discipline through Influencing Group Behavior
Continued
• Determined that student behavior an be
influenced by techniques like:
• ◦
supporting student self control
• ◦
offering situational assistance
• ◦
appraising reality
• Believes that punishment should be rarely
used, never physical, and only consist of
pre-planned consequences
Discipline through Influencing Group Behavior
Contributions
• Identified group behavior as different from individual
behavior
◦
Made it easier for teachers to understand
confusing classroom behavior
• Provided an organized discipline techniques that used
humane strategies
◦
This helped develop and maintain positive
student-teacher relationships
• Stressed understanding why students don't behave
◦
Addressing causes for misbehavior will
eliminate it
Discipline through Influencing Group Behavior
Contributions continued
• Said students should be involved in making
decisions about discipline
◦
This technique is now encouraged by most
everyone
• Showed the negative effects of punishment
◦
Explained why it should not be used in the
classroom
• These techniques were not used widely
◦
Difficult for teachers to understand, put into
practice
Ideas helpful, implementation difficult to do
Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:
B.F. Skinner
• Believed that voluntary action is affected
by immediate reinforcement
• ◦
Rewards help motivate action
• Reward= reinforcement stimulus
• ◦
Must be given immediately after
the good behavior
• ◦
Can be results, awards, free-time,
praise, etc.
Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:
Continued
• Created techniques to use in shaping student
behavior
• ◦
Constant reinforcement: teacher provides
every time student behaves well
• ◦
Intermittent reinforcement: after students
understand the classroom management system
• The result of these techniques is success
approximation:
• ◦
When “behavior comes closer and closer to a
preset goal”
• Believed punishment should not be used because “its
effects were unpredictable”
Discipline through Shaping Desired Behavior:
Contributions
• His ideas led to “behavior modification”
• ◦
Still used today for “strengthening
and encouraging” learning
• Not used as much in upper grades
• ◦
Didn't tell students what “not to do”
• ◦
Teachers ignored misbehavior
• Lengthy process
Improving Discipline through Lesson Management
Jacob Kounin
• Suggested teachers could manage a classroom
well if they knew what was going everywhere in
the classroom at all times
• ◦
Teachers who know what's going on can
anticipate problems and address them before they
occur
• Called teacher awareness “withitness”
• ◦
Created “overlapping,” which means a
teacher was involved with two or more classroom
events at the same time
Improving Discipline through Lesson Management
Continued
• Believed that lessons played a huge part in
classroom management.
• ◦
Group alerting: the whole class is paying
attention before a teacher gives directions
• ◦
Momentum: keeps students focused by
making transitions, efficiency, etc.
• ◦
Smoothness: also helps with
management, as the teacher presents lessons and
teaches them without changes.
• Lesson should keep students from boredom and
frustration
Improving Discipline through Lesson Management
Contributions
• Connected teaching to student behavior &
discipline
• Not wholly adopted because didn't address
how to deal with disruptive misbehavior
Discipline through Congruent Communication
Haim Ginott
• Suggested that learning happened in real time
• Encouraged teachers not to pre-judge students as
learning is personal
• ◦
Teachers should use “congruous
communication,” which “stresses situations, not
students' character or personality”
• Teachers don't “preach, moralize, impose guilt or
demand promises”
• ◦
These are teachers at their best
• ◦
Teachers at their worse “label... belittle...
and denigrate” the characters of their students
Discipline through Congruent Communication
Continued
• Teachers shouldn't dictate, but “invite
cooperation” from students
• ◦
Good teachers use the question “how can
I be most helpful to my students right now?”
• Good discipline involves using “I” instead of
“You” messages
• Suggested that “appreciate praise” is better than
“evaluative praise”
• ◦
Evaluative praise praises what “students
have done, rather than referencing the student
him or herself”
Discipline through Congruent Communication
Continued
• Suggests teachers should respect student privacy
• ◦
Teachers should be available, but not too
curious
• Suggests teachers avoid sarcasm & punishment
• Determines that teachers should avoid behaving
in ways that they don't want their students to
behave
• Believes classroom discipline is a process
Discipline through Congruent Communication
Contributions
• “Showed the importance of the teacher
being controlled”
• Showed how valuable being on the same
wavelength as the students is for teachers
• It's easy to see these ideas in modern
discipline systems
• Some teachers feel the ideas don't stop
misbehaviors quickly
References
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