Safe and Civil Schools Approach
Safe and Civil Schools material is designed
to teach school personnel to apply
behavior analysis in humane and
respectful ways.
Key Terms in that simple statement:
– Behavior analysis
– Apply
– Humane
– Respectful
Behavior Analysis
• Consists of data driven decisions and
manipulating the ABC’s– antecedents, behavior
and consequences. This by no means, new
information
• Manipulation of four variables- two “A”s and two
“C”s:
– Modify the structure and organization of the setting
– Clarify and teach expectations
– Provide positive consequences when students are
meeting expectations
– Provide effective corrective consequences when
students violate expectations.
Apply: Why is this so difficult?
• Behavior problems pose a direct threat to people
in authority.
• When staff are threatened, stressed or fatigued
they tend to revert to what is automatic…not
what they intellectually understand.
• School-wide application requires unity, followthrough, and a willingness to focus on variables
within the staff’s control
• Staff need training across time (with lots of
examples), and coaching (with respect and
passion) in order to “apply” the four variables
“ When you want to convert someone to
your view, you go over to where he is
standing, take him by the hand and guide
him.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas
Apply
Staff should be knowledgeable about how to
modify the four variables
1. Modify the structure and organization of the
setting
Conscious construction of school and classroom climate (e.g.,
schedules, physical space, procedures, coordination, and
consistency of staff.)
2. Clarify and teach expectations
Consistent and detailed expectations taught in ageappropriate ways ( e.g., lessons across time..sports coaching
model)
Apply
3. Provide positive consequences when students
are meeting expectations
Contingent (meaningful) positive feedback and non-contingent
attention (e.g., ratios of interaction)
4. Provide effective corrective consequences
when students violate expectations
Instructional corrective techniques when students lack
information and mildly punitive techniques when
needed (e.g., fluent corrections that maintain
instructional flow and do not provide unnecessary
attention to the misbehavior)
Why are “Humane” and
“Respectful” essential factors?
“ We should take care not to make the
intellect our god; it has, of course,
powerful muscles, but no personality”.
-Albert Einstein
Why are “Humane” and
“Respectful” essential factors?
“Not everything that counts can be counted,
and not everything that can be counted
counts.”
-From a sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton
Humane
Treating people humanely and with dignity is
a pre-requisite if students are to feel
connected to school.
1. Modify the structure and organization of
the setting.
It is possible to over-structure, or to structure in
demeaning ways
2. Clarify and teach expectations
Lessons can create an assumption of high or low
expectations and compliance or non-compliance
Humane
3. Provide positive consequences when
students are meeting expectations
Positive feedback can feel impersonal and manipulative
or generous and sincere in intent.
4. Provide effective corrective
consequences when students violate
expectations.
Corrective consequences can feel coercive and meanspirited or supportive and instructional.
Respectful
Treating people with respect provides a foundation
for building social/emotional relationships.
Positive relationships between students and adults
create an entirely different, and far richer,
context for the four variables
1. Modify the structure and organization of the setting
2. Clarify and teach expectations
3. Provide positive consequences when students are meeting
expectations.
4. Provide effective corrective consequences when students
violate expectations.
The Results?
The results of doing all these things well can
be:
• Dramatic
• Gratifying
• Exciting