A resource about classroom management and behavior change methods
Shelly Slater of Dallas (TX, US) television station WFAA published a story entitled “Video shows Dallas bus driver choking student” that alleges that bus driver Janet Pitts assaulted a student named Xavier Nava in January of 2007. Ms. Slater reported that Ms. Pitts was removed from her position by the Dallas schools, reinstated, and then resigned voluntarily before the news story ran.
Continue reading ‘Doesn’t have to happen’
During today’s behavior management class, we spent a little time talking about differential reinforcement of incompatible (DRI) behavior. I asked students to list a behavior they didn’t want to have occur in their own classrooms and then identify an incompatible, pro-social opposite (IPSO) for that behavior. We then talked about using DRI to promote the IPSO. In a later part of the class I harangued the students with the importance of creating a learning environment that promotes academic success for learners, explaining that engaging students in academic tasks at which they can succeed (i.e., learn) was a big-time IPSO.
When I got back to my office, I found that I’d received a notice about a cartoon that makes the same point. Even though I don’t know enough about the success record for Singapore Math, the idea works. Click on the miniature of the cartoon or jump to it on Weapons of Math Destruction.
Sphere: Related ContentIn a story headlined “AC/OV spankings on the decline,” Carleta Weyrich of the The People’s Defender (OH, US) reported that spankings were used in two of the seven Ohio Valley School local education agency (LEA). The 11 spankings reported in the past two years represents a decline from previous time periods, according to school officials.
Sphere: Related ContentAdams County/Ohio Valley School district held its annual public corporal punishment meeting on Aug. 25 to discuss the use of spanking in its schools. AC/OVSD is one of 17 districts in the state of Ohio to permit its staff to spank students.
Continue reading ‘End corporal punishment’
A few years ago, Karen Oswald and colleagues reported the results of an investigation of the use of positive behavior supports (PBS) on middle-school students’ behavior in hallways during the passing time between the last morning class and the lunch period. They worked with a team of school personnel and developed a school-wide plan based on the work of Geoff Colvin and his colleague’s Project PREPARE, which was an exemplary effort to create safe and positive learning environments developed and tested during the early 1990s. The study showed that the program the school PBS team implemented produced substantial (effect size ≈ 0.49) improvements in hallway behavior, with overall frequency of a combination of problem behaviors (running, jumping, kicking, screaming, cursing, and pushing) reduced as much as 50%.
Continue reading ‘Improving hallway behavior’
In “Calm Down or Else,” (15 July 2008) Benedict Carey reports about a possible increase in the use of restraints, seclusion, and other physically coercive methods to manage disruptive behavior.
Sphere: Related ContentFor more than a decade, parents of children with developmental and psychiatric problems have pushed to gain more access to mainstream schools and classrooms for their sons and daughters. One unfortunate result, some experts say, is schools’ increasing use of precisely the sort of practices families hoped to avoid by steering clear of institutionalized settings: takedowns, isolation rooms, restraining chairs with straps, and worse.
Continue reading ‘Unrestrained management’
Over on Teachers at Risk Elona Hartjes has a post worth a read. In “Strategies for dealing with kids who get physcially aggressive with teachers- Part 1- Establishing the classroom climate,” Ms. Hartjes explains the value of creating a positive environment with adolescents, including establishing rules (though she prefers to call them “agreements”). Read the entire post.
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