Download Application Problem #1 Personal Model of Discipline

Application Problem #1
Personal Model of Discipline
Naomi Munk I have named my personal model of discipline “Reaching Cooperative Understandings” to reflect a positive, collaborative approach to classroom discipline where teacher and student have equal roles in establishing rules and consequences of the classroom community. I have used Rudolph Dreikurs’ discipline model of “Logical Consequences” as a jumping off point for my personal model of discipline while giving serious consideration to Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s theories of moral development. My personal model supports individual student development and empathy while guiding students to an understanding that their actions impact their community. This balance between the needs of the individual and the classroom community places my model, “Reaching Cooperative Understandings” at medium control within the continuum of discipline models. As with Dreikurs’ Logical Consequences model, my discipline model relies on positive reinforcement and understanding of actions over punishment to correct behavior. I also support Dreikurs’ belief that consequences should be “directly and logically related to the behavior” (Burden, 24). At the basis of Dreikurs’ model, however, is the belief that a child misbehaves only when he does not feel a sense of belonging. Instead, I will place the basis of my discipline model in the theories of Piaget and Kohlberg’s theories of moral development. Piaget explained children’s thinking in two stages: external morality and autonomous morality. In the first stage, external morality, “children view rules as fixed and permanent and enforced by authority figures” (Eggen, 81). Until the age of about ten, children cannot fully grasp the reasoning behind rules so instead base their sense of morality on the authority figure. If we turn to Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development, we can see that Kohlberg’s Stage 1: Punishment-­‐Obedience reflects this same believe Kohlberg describe that at this punishment-­‐
obedience stage, “people make moral decisions based on their chances of getting caught and Application Problem #1
Personal Model of Discipline
being punished” (Eggen, 82). Children at this stage therefore classify morally wrong acts as ones for which they get caught and morally good acts as ones with which they get by. In Piaget’s second stage of moral development, children at about age ten reach autonomous morality when “children develop rational ideas of fairness and see justice as a reciprocal process of treating others as they would want to be treated” (Eggen, 81). Children at this stage begin to self-­‐monitor their behavior as they think through how their actions will affect others. The autonomous reality stage aligns with Kohlberg’s Stage 2: Market Exchange in his stages of moral reasoning. People in the market exchange stage “feel that an act is morally justified if it results in an act of reciprocity on someone else’s part” (Eggen, 83). Kohlberg and Piaget align on the belief that children begin to consider how their actions affect the larger community, though it is not until Stage Three: Interpersonal Harmony of Kohlberg’s theory when people truly begin to place others or the community as an equal motivator for positive behavior and actions. The stages of moral development imply that the discipline model for a first grader will vary greatly from the discipline model of a fifth grader. I return to Dreikurs to address his three-­‐step model for how to respond to student misbehavior while going more in-­‐depth to show how the model can be adjusted for use across the elementary grade levels. Dreikurs first instructs the teacher to identify the goal of the misbehavior while the teacher considers her feelings and reactions to identify the meaning behind the misbehavior and ask the student. Then, the teacher must adjust how she reacts to the misbehavior and help student change the behavior by discussing alternatives. Finally, Dreikurs instructs to provide encouragement to the students so students can feel confident about their own abilities and associate encouragement with positive behaviors. In a first-­‐grade classroom I would generally address misbehavior considering Piaget’s external morality phase and Kohlberg’s punishment-­‐obedience phase. Most students’ actions in Application Problem #1
Personal Model of Discipline
this classroom will be determined by what they perceive as good or bad behavior and the consequences that result from it. For example, if a student always calls out during class without raising his hand, I would address Dreikurs’ first step by reminding the class as a whole the expectations for raising hands when talking. I would perhaps call on the student who has trouble raising his hand to explain why we raise hands to talk and to set a goal for his behavior. In the second stage of Dreikurs’ process, I would not give immediate attention to the student who calls out and consistently call on those students who have their hands raised. If the student’s calling out persisted, I would call the student aside to have a one-­‐on-­‐one discussion behind the reason for raising our hands when we want to talk. Finally, I would monitor the student’s behavior to look for points on which I can encourage the student when he does comply to raise his hand. With this approach, I am helping the student gain awareness of his place within the classroom community while only responding to behaviors that are seen in their eyes as “good.” In a fifth-­‐grade classroom, I would approach student misbehavior differently considering instead Piaget’s autonomous morality stage and Piaget’s market exchange or interpersonal harmony phases. In the case of a fifth-­‐grade student calling out without raising her hand, I would approach the misbehavior with a longer discussion with the student about the reasoning behind her behavior and the behavior’s impact in the classroom community. During the first step of Dreikurs’ process, I would sit down with the student and point out her habit of calling out without being called on. I would ask the student how this affects her classmates and what she thinks is the appropriate behavior to benefit the classroom community. In Dreikurs’ second step, I would stop recognizing the student’s responses if she called out loud, and if the behavior persists, I would pull the student aside for occasional reminders. Lastly, I would provide encouragement to the student during powerful contexts when she does raise her hand or wait Application Problem #1
Personal Model of Discipline
her turn to talk. For example, if participating in a small-­‐group discussion, I would monitor the student’s behavior to find if I could give her encouragement on how she conducted herself in the small-­‐group discussion. In contrast to the first grader, I can discuss in greater depth the reasoning behind classroom rules and the affects on the classroom community when we stray from the classroom rules. In fact, neither Piaget nor Kohlberg place a definite age at which a child moves from one stage of morality to the next. While a teacher can adopt a general step-­‐process for how to approach discipline (such as the examples of applying Dreikurs’ three-­‐step model above), the teacher must consider above all else the child’s stage of moral development. Just as a teacher assesses a student for where to begin reading instruction, because until the teacher finds the “just-­‐right” text the student will respond to instruction in frustration or with boredom, a teacher must also meet a child at his stage of moral development. Once a teacher and student can meet eye-­‐to-­‐eye, a meaningful discussion will take place between teacher and student, the student will fully understand the reasons why his behavior has been classified as misbehavior, and the student will become motivated to correct that behavior: whether that be to better himself or the classroom community. Application Problem #1
Personal Model of Discipline
Sources Burden, P.R. (2003). Classroom management: Creating a successful learning community (2nd ed. ). USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Eggen, D. & Kauchak, P. (2007) Educational psychology: windows on classrooms (7th ed. ). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.