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CHAPTER 11
Fundamental Hypothesis of Discipline through SelfRestitution
Self-restitution, which involves regular reflection on
personal behavior, helps students learn to profit from
mistakes and become better able to conduct
themselves in harmony with their needs and inner
sense of morality.
Gossen’s Contributions to Classroom Discipline
􀂉 Developed the process of self-restitution, identified
the main characteristics of the restitution
healing process, and visualized the process in the
restitution triangle.
􀂉 Offered steps and tools to guide teachers and
students through the process.
Strengths of Gossen’s Work
• A system of discipline that has teachers helping
students toward harmony with their needs and inner
sense of morality.
• Presents a visual representation of how the restitution
process works.
• Restitution has power to repair an immediate wrong
and lead to improved behavior in the future.
• Offers steps and tools to guide teachers and students
through the restitution process.
Challenges of Gossen’s
Work
• Asks teachers to think in terms of “My
personal job as manager” and “Teacher
I want to be.”
• Asks students to think in terms of “My
personal job as student” and “Student I
want to be.”
• Teachers may be reluctant to make
these changes in their thinking and
actions.
Characteristics of the restitution healing process.
• Restitution is pay-forward, which provides a means for
becoming a better person. It is not payback, which
repairs a harm.
• It is restorative and healing because it meets the
needs of all who are involved.
• It provides a means for dealing with root causes of
problems.
• It focuses on solutions and restores and strengthens
relationships.
• It operates through invitation, not coercion.
• It teaches persons to look inside themselves, identify
the need behind problematic behavior, and visualize
the kind of person they want to be.
• It creates solutions to problems and restores the
offender to the group.
The restitution triangle visualizes how the restitution
process works.
• First, stabilize the offending student by removing fear
or anger so learning can take place (the base of the
triangle).
• Second, help students understand that people always
do things for a reason—to meet their needs—and
usually they are doing the best they know how, under
the circumstances (the left side of the triangle).
• Third, encourage the student to reflect on the behavior
and judge it against the image of the person s/he
would like to be (the right side of the triangle).
Least coercive road—when teachers use a number of steps and tools to provide a
rich
environment in which students learn because they want to learn.
• Step One: Open the Territory—Maximizing Freedom. Teachers identify and
address only
what they believe is truly important in class behavior, thus reducing the number of
interventions into student behavior.
Tool: What Does It Really Matter? [Gossen suggests strong limits only on behavior
that
pertains to safety, proper function in class, or other matters about which we have
especially
strong convictions.]
Tool: Yes , If . . . . Saying “yes” as often as possible, rather than “no,” when
responding to
student requests.
• Step Two: Establishing the Social Contract—Building a Sense of Belonging.
Teacher and
students work collaboratively to describe how they want to be together in the class.
Tool: What We Believe. Activities that produce a list of desirable qualities that
students
agree on.
Tool: Social Contract. Formalized agreements concerning desirable and undesirable
Step Three Establishing Limits—Clarifying Personal Power. By
identifying understandings, guidelines, and limits, students have
a portion of the load, thus bringing about a shift in balance of
responsibility for classroom demeanor.
Tool: Roles—My Job, Your Job. After together creating a list of roles
and jobs that clarify their view of how they should function in the
class (what is and is not expected of each),
teacher and students extend their thinking. Teachers should think in
terms of “My personal job as manager” and “Teacher I want to
be.” Students should think in terms of “My personal job as
student” and “Student I want to be.”
Tool: Rules and the Bottom Line. Rules are used to impose
external control. Restitution involves beliefs that are used to
develop internal control. Bottom line refers to the point beyond
which a student is not allowed to transgress without
consequences.
Step Four Restitution—Making Things Right and Healing Oneself.
Restitution makes amends to the victim and helps offenders to
heal themselves.
Tool: Understand and Teach Restitution. Restitution seeks to
identify the basic need behind the problems. Thus, teachers
must help students understand that everyone has needs for
love,
power, freedom, fun, and survival, and behavior is associated with
one or more of these needs. Teacher helps offenders look inside
themselves and identify the basic need behind the problem.
Focus on needs reduces combativeness. It also collapses the
conflict that might
otherwise exist, and helps find solutions that work for all involved.
Tool: Function as a Manager of Restitution. As managers of
restitution, teachers help misbehaving students most by asking
to work with them to invent solutions to problems.
They do something with the student, rather than to the student,
thus allowing the student to take responsibility for the behavior
and correct it.
Fundamental Hypothesis of Discipline through
Moral Intelligence
Moral intelligence, comprised of seven essential
virtues that can be taught and developed,
controls students’ ability to deal effectively with
ethical and moral challenges they encounter
in
school and elsewhere.
Borba’s Contributions to Classroom Discipline
􀂉 Described the seven virtues and provided concrete
examples of what people say and do that
reflect the virtue.
􀂉 Offered numerous strategies to help students deal
with challenges to moral development.
􀂉 Detailed a concrete five-step approach for teaching
moral values, and a four-step process for
discipline.
Strengths of Borba’s Work
• A system of discipline that is based on good character—moral
intelligence.
• Schools and educators who model consistent moral behavior,
offer hope for developing sound character in the young.
• Moral intelligence grows as improvements are made in students’
character traits
• Students become more self-directing, and their classroom
behavior improves.
• Provides a concrete five-step approach for teaching moral values,
and a four-step process for discipline.
• Online support includes newsletters and featured articles.
Challenges of Borba’s Work
• For many students, teachers are the primary models of
consistent moral intelligence, but they are competing
against social factors and realities that work against
the development of the virtues of good character.
• It takes time to teach a character trait to students
through showing with authentic examples in literature
and film, modeling, role-plays, and other concrete
activities.
• Teachers may be reluctant to add topics and time for
character development to their already full curriculum
demands.
Moral intelligence (MI) involves three things:
• The ability to distinguish right from wrong.
• The establishment and maintenance of strong ethical
convictions.
• The willingness to act on those convictions in an
honorable way.
Seven of the universal virtues of goodness enable
students to act properly and resist pressures that can
damage character. Virtues are made up of behavior
and moral habits that can be taught.
It usually takes about 21 days of practice before a new
behavior is acquired.
Empathy—the capacity to relate to the feelings of
others.
Societal challenges: absent or emotionally unavailable
parents, overabundance of media images
of suffering, discouraging boys from expressing
feelings, child abuse.
• Develop an empathic, caring relationship with
students, listen with empathy, develop emotional
vocabularies, and provide experiences that promote
empathic reaction.
• Create a caring, prosocial moral learning environment.
• Promote sensitivity to feelings and perceptions of
others with stories and situations.
• Provide meaningful and concrete hands-on activities
that develop empathy of other viewpoints or
situations.
• Use discipline techniques that emphasize empathy for
Conscience—ability to comprehend the right or wrong of one’s
actions.
Societal challenges: rise in youth violence, peer cruelty, stealing by
the young, cheating, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse.
• Set clear class expectations and standards based on your core
moral beliefs.
• Create a context for moral growth that features teacher modeling.
• Teach, cultivate, and reinforce virtues that strengthen conscience.
• Help students understand how moral conscience develops, and
show how reparation can turn moral wrongs into moral rights.
• Present meaningful moral dilemmas in context to increase moral
reasoning (historical, scientific, literary issues, current events,
peer interactions).
Self-control
• Societal challenges: stressed, over-worked parents,
early child abuse and trauma, glorified out-ofcontrol
• behavior in entertainment, over reliance on
substances in place of self-constraint.
• •
Prioritize and model self-control.
• •
Encourage students to become their own internal
motivators to do the right thing.
• •
Use anger management, self-control, and
Think: Stop: Act Right to control urges and think
• before acting in stressful situations.
• •
Provide ongoing opportunities for students to
practice self-control strategies.
Respect
Societal challenges: decline in civility, rise
of vulgarity, fall of the Golden Rule,
disrespect for authority, low respect for
children.
• Discuss, model, and teach differences between
respect and disrespect.
• Work to increase student respect for authority and
squelch rudeness.
• Emphasize and expect good manners and courtesy.
• Involve peers in creating a respectful learning
environment and reinforcing each other’s
Kindness
Societal challenges: lack of good modeling by adults, lack of
encouragement for children to behave kindly, influence of unkind
peers, general desensitization to kindness.
• Teach the meaning and value of kindness.
• Establish zero tolerance for mean and cruel behavior.
• Encourage kindness at school and point out its positive effects.
• Provide meaningful, concrete activities, such as Random Acts of
Kindness or Service Learning.
Tolerance
Societal challenges: lack of moral monitoring of the young,
accessibility of internet hate sites, racially-charged video
entertainment, hate music, stereotypes portrayed in film.
• Model and teach about tolerance.
• Draw attention to and discourage intolerant comments and
practices.
• Instill an appreciation for diversity.
Fairness
Societal challenges: breakdown of role models, over-emphasis on
competition with emphasis on winning.
• Discuss and demonstrate fairness.
• Avoid making comparisons among students
• Help students show respect for competitors.
• Limit the emphasis on winning.
Reasons for Moral Intelligence
• Good character
• Ability to think and act properly
• Protection against “toxic” influences of society
• Crucial life skills, such as conflict resolution, empathy, knowing right from
wrong, anger control, tolerance, cooperating, self control, sharing
• Good citizenship
• Resistance to temptation
• Prevention of violence and cruelty
• Good behavior
• Shaping moral destinies, the beliefs and habits that become the ethical
foundation of behavior that students will use forever
A five steps in teaching character traits
• Step 1. Accentuate a character trait or virtue—bring it strongly to
students’ attention over time. Student campaign committees can create
banners, logos, and posters of the trait’s meaning and merit.
• Step 2. Tell the meaning and value of the trait—convey to students
exactly what the trait means and why it is important and relevant to
their lives, through experience, stories, and examples when students
display targeted traits.
• Step 3. Teach what the trait looks and sounds like—show the behavior
through modeling, role-play, and examples in literature, film, history,
and science.
• Step 4. Provide opportunities to practice the moral habits of the trait—
because it usually takes 21 days of practice before a new behavior is
acquired. Have students analyze video clips, keep reflection logs,
complete practice homework.
• Step 5. Provide effective and timely feedback—to reinforce students as
they improve. Also provide immediate behavior correction so students
can redo any incorrect behavior immediately.
Prosocial behaviors and moral intelligence
includes basic good manners such as
essential polite words, meeting and greeting
others, and “anytime and anywhere”
(Doesn’t swear. Doesn’t belch audibly.
Doesn’t gossip. Covers mouth when
coughing). Other good manners include those
associated with conversation, sports,
hospitality, table, visiting, telephone, and
manners toward older people.
Borba (2001) provides a list of “Eighty-Five
Important Manners Kids Should Learn.”
Moral Intelligence and classroom discipline
Successful discipline depends strongly on creating a moral learning
community in the classroom—an environment where students feel safe
and cared about, and where the teacher connects with students, shows
care for them, and models the core character traits. The teacher targets
specific behaviors that are damaging to respectful classrooms and
student character, and has students replace them with acceptable
behavior (approximately a 21-day replacement process).
A four-step process to discipline:
• Respond—Calmly listen, find out what happened.
• Review—Explore why behavior was wrong, and briefly review rules or
behavior
expectations.
• Reflect—Quickly go over effects of the behavior and any impact it may
have on the victim. The student could write or draw the situation from
the other viewpoint.
• Make right—Help students atone for wrongs they have done, and
encourage reparation that is more than an apology and promise not to
do it again.