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A Question of Semantics?

By Marvin MarshallcloseAuthor: Marvin Marshall Name: Marvin Marshall
Site: http://www.marvinmarshall.com/
About: Dr. Marvin Marshall has presented to government agencies, universities, associations, school districts, and schools in 43 of the United States, in 14 countries, and on five continents. His writings on discipline, social development, human behavior, motivation, and learning have been published by state, national, and international journals including Phi Delta Kappa International, Education Week, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Association of California School Administrators. His discipline and learning system is described in numerous college texts for the preparation of new teachers. His Discipline without Stress® Punishments or Rewards reflects his experiences in the following areas: * Classroom teaching in primary and upper grades at the elementary level, every grade 7-12, and as a full time staff member in teacher education at California State University, Los Angeles * Counseling and guidance experiences as a middle school counselor, high school counselor, guidance department chair, and certification by the William Glasser Institute * Curriculum and instruction activities as a demonstration teacher, department chair, instructional coordinator, and high school assistant principal of curriculum and instruction * Supervision and administration experiences as an elementary school principal, middle school assistant principal, high school assistant principal of supervision and control, high school principal, and district director of education * Masters in Business Administration from California State University, Los Angeles * Doctorate in Education from the University of Southern California in the combined areas of instruction and guidanceSee Authors Posts (4)

Rules vs. Procedures

The following article was first posted on the September e-zine PROMOTING RESPONSIBILITY & LEARNING that was distributed free to 15,407 subscribers from MarvinMarshall.com. Each month the electronic newsletter contains articles on promoting responsibility, increasing effectiveness, improving relationships, promoting learning, parenting, discipline without stress (DWS), testimonials and research, products and services, and resources and support.

Kerry Weisner responded to a post on an educational mailring that suggested having kids create rules in a classroom—as opposed to having the teacher create procedures—is a simple matter of semantics. Notice the profound difference between the two. Her post follows.

To me, semantics ARE the issue. I can’t comment on how your approach and my approach might be similar or different, but I can compare my OWN approach of using the Discipline Without Stress Teaching Model for the past seven years to the approach I used before.

Like you, every year my partner and I used to have our students help  develop classroom rules on the first day of school. I found that this type of thinking created a different teaching mindset than the mindset created when I started to think about developing “procedures” instead of rules. For me this turned out to be big. It was actually the semantics to which you referred that MADE the difference.

I find I’m much more positive in my own mind when I purposely view “misbehavior” as coming from “someone who didn’t learn the procedure,” as when I perceive the same behavior as coming from “someone who’s not following the rules.” Having tried both ways, I greatly prefer teaching from the “procedures” mindset. I find it a more relaxing and positive approach to working with people. It puts me in a “teaching frame of mind” rather than a “find a consequence for breaking the rule frame of mind.”

Adopting a “procedures mindset” also focused my attention on the need for repetition on any one procedure–which might even be identical to a particular “rule” I used to have before. With a “rules” mindset, I didn’t have a good understanding of this issue. Although I always taught routines, I didn’t teach them well enough or provide enough practice to make them automatic for every child. Reading DWS information, which referred me to Harry Wong’s book for understanding classroom management issues, (as opposed to discipline issues,) I found the following information. Harry Wong quotes research by Madeline Hunter:

For a child to learn something new, you need to repeat it on the average 8 times.

For a child to unlearn an old behavior and replace it  with a new behavior you need to repeat the new behavior on the average of 28 times. 20 of those times are used to  eliminate the old behavior and 8 of the times are used to learn the new behavior.

For the first time I began to see how the practice of teaching procedures would allow me to reach every child and especially help the most challenging students to become more successful. (It also helped me to understand the value of thinking out my classroom procedures CLEARLY before I taught them.

One understanding I gained from my reading of Marvin Marshall’s book was that creating procedures and standards (what I used to think of as “rules,”) is the responsibility of the TEACHER, rather than the students. This was somewhat of a startling idea for me but it rang true.

Marshall’s view is that classroom management is the responsibility of the teacher, whereas discipline (in the sense of a person being in charge of his/her own behavior,) is the responsibility of the student. In DWS, the teacher creates the procedures because that’s the job they’ve signed on to do—to lead, to structure the room for learning, etc. He says that this is not the job of the child. (The job of the child is to make choices about their own behavior.)

If I think back to the days when I DID have kids help create the rules, I realize that I never really intended to give them the power to create the rules at all because usually I had several rules in my own mind already, before the first day of school. (In fact, I often had a chart all prepared that I could whip out once “we’d finished creating the rules together.”) If a child came up with a rule I didn’t like or I didn’t think was reasonable or important, I didn’t allow that rule to stand. I manipulated the conversation to come around to what I had in my own mind anyway. So, when I thought about it, I realized that if the kids didn’t really create the rules, did I need to pretend that they did? Now that I have this clear in my own mind, I have become a more confident teacher with greater understanding of my role.

This is my current thinking: It’s MY job to create the classroom procedures. By teaching the procedures well, I instill my expectations—that is, I expect that students will follow the procedures I have taught. By teaching procedures thoroughly (8 or maybe more times for the most challenging children,) I am actually teaching students how to be well behaved in my classroom because without this careful instruction some really don’t know HOW.

Now when it comes to discipline, that’s a different issue. Kids are responsible for their own discipline. Why? Because I can’t change another person, so it makes sense that the students have to be in charge of themselves in this way. That’s the goal of DWS—to promote responsibility and the advantages of being self-disciplined.

So, in part, it might be semantics, but in part, definitely not… in my experience anyway!

Best wishes!

Kerry in BC

More of Kerry’s posts are at http://disciplineanswers.com

_________________________________

Dr. Marvin Marshall has presented to government agencies, universities, associations,  school districts, and schools in 43 of the United States, in 14 countries, and on five continents.

His writings on discipline, social development, human behavior, motivation, and learning have been published by state, national, and international journals including Phi Delta Kappa International, Education Week,  the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Association of California School Administrators.

His discipline and learning system is described in numerous college texts for the preparation of new teachers.

His Discipline without Stress^® Punishments or Rewards reflects his experiences in the following areas:

• Classroom teaching in primary and upper grades at the elementary level, every grade 7-12, and as a full time staff member in teacher education at California State University, Los Angeles
  
• Counseling and guidance experiences as a middle school counselor, high school counselor, guidance department chair, and certification by the William Glasser Institute
  
• Curriculum and instruction activities as a demonstration teacher, department chair, instructional coordinator, and high school assistant principal of curriculum and instruction
  
• Supervision and administration experiences as an elementary school principal, middle school assistant principal, high school assistant principal of supervision and control, high school principal, and district director of education
  
• Masters in Business Administration from California State University, Los Angeles
  
• Doctorate in Education from the University of Southern California in the combined areas of instruction and guidance

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Copyright © 2009 Marvin Marshall.

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