Tags for "Behavior And Consequences" Bookmark and Share

Prisoners or Students?

Posted on Oct 20, 2009 - 01:14 AM by Ammerah Saidi in The Learning Curve

I'm 5'2" and about 105 lbs. I'm small--so walking through the hallways of the new school in which I just got a teaching position, I get mistaken all the time as a student, by students and teachers alike. This gives my students the impression that I'm a pushover, and staff the idea that I won't last in this school past a couple of months. But what my misleading physique grants me is a world into the daily feelings of my students inside a building they will spend four of their formative years in--if they make it through four.

"Hey! Where's your pass?"

"Where are you going? Get to class!"

"Who let you in this copy room?"

"Get to the back of the line!"

All of these are greetings given to...

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Smart, funny and slightly disruptive

Posted on Nov 04, 2009 - 11:27 PM by Jonah Canner in Got Questions?

I have one kid I can't get to shut up and pay attention. He's smart, funny, and cute and is just always playing and being slightly disruptive. It's like being quiet for one minute is impossible. I don't want to totally shut him down, but I want to be able to work with him. What do I do?

- Minna D., San Francisco, CA, 9th grade teacher

This is a classic situation. The pace and structure of school carries with it expectations of what young people are and should be like. We expect our children to be able to "shut up and pay attention." But what do we really mean by that? In this situation it's not only that you want him to pay attention, it's that you want him to pay attention to what you...

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From Student to Conformist

Posted on Nov 06, 2009 - 09:58 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse

Hi, my name is Claire Russell. I am a freshman at a mainstream public high school in rural Maine. I attended a "Waldorf-inspired" alternative school from the moment I walked into my first day of kindergarten, until the day I graduated from eighth grade last June.

I loved school. Every minute of it. There wasn't a day when I thought it was a drag to go to school. It was perfect for me. We learned to learn. My teachers taught to teach. We weren't tested, graded or analyzed. I had a second family of twenty-four kids my age and a teacher who probably knew me better than I knew myself at most times. The thought of leaving broke my heart a little every time I thought about graduation. It seemed...

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The Mention of Detention

Posted on Nov 22, 2009 - 05:39 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse

Just so everyone knows, I will be blogging every two weeks. Usually on Sundays.

English 9, period 2. We were all hurrying into our places at our desks before the bell rang. My friend swore loudly and announced he had forgotten his homework.

“I am so getting a detention,” he said unhappily.

You see, if you forget your homework, come late to class, come unprepared to class, grab the wrong binder for that class, fail a test, speak out of turn, or goof off, you receive a mandatory one-hour invite to an after school detention. If you miss, skip or are unable to attend this detention, you receive a two-hour detention on Friday. If you fail to attend the Friday attention, you get a “quiet”...

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Thoughts on Bullying

Posted on Jan 19, 2010 - 07:55 PM by Shawn Strader in Op-Education

Recently I listened to a discussion on the Diane Rehm show that centered on bullying in school and showcased some of Carl Pickhardt's theory on why bullying takes place and how it is possible. It was fascinating. You can listen to this segment here.

In public school, it is wrong to bully. Often times when a bully is discovered in a class of children, there will be some sort of sit-down talk. The bully might be told that it is not okay to do what he or she is doing to other children, and that if bullying is being used to achieve some goal, then there are surely other ways one can go about meeting that goal without harming others. Most times some sort of further repercussion is dealt to the...

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The Freedom to Do It Wrong

Posted on Jan 28, 2010 - 11:50 PM by Sara Schmidt in Uncharted Parenting

As a child, I developed a "Type A" personality pretty quickly.

It's funny; I can remember how it all started. I was a super quiet kid around those I don't know--my daughter is, too. People were constantly telling me to talk, to speak up, to be louder. And when I finally started to do that--to make them happy, as I was perfectly happy being quiet--I was told to be quiet, to not talk in class, to stay in silence. It was the first punishment I ever received in school, a humiliating sentence of corner-banishment in front of all of my peers, and it was enough motivation to get me to shut up once again.

The expectations set in front of me were quite obvious--succeed or be met with disapproval....

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Celebrating Alice Miller: Pioneering Psychologist

Posted on Apr 26, 2010 - 11:59 AM by Dana Bennis in The Landscape

Alice Miller, a leading psychologist whose work and books revealed the dangerous effects on children of corporal punishment and more subtle forms of physical and emotional coercion, passed away this past month in France at the age of 87. Her books are essential reading for parents and anyone who works with young people, including the The Drama of the Gifted Child, and For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence.

Miller showed how the “poisonous pedagogy” of repression and fear will lead to severe psychological problems, even if parents and other adults think they are acting in the child's best interest. Here is a powerful quote from Miller's For Your Own...

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Deprived of Dignity: Degrading Treatment & Abusive Discipline in NYC & Los Angeles Public Schools

Posted on Jan 06, 2011 - 12:00 AM by Shawn Strader in Resources

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