The D Word

From: NEA.org
http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0509/coverstory.html
By Mary Ellen Flannery

Discipline problems weigh on educators today more than ever. But don't despair—there's plenty you can do to knock your challenges down to size.


On her first day in Misti French's Kentucky classroom, little Sandra with the thick glasses and vacant look kicked, pinched, and punched her shocked classmates. Before lunch, she mutely refused to write a topic sentence. After lunch, she stalked away from the playground swings, past the fence, toward home.


French, a first-year teacher at Herndon's South Christian Elementary School who has taught her third-graders to play African drums, write poetry, and love school, resorted to holding the troubled child's hand all day. But who's going to hold French's hand? Even in her graduate-level education classes, French says, "Nobody told me how to deal with Sandra."

It's not just new educators who struggle with classroom management and discipline issues. Day in and day out, even veterans wonder what to do with students who constantly disrespect, disrupt, and demean. Almost 80 percent of teachers told Public Agenda pollsters that less instruction is accomplished these days because of the disruptive environment in schools; one in three report having considered quitting because of it. And while many struggle with the occasional handful of unruly kids, some navigate entire schools that seem on the edge.


"It feels like the inmates are running the asylum," complained one frustrated high school teacher to her colleagues in NEA's Works4Me online community—a weekly forum for members' questions and answers available at www.nea.org/tips/library.html. "Profanity is tolerated, rampant, and loud. Students (verbally) assault teachers regularly….They steal, cheat, lie, and vandalize, use cell phones in class and keep iPod earphones dangling from their ears…."


There's the feeling among educators that things are worse now than they've ever been, and they aren't wrong, says Jim Garbarino, a Cornell University professor and author of Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment.

Garbarino points, in part, to an "erosion of adult authority" in today's society that makes it more and more difficult for teachers and other educators to do their job. Although research on the declining behavior of students is scarce, Garbarino says one survey found 82 percent of adults agree kids are less respectful.


"Teachers probably have to do more to establish their individual authority because they don't have a cultural foundation to build upon," Garbarino says.

Some blame parents—in fact, 82 percent of teachers in the Public Agenda poll say parents simply don't teach their kids discipline. Many kids come to school with little regard for rules. "They're used to getting their own way," says Sheila Cornelison, an algebra teacher in northern Alabama, who trains colleagues in Alabama Education Association-sponsored I Can Do It! Workshops—seminars offered by some state Associations to help teachers with classroom management.

Unfortunately, she and others say, gone are the "good old days," when teachers could rely on parents to catch their backs. Now, one out of two teachers report having been accused by parents themselves of unfair discipline.

But then, in the good old days, parents mostly lived together. Televisions didn't blare profanity. Popular music didn't boast of teenage mamas. Little girls didn't buy thong underwear at the mall. As society's ailments grow more complex, as more families live in homeless shelters and more college grads stand in unemployment lines, as more people shun religion and celebrate cell phones—and, say sociologists, as people care less for each other generally—children's problems have simply grown weightier.

Who can guess what's going on in the life of the Florida 5-year-old who, to the country's horror, ended up in handcuffs after throwing a tantrum in her classroom?

Experts say it all points to an unhappy zenith in American culture—and the implications, they note, are dramatic. "The climate that we create in our homes, and in our communities, and in our schools can help kids learn to share and create and be good human citizens"—or it can set the stage for bad things to come, says Barbara Coloroso, a former Colorado teacher who speaks nationally about discipline and environment.


Twenty Five Tips


So what's an educator to do to help keep the outlook bright—and happily survive classroom life, too? "A lot of people are searching for solutions," says Lincoln, Nebraska, third-grade teacher Randy Gordon. The good news: There are solutions—dozens of them—many tried and true, many dreamed up by your own colleagues. Just read on.


To start the year right, check out these tips from your colleagues.

The rampant eye-rolling, lip-twitching, and more overt, "You talking to me?"—are all signs that the kids are "dissing" you. How do you bring an air of civility back into the classroom?

1. Model better behavior. When Washington State middle-school teacher Julie Moore asks her students to "please turn around and stop talking," inevitably they respond, "I'm just asking a question!" So she models the appropriate answer, "Sorry, Mrs. Moore, I'll get back to work." Eventually, it sinks in.


2. Turn the tables on them. A few years ago, in one of Sheila Cornelison's algebra classes, there was one strong-willed student who just wouldn't pay attention. So Cornelison told him, "I think it'd be really good if you taught this lesson….I'll give you this material and you can take it home and prepare. If you have any questions, come to me."

A week later, when it was his turn to teach his classmates how to measure angles, he faced the same disrespectful whispers and hoots that he had meted out. And did he get mad! Suddenly, the consequences of his behavior were clear.

"He made a big turn-around," Cornelison said.


3. Cut cursing short. Security guard Laura Vernon doesn't give a darn for cussing. Radios and televisions may blare the worst of weak vocabularies—and kids may think they can repeat the same s*!& in school hallways and classrooms—but Vernon says she simply will not stand for it.


"Excuse me?" she says firmly to any potty-mouthed teen near her post at North Division High School in Milwaukee. "If you use a profane word around me, you have to apologize."

When kids come from homes where there's not a lot of respect shown, they come to school with the same disrespect for the school environment. Still, Vernon can keep them on track, she notes, with caring and consistency.

"If you set parameters, they'll stay within those parameters. You just have to be consistent with that," she says. And, she adds, "If everybody would do that, you wouldn't hear the swearing."

4. Don't argue with them. It takes one fool to backtalk and two to make a conversation out of it, says Moore, a special-education teacher at Central Kitsap Junior High outside Seattle.

It starts as a murmur, grows to a rumble, and then finally, the heaving dump truck of disruptive behavior rattles up and down your classroom, noisily squashing your lesson plans. How do you squelch the problem before it shifts into high gear?

5. When tsk-tsk doesn't work (and does it ever?), try task-task. New Jersey member Marcy Treen will ask her troublemaker to pass out papers or deliver a note to another teacher. Then, when the student returns to her desk, she has renewed focus for the work at hand.

6. Chime your class quiet. A few weeks before summer, LaJoyce Weatherspoon's sixth-graders have vacation on their mind. And so, this Clarksville, Tennessee, teacher indulges them—but with a chime and a silver stick by her side for the giddiness to come.

Find your dream destination online, she directs, and then create a computer presentation to share its language and culture. They do, but while one fair-haired boy in the back row flies off to Great Britain, flipping through Web sites with Union Jacks and Cornish pasties, his neighbor sails off track, sidelined by a pop-up Baby Phat ad.

Baby Phat!

While heads turn, the Web-fed oohs and aahs gain disrespectful volume. Then, without so much as a look, Weatherspoon runs her handy silver stick across the hanging chimes on her desk.

"Quiet time," one student says.

Calm reigns again.

7. Plan, plan, and plan some more. Idle hands are the devil's tools—and a real demon in the classroom. Never be caught with nothing to do, advises Melanie Hazen, a Tennessee media specialist who offers I Can Do It! training to her colleagues.

When Hazen taught English at Montgomery Central High School, she sliced up a stack of vocabulary words and dropped them into a cup. Then, when she had a few spare minutes, she'd pull out words and her kids would race through their dictionaries to look for definitions.

"If they're busy-busy, they don't have time to disrupt class. So, make sure you over-plan," Hazen advises.

8. Refer to your union contract. If a kid constantly disrupts your lessons—to the point where none of the children can learn—you may reach a point where you want him out of there. When your principal is supportive, it may be easy to get that eviction notice. When you're on your own, talk to your Association.

In Florida, where state law allows teachers to remove unruly students, the Palm Beach County contract sets guidelines to make it work. When a student interferes with a teacher's ability to teach, or classmates to learn, then that student must be removed until a committee decides to return him or her. Any teacher who removes 25 percent of the total class enrollment must receive training on better management techniques.

9. Spice up your lessons. Every year, a Connors-Emerson School parent, who also works at the local medical research lab in Bar Harbor, Maine, comes to Karen Barter's second-grade class to do a real-life lesson on hand-washing. The kids sit rapt as they collect and count bacteria in the classroom sink, on its doorknob, on their own hands.

Who could have guessed that an hour in the backyard would leave 10,000 bacteria on Jalique's hands? Fascinating! (Or that the sink drain offers more than a million of the little creepy-crawlies?)

"They were totally in the flow," Barter recalls.

10. Feed a gentler spirit. Even your best-behaved students can turn into John Blutarsky— the John Belushi character from Animal House—when they sit down in the cafeteria. But Nina Boyers, a Michigan paraprofessional with more than 25 years of experience, has a few tips to keep the caf under control.

Teachers should walk their students all the way into the lunchroom, rather than drop them off at the door, and students should be required to sit with their classmates—not kids from other homerooms or grades. The best deterrent is to have an administrator present, if possible.

There must be an epidemic of hearing loss in this country because teachers of all ages complain that students act as if they've never heard the word "homework." How do you get them to pick up their pencils?

11. Nip excuses in the bud. A one-liner usually does the trick, says Nebraska teacher Randy Gordon. "Bummer," he tells a pleading third grader. "But I had hockey practice," comes the retort. "Bummer," Gordon repeats, shaking his head with empathy.


"Everybody knows the best way to stop arguing is not to pay attention to the argument," says Gordon, a teacher at Cavett Elementary in Lincoln and a trainer of Discipline with Love and Logic, a behavior management program.


In his class, kids know the drill. At the start, homework should be handed in. If you didn't do it, you'll have to complete the assignment during recess and fill out a paper explaining what happened, why it's a problem ("Now Mr. Gordon doesn't know if I understand decimals…"), and how you intend to prevent it from happening again.

And yet, inevitably, one or two will try to explain why they didn't do their work and why, why, why, they shouldn't have to stay in at recess. They will get no satisfaction from Gordon. They will barely get any response at all, which is the key to his successful discipline style, he says.

"As soon as a teacher starts to lecture, 'I told you not to lose that, I told you to put it in the backpack,' there's not a kid around who won't jump in because there's a chance to win," Gordon says.

Gordon likes "Bummer!"—it suits the 30-something teacher. But it doesn't matter what one-liner you choose—as long as you swiftly turn your attention elsewhere after delivering it.

It does take a village to raise a child—you, the parents, and your administrator. But how do you make NATO out of these often-opposed factions?

12. Go on home visits. During the summer at South Heights Elementary School in Henderson, Kentucky, every teacher, including Head Start teacher Wendy Mitchell, visits students and parents at home. That way, the first contact with parents is a casual and friendly one.


"We put on our South Heights T-shirts and just sit on the porch, or go inside, whatever the family prefers. It just builds that feeling of respect and mutual trust," says Mitchell.

13. Send a card. Before school starts, Tennessee’s Hazen pre-addresses blank postcards for each family and then, as the weeks go by, she jots quick, friendly notes. “If you do the work at the front end, it doesn’t take two minutes,” Hazen says.

14. Prepare a parent contract. Surely you spell out the rules for students. That's Discipline 101, right? But you also should tell parents what you expect. Each August, LaJoyce Weatherspoon sends home a contract for students and parents to sign, outlining her rules and consequences. "Folders are required and worth 25 percent of the final grade. Folders are issued by the teacher one time only. If lost or damaged, it is the student's responsibility to replace it," she warns.


15. Give a bonus. If phone calls and visits to umpteen parents aren't for you, take a tip from New Jersey social studies teacher Michael D'Amato, who gets parent buy-in and better student achievement at the same time. D'Amato develops study guides for each test, goes over them with students two days before the exam, and then sends them homeward. Kids who go over the guide with a parent or family member and get it signed earn a five-point boost on their test score.

"It makes it convenient for families to quickly quiz their children on the material," says

D'Amato, a middle school teacher in Linden, New Jersey, and author of a recently published book of classroom tips (The Classroom ).



16. Bring the boss on board. Sit down with your principal before school starts and share your classroom rules, suggests Alabama's Cornelison. Let her know you have strategies to handle problems, but that you also might send students to the principal's office. Ask your principal, "How are you going to feel about this?"

And make sure that he or she understands what makes you crazy. Maybe it's swearing. Maybe it's sass. If your administration knows your hot-button issues, it's more likely that they'll support your enforcement.


17. Make your referrals stick. Nothing is more frustrating then sending an uncontrollable kid to the office—and then have the troublemaker bounce right back five minutes later. But you often can get the results you want if you just ask for them, says Steven Johnston, a high school discipline dean in Quincy, Massachusetts.

That means written instructions—"Jimmy's disrupting my class," and "Please keep him out of my room until _____."

Some may worry their notes will never get delivered. But in Johnston's experience, students know they'll be in a lot more trouble if they throw notes away. And it's best not to have another student deliver the message because that sets up a potential conflict between the two students.


Of course, if your school disciplinarian has no safe, supervised place to put disruptive students, even clear communications won't solve the problem.

The life stories of some of your students could be written by Hollywood's NYPD Blue producers. And you wonder how these kids feel about it? They're mad as heck! And they tell you so all the time when they disrupt your class and smack their classmates. So what do you do with an angry child?


19. Intervene early. Even in preschool, it's all too obvious who might have trouble graduating—and it's often not a matter of skills, but behavior. So, while you hesitate to "label" small children, you should try to help students get services as quickly as possible, says Head Start's Wendy Mitchell.

It is possible for 3-year-olds to get Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)—and it's a good idea when necessary, she says. "More and more, we're seeing problems with our youngest children—we want to take care of them early on so they can adjust," she adds.

20. Use a cool-down room. In East Hartford, Connecticut, where increasing urban poverty is contributing to increasingly bad behavior in the classroom, Association leaders are responsible for the implementation of new "support rooms" in every school. When a child's behavior gets out of control—and you know that point when you reach it—a teacher can send him or her to an isolated room on campus.

There, a trained support professional (not a certified teacher) calms the student down and also provides some academic tutoring, typically for a few hours. When they decide the child is ready, he or she can return to the classroom.

"It really is a support for the student—and a support for the classroom. When you have somebody who is preventing you from teaching, you really need to do something," said Association President Cheryl Prevost.



21. Offer a clean slate. Angry children benefit from a predictable classroom atmosphere, where the rules and consequences don't vary. But let them know every day provides a new chance to start again, says Harry Wong, a California special education teacher, not to be confused with the other Harry Wong.

22. Find the triggers. Do a functional behavioral assessment, suggests Katherine Bishop, an Oklahoma special education teacher. Keep track of the bad behavior, noting when it happens. That way, you can get closer to identifying the trigger—typically it's either to avoid a task or get attention. If you don't know how to do this kind of assessment, get help from the special education department in your school or district.

23. Inform your association. If you have an aggressive student, the Association can write a "state of danger" letter, putting your school on notice that a potential danger exists, suggests Oklahoma's Bishop.

24. Give them space. When kids get angry, give them a little space to calm down. Washington State's Moore has a stuffed chair in a corner of her room where kids can sit down and take deep breaths. She also lets her eighth-graders walk the school's track, so they can calm down, in a safe place away from their peers.

Along the same lines, always give them a way out: "Do you want to sit down or go to the principal's office?" Often, when you hand them the power to choose, they'll make the right choice.

Bullying and harassment can lead to frequent absenteeism, more drop-outs, academic failure, and violence. But you can fight back with the help of parents, students, and your association.

25. End the silence. It sounds like a mission from the CIA, but it's actually a message from the NEA: Activate the bystander, says Meredith Monteville, a national trainer in NEA's Bullying and Sexual Assault Prevention and Intervention Programs.


About 85 percent of the kids in your school aren't actively involved in bullying or harassment—they're not the bullies or the victims. "They're the silent audience that stands around and watches, which empowers the bully," Monteville says. "We try to get the bystanders to act, to intervene….Even if they just stand there, near the target, the bully is defused."

26. Turn the rules into tools. At Delahunty Middle School in western Pennsylvania, the anti-bullying student committee told teachers that they wanted help on the playground. Too often, recess was fun for bullies, but not so much fun for the kids who got picked on, pushed around, or simply left out of the reindeer games.

So together, students and teachers created a set of recess rules: No pushing, shoving, hitting, tripping, teasing, or name-calling. Two-hand touch football is permitted and sharing of equipment is encouraged. Nerf or wiffle balls are okay, but real footballs and baseballs are not. At all times, two staff members will be present, including one who walks around, and both will have walkie-talkies.

It's really made a difference, said Delahunty teacher Bill Brest. "We haven't had the complaints of name-calling or physical contact, and we're seeing more and more kids playing together," he says. "We had one little boy who actually came to tell us that this was the first time he was invited to play recess games."



What's Hot!


Single-school culture: Started in South Florida, the "single-school" project asks all the adults on a campus to start using the same rules consistently. What does tardy mean? Is a student out of uniform if his or her shirt is untucked? Does everybody have a pass when they're out in the hallways? When everybody is on the same page, then students can't feign any confusion about the rules.

Dr. Phil: Everybody's watching Dr. Phil McGraw's hit TV show as he deals with 4-year-olds who bite, teens who steal, and parents who can't control their children. But many of his common-sense parenting tips apply equally well in the classroom. Find out what kids like—ice cream, recess, time on the computer—and use that information, says Dr. Phil. When you control "their currency," then you can control their behavior. Be consistent with your rules and your response.

What's Not…


Zero-tolerance policies: Sounded good, didn't it? But, while zero-tolerance policies were intended to rid schools of weapons and drugs, "when administrators suspend first-graders for carrying fingernail files, the policies quickly become meaningless," says Jerry Newberry of NEA's Health Information Network. Indeed, from Texas and Mississippi, to Indiana and Pennsylvania, lawmakers are rethinking rigid approaches to school discipline and attempting to balance their policies with a measure of whether the student wanted to do harm or not.

Paddling: Some might miss the days when you could end a "discussion" with a smack. "It is a consequence that students fear and respect," says Indiana teacher Chip Lewis. But, even in Southern states where paddling has long been legal—if not often used—the practice is getting whacked. In North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, school boards are talking about a stop to spanking—if only to avoid litigation.

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