Beyond Discipline

Untitled Slide

Review First half of Beyond Discipline

• Chapter 1: The Nature of Children
• Chapter 2: Blaming the Kids
• Bribes and Threats
• Chapter 4: Punishment Lite: "Consequences" and Pseudochoice

Kohn (2008)“You need to give positive reinforcement to a child who does something nice if you want him to keep acting that way.” (2) Here is a quote in my book in which Kohn is trying to avoid dangling a carrot In front of our students. He believes that we as educators need to look beyond discipline.

Untitled Slide

• in this chapter talks about assertive discipline. He describes this type of discipline as cut and dry, no room for confusion.

Chapter 3 summary

• Kohn (2008) Coercion- "The most basic way to get what you want from someone, assuming you have more power than he does, is just to make him do it."(22)
• The Meaning of Punishment- A punishment makes someone suffer such as detention.
• The price of Compliance.

The Price of compliance

• Kohn (2008) My answer is threefold. First, if you have to keep returning to the same strategy, then it isn't particularly effective, even for a limited goal like stopping a particular behavior.(26)
• Kohn, (2008) Second, punishment doesn't just fail to solve problems: it generally makes them worse.(26)
• Kohn, (2008)Finally, and perhaps most significantly, punishment creates a new set of problems, proving worse in many respects than doing nothing at all.(27)

Summary

• In this chapter it talks about Assertive and Cooperative discipline being wrapped up in a new type of approach but realistically is the same "old school" approach of discipline.

Chapter 5 Summary

• Kohn, (2008)The preceding two chapters argued, first, that it doesn't make much sense to punish or reward students, and second, that discipline programs typically rely on punishing and rewarding students (whether or not these words are used). Now it is time to dig beneath the methods of discipline and take a look at the underlying goals. Simply criticizing is what is going on in classrooms, or proposing new techniques, seems to beg the question—and the question is: What are we trying to do here?

Summary of Chapter 6

• The tale of two teachers. First teacher is an "Old Style" of teacher in which whatever he or she says go's no questions asked. The second teacher is trying a different approach in which she asks for student input.
• The idea behind this is that we say students have a choice but in reality it is only about doing school work and following rules.
• The author challenges that idea by letting students have choices on how they complete their work and so on.
• The other idea to that is student don't feel threatened but feel like they are on equal terms with teachers.

Summary of Chapter 7

• Building a community
• Kohn,(2008) "A real or authentic community doesn't feel empty. It is constructed over time by people with a common purpose who come to know and trust each other."

Summary of Chapter 8

• List of ten suggestions by the author.
• 1st: Relationship (build relationship with student)
• 2nd: skills (caring for students)
• 3rd: Diagnose ( find out whats going on)
• 4th: Questions about our own practices (constructive criticizm)
• 5th: Maximize student involvement (ask for student input)
• 6th: Construct an authentic solution (being real)
• 7th: Make restitution (follow up with student)
• 8th: Check back later
• 9th: Flexibility(being flexible with students)
• 10th: Minimize punitive damage(should be last resort)

Classroom based application one

• Relationship
• Kohn, (2008) states that "It's hard to work with a student to solve a problem unless the two of you already have a relationship on which to build. As a general rule, it's important for students to trust their teacher, to know she respects them and to feel safe in speaking their minds with her." (p.121)

Classroom based application one

• As a future teacher this quote resonated with me because as a teacher you will need to get to know your students. Our students need to know and understand that there is one adult in the school that truly genuine cares about them.

Classroom based applications two

• Kohn, (2008) states that "Many classroom management programs use the language of choice against students as a kind of weapon: “You chose to misbehave” or even “You chose to be punished.” What such programs conspicuously fail to provide is what students truly need: the chance to make real decisions about what happens in the classroom. Some of these decisions concern the academic part of their education—what to learn, and how, and why." (p. 85)

Classroom based application two

• As a future teacher this book has made an impact on me as a learner but more importantly as a future teacher. I also believe that having students give input on on their education gives more meaning to them. When you give that power to students they don't look at you as a teacher who doesn't care but a teacher that is open to ideas and also cares about them.

Work cited

• KOHN, A. (2008). BEYOND DISCIPLINE: FROM COMPLIANCE TO COMMUNITY. ALEXANDRIA, VA: ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT.