I teach a 5^th grade class of 25 students in a diverse city school district. For years my classroom management plan, like those of most of the teachers in my district, has been based on the Canters’ Assertive Discipline model. I have found this plan to be effective in helping me maintain control of my class, but in the back of my mind I’ve always had one question nagging at me – why is this so hard? I often go home at the end of the day feeling completely exhausted from the constant monitoring and rule enforcement that is necessary to manage my class. I have frequently noted to colleagues that I feel like I am holding the reins to a team of run away horses, and it is only the sheer force of my own strength that keeps them under control.

The problem with my current management plan is that all the responsibility for enforcing good behavior falls on me. Instead of practicing good behavior on their own, students learn to behave only while I’m watching. If my attention is turned away for a moment, students will immediately engage in all kinds of inappropriate behaviors. What I want is for my students to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do, not because I’m making them do it. I also want them to learn how to accept responsibility for their own actions. It has disturbed me for quite a while that students cannot or simply refuse to do this. They consistently lie or point the finger of blame at someone else rather than admitting they did something wrong. I want my students to recognize that no one can force them to misbehave. No matter what the provocation, any misbehavior they commit is a direct result of a choice they have made.

My goal has always been for students to learn how to monitor their own behavior, make good choices, and be honest about making mistakes. As Thomas Allen puts it, my "ultimate goal [is] to develop self-discipline in pupils and to move away from external, authority imposed control." As Wayson and Lasley suggested, I would like "to teach [my] students to behave properly without direct supervision." I also want my students to learn a good work ethic, where they are motivated to work and always do their best. When I read about Glasser’s ideas of teaching responsibility and accepting nothing less than quality work, it rang a sympathetic bell in my head because I have struggled for a long time to get my students to monitor their own actions and put effort into their work. What I plan to do is incorporate Glasser’s Choice theory and concept of quality work into my management plan and arrange the ideas around a school-wide plan that my school's PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems) team has devised. It is my hope that through this plan I will be able to teach my students the real-world skills of responsibility, courtesy, and quality work.

In creating this new plan, I took many ideas from a variety of different sources. As I have already mentioned, William Glasser’s Choice Theory and concept of quality work play an important part in my plan. Glasser’s Choice Theory emphasizes that "we choose everything we do, including the misery we feel. Other people can neither make us miserable nor make us happy" (Choice Theory, p. 3). Glasser simply states that all our behaviors are the direct result of choices we make. No one can force us to behave a certain way unless we choose to do so. He also says that all choices have direct consequences. When we make good choices the consequences are good and poor choices result in bad consequences. The point is that the consequences are the natural result of the action, not some arbitrary punishment imposed by someone else.

According to Glasser our choices are made in order to fulfill one of five basic needs we all have: survival, love and friendship (or belonging), power, freedom, and fun. If these basic needs are being met, students have no reason to misbehave in any way. It is when one or more of these needs is not being met that students tend to misbehave. Glasser also says that finding fault is pointless, and punishment doesn’t work. The only effect that punishment has on people is to make them dishonest about their actions in order to avoid the punishment. It rarely prevents them from doing the wrong thing because their basic needs have a stronger pull on them than the threat of punishment. If a conflict occurs between students, rather than assigning blame and turning to the teacher to mete out the punishment, the students need to learn how to resolve the conflict on their own.

In addition to teaching students how to deal with their own negative behaviors, I want to teach students how to focus on positive behaviors, particularly on doing their work well rather than settling for simply completing assignments. Over the years I have tried to encourage my students to improve their work by allowing them to choose to correct or re-do an assignment for a better grade. What I have found is that the only students who take me up on this offer are the normally high achieving students who get an occasional bad grade. If the grade is a B or an A, they usually don’t bother to improve on the work. The students who need to improve their grades the most don’t even try.

Just this week I received 2 sets of particularly poor quality work on the same day. I explained to the class how much of the problem was caused by people failing to follow directions and by not completing much of what was required. I told them I was giving them all an opportunity to correct their mistakes and improve their grades no matter what grade they originally received. Several students who had As and Bs on the assignment asked if they still had to correct them. My response was "Why wouldn’t you want to?" The expression on their faces told me that my suggestion was quite a novel idea. When I re-graded the papers I found that a few students had made no corrections at all. Most of the uncorrected papers were A papers that would have taken little effort to improve, but one paper was from an underachieving student who would, as usual, rather take a poor grade than take the time or put forth the effort to get a good grade. This is an example of the poor work ethic that many students have. It has frustrated me for years. I would like my students to experience and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that results from a job well done.

According to Glasser quality work is a rare thing in schools. Students will usually do as little as possible to get the result they want. If they want a good grade, they will do just enough to get that grade and no more. Often students will do little or no work at all simply because they’re not interested in the task and not motivated by grades. In order to get students motivated to do their work we have to convince them that by doing so they will be meeting one of their own basic needs. Then we must teach them how to evaluate their own work and have them improve on it until it is a quality piece of work.

I have found that teacher grades on a piece of work will frequently put and end to any further improvements. Once the teacher has given an evaluation of the work, students feel that their work is finished and it is time to move on to the next task. Glasser states that the "success or the failure of our lives is greatly dependent on our willingness to judge the quality of what we do and then to improve it if we find it wanting" (The Quality School, p. 159). I would like to teach my students to strive for quality over competence by using a method Glasser calls SIR. This stands for Self-evaluation, Improve what has been done, and Repeat the process until quality has been achieved. Since my district is implementing standards based learning and evaluation using rubrics, I plan to teach my students how to use the rubrics themselves to evaluate and improve on their own work. Only after the student is satisfied with the quality of the work will I assign a grade to it.

In creating my management plan I chose to follow the same format as the school-wide plan created by my school's PBIS team. This plan is based on 3 rules, which are referred to as the 3 Rs: Respect yourself, Respect others, and Respect property. These rules are posted in various areas around the building such as stairways, rest rooms, halls, the cafeteria, and the playground. Under each rule is a list of behavioral expectations that apply to that area of the building. Tom Anderson mentioned in his paper, "Resolving Conflicts as a Classroom Management Technique," that the term "goals" rather than "rules" might be more appropriate for a classroom management plan. He states that "the notion of a goal suggests that it is something we aspire toward, rather than something that’s innate for some students and an external imposition for others."

Like Anderson, I don’t particularly care for the word rule. A rule is something that students are told they can’t break; yet they are broken anyway. Then students are told that breaking a rule must always be followed by punishment. This rigidity of response leaves no room for error. Since we are all human, we must be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them without fear of repercussions. Therefore my rules will be referred to as goals and consequences will not necessarily be punishments, but rather the natural consequence of the action.

Along that same line of thinking, I consider the word expectations also to be a bit harsh. The word "expectations" implies that there is little or no room for failure. What happens if someone fails to meet the expectations on the first try? Should they be punished? For this reason I prefer to refer to the rules as goals and list the expectations as examples of positive behavior. In this way I can teach my students that it is all right to make a mistake as long as they try not to repeat it. It also leaves my plan flexible enough to deal with behaviors that are not specifically mentioned in the plan. The examples I use incorporate the main points of the rules I had for my Assertive Discipline plan. I also use some interpersonal skills that I want my student to learn such as honesty and courtesy as positive examples.

My plan includes a list of good consequences and bad consequences that will result from students’ choices. This follows the same format as the Assertive Discipline plan except that the bad consequences are not a list of progressively stronger punishments but rather a list of things that will naturally occur as a result of poor choices. I plan to use these lists to help teach my students the value of making good choices.

Even though my plan doesn’t list punishments that result from breaking rules, I will still respond to inappropriate behaviors in various ways. Minor misbehaviors and off-task behaviors will result in some intervention by me that coincides with the behavior. I may use proximity or a verbal reminder for things like talking or note passing and lost recess time to make up for missing assignments or wasted class time.

For repeated minor misbehaviors or major misbehaviors like lying, cheating, stealing, or disobedience I will have a "consultation corner" similar to the one suggested in Charles’ book Building Classroom Discipline. The consultation corner will be a small table with 2-3 chairs. There the student will be asked to reflect on the cause of the problem and possible solutions. Before the student leaves the consultation corner, I will be able to discuss the problem privately with him/her and assist in finding a solution. On the table will be a stack of problem solving worksheets based on the example given in Anderson’s paper. The student, or students if the problem is a conflict between more than one, can use the worksheet to determine what the problem is and solve it and/or figure out a better way to handle it next time. I will also provide conflict mediation forms taken from Anderson's paper in case the students require a mediator to help them solve the problem.

Severe misbehaviors like violence, threats, weapon possession, or destruction of property will result in students being sent to the office. There the administration will deal with students and their behaviors according to the school district’s code of conduct.

• Come to school on time
• Turn in assignments on time

1. Respect Others

Examples:

Work quietly

Wait your turn to speak during discussions

Speak and act kindly

Be helpful and sharing

Stay seated until an appropriate time to move

Resolve conflicts in a mature manner

2. Respect Property

From "Resolving Conflicts as a Classroom Management Technique " by Thomas H. Anderson (1999)

(Adapted from Lombard Mennonite Peace Center (1990) materials)

1. Ask who wants to talk first.

2. Ask student #1 what happened and why it is a conflict-- Restate what the student said.

3. Ask student #1 how he or she feels and WHY.

4. Ask student #2 what happened and why it is a conflict-- Restate what the student said.

5. Ask student #2 how he or she feels and WHY.

6. Ask Student #1 what he or she can do to resolve the part(s) of the conflict for which s/he is responsible.

7. Did student #2 agree? (YES/NO) (Circle one)

8. Ask Student #2 what he or she can do to resolve the part(s) of the problem for which s/he is responsible.

9. Did student #1 agree? (YES/NO) (Circle one)

10. Ask each student what s/he could do to solve the conflict if it happens again.

Student #1 says:

Student #2 says:

11. Ask the students if the problem is solved. YES/NO (circle one)

12. Ask the students if there is still something about the conflict that he/she would like to discuss with the teacher, or with someone else. YES/NO (circle one)

13. Congratulate the students

14. Mediators please answer this: Were there hurt feelings or other aspects of this conflict that you think need attention by the teacher or by someone else? (Yes/No)

15. Make sure that all information is filled in on this form, and then put it on the teacher’s desk.

According to Kathleen Cotton, positive "reinforcement does not undermine students’ intrinsic motivation, provided the reinforcement is contingent on performance and given sparingly." I have always had some positive reinforcement in my plan, but I try to keep it to a minimum in order to keep it effective. Positive reinforcement in my class has included a "Marble Privilege." When the entire class is exhibiting positive behaviors, I put a marble or marbles in a jar on my desk. When there are 50 marbles in the jar, the class is able to vote on a quality activity that they can enjoy as a reward. I also randomly choose days when I will reward the students who have turned in their homework with a small prize. Each month we have a Student of the Month who is elected by the class from a ballot of students. The students who appear on the ballot are the ones who have turned in work on time every day and who have not gotten into trouble. I have kept track of these behaviors on a daily checklist. I plan to continue with these rewards by modifying my checklist to fit with my new management plan.

In addition to in-class rewards, Dubois school has a compliment program in place where a class that is complimented for their good behavior in the hallway receives a sticker. When they have 20 stickers the class receives a Dragon Star and gets congratulated during the daily announcements. The purpose of all these reinforcements is to make students feel good about exhibiting positive behaviors, thus meeting their basic needs of belonging (most of these reinforcements are group rewards), power over their own lives, freedom to choose their behaviors, and fun.

Even though the school year is close to an end, I have already begun teaching my class to use these positive behaviors and have used practice and problem solving techniques rather than punishment as a way to deal with negative behavior. After only a very short time of doing this, I am already noticing a difference in the overall behavior of my class.

I plan to begin teaching these goals and positive behaviors on the first day of school next fall. I will begin by discussing the purpose of school and of learning and how it affects their lives. We will discuss the need for setting goals and working toward those goals. We will also talk about how inappropriate behavior interferes with meeting those goals. After that I will explain the different parts of the classroom management plan. I will use lots of modeling and practice during the first several weeks to teach students how to meet the goals as well as how to follow classroom routines using positive behaviors.

Only after using this plan for a while will I be able to determine if it is successful in reducing student misbehavior and helping students focus on learning and resolving their own problems. I will know that the plan is successful when I see students exhibiting these positive behaviors without prompting from me and when I see my students putting effort in their work and showing pride in the results.

Charles, C. M. Building Classroom Discipline. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.

Glasser, William, M.D. Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998.

Glasser, William, M.D. The Quality School: Managing Students Without Coercion. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992.

Glasser, William, M.D. The Quality School Teacher. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.

Glasser, William, M.D. Schools Without Failure. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.

Moles, O. C., Ed. Student Discipline Strategies: Research and Practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990.

PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems) Committee, Dubois School, Springfield, IL. "School Wide Management Plan," 2001.

Wayson, W.W., and T. J. Lasley. "Climates for Excellence: Schools That Foster Self-Discipline." Phi Delta Kappan, 65/6, 1984.