I received the following communication:

“I’m a retired electrical engineer. I recently began working as a substitute teacher handling any subject from grade 3 up through grade 12.

“The biggest challenge is to keep the noise level down and the smart alecks from disrupting the class. Things have sure changed since I went to school!

“So I have approached the challenge by being strict. Smart alecks, mainly 12-year-old boys, end up standing facing the wall until they apologize for disrupting the class. I knew there had to be a better way, so I spent some time in the local library and discovered your book. I am going to teach 6th grade tomorrow and I plan to implement your suggestions in Chapter 3, ‘Raising Responsibility.’

“I like your web site and plan to buy the posters and your book. You are doing a great service to mankind by helping teachers help this generation of kids learn self-control.

“Thanks, C. ‘Rick’ Rickard Morgan Hill, CA”

———

For those who have a challenge with “noise control,”  following  is a simple procedure to teach. (Remember, the first step for success is to TEACH. NEVER ASSUME students know what you want without first demonstrating.)

TEACHING A PROCEDURE FOR NOISE LEVELS.
Teach students to adjust voice levels as indicated below:

Level zero – Silence – Show an index finger touching the thumb demonstrating a zero.

Level 1 – Whispering – Only the person you are whispering to should hear you. Hold up an index finger.

Level 2 – Speaking voice – The one you use when having a conversation. Show two fingers.

Level 3 – Group voice – The voice you use when giving a report to a group. Hold up three fingers.

Level 4 -Playground voice -The voice you use when you are playing games or shouting to your friends. Show four fingers.

Level 5 – SCREAMING – This voice is used when you are hurt or in danger. The only time you might use this voice when you are not in danger is when you are cheering for a sports team. Show five fingers.

Let students know before you start any activity the noise level you expect.

“You are never fully dressed without a smile,” sang Little Orphan Annie in the old Broadway musical. It turns out Annie may have been giving some shrewd advice.

Studies have repeatedly shown that people remember smiling faces better than neutral ones. Researchers at Duke University have found a physical explanation for the phenomenon.

Robert Cabeza and his colleagues “introduced” volunteers to a number of people by showing them a picture and telling them a name. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the investigators found that both learning and recalling the names associated with smiling faces preferentially activated the orbitofrontal cortex, a processing area of the brain.

Although the studies are preliminary, it makes evolutionary sense that a smile would engender positive feelings. Smile at a baby, and the infant smiles back. Our brains are very sensitive to positive social signals.

These signals can be auditory as well as visual. You can even detect a smile in a person’s voice when on the telephone. Try this next time you make a phone call.You will be amazed at the results—both for yourself and for the listener.

A tag question is simply a question offered quickly and nonchalantly at the end of a statement or observation. It encourages review of the previous communication. When using tag questions, you make a statement, then leave it up to the person you are talking with to think about what you have asked.

Tag questions in particular give teachers and parents a tool to help a young person review what has been said or done.The tag prompts an opportunity to have the young person reflect—without requiring an accounting to the adult.

Here are some examples of tag questions:

So you think that will help the situation, do you?

You meant that you can go to your friend’s house when you finished your homework, didn’t you?

That’s quite an achievement, isn’t it?

You didn’t really mean that, did you?

Do you really think that will get you what you want? No reply needed!

Although procedures are the foundational step to efficient instruction and reducing discipline problems, sometimes we forget to be creative in their establishment.

In some cases, the teacher might create a new CLASSROOM PROCEDURE to proactively deal with misbehavior from certain students. In other words, rather than reacting to the same type of misbehavior day after day, the teacher might restructure the environment more carefully in a way that would allow immature students to be more careful.

Here is an example posted on the Yahoo group Discipline Without Stress:

This year in our primary classroom, we have a number of students who find it difficult to maintain appropriate behaviour in the cramped quarters of the cloakroom at dismissal time. To deal with this, we simply CHANGED OUR PROCEDURES for the cloakroom. Rather than having the whole class go into the cloakroom at the same time (which has always worked in previous years,) we divided the students into three groups (with the three most immature students each in a separate group). Now, each group has a turn in the cloakroom while the other students sit at their desks and chat with the teacher. As each group finishes up in the cloakroom, they return to their desks and a different group of children go and get their belongings.

Our problem was solved–not by trying to change the children–but by changing the routine.

If there is one area in our lives that many people struggle with, it is that of taking a risk. The reason is that risk creates fear, and fear prompts inaction.

Here is a simple and practical system to deal with risks.

Look at any situation where a decision needs to be made. It makes no difference what the decision is—be it taking a vacation, purchasing something, or taking some action.

Ask yourself three questions:

1. As a result of taking this action, what is the BEST thing that can happen?

Then flip the coin:
2. As a result of taking this action, what is the WORST thing that can happen?

Then use some moderation by asking,
3. What is the most likely thing that will happen?

In the great majority of cases, the worst scenario doesn’t happen. Since the best also may not happen, consider somewhere down the middle.

Then reflect: If the most likely outcome can get you closer to what you want–and if you are willing to deal with the worst thing for a chance of getting the best thing– go for it.

However,  if you cannot deal with the worst possible scenario, then it doesn’t matter about the best possible scenario. Close the issue and move on.

A reader wrote, “I try to stay positive and think of things I can do when faced with a challenge. I’m finding that negativity is contagious and a select few can really bring me down, making it hard for me to stay positive. Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with the naysayers at school?”

I responded that to get you in the right mood, start by visiting  this link:

As you indicated, NEGATIVITY IS CONTAGIOUS. Combat it by being proactive. This is done by the simple truth that THE PERSON WHO ASKS THE QUESTION CONTROLS THE CONVERSATION.

Ask questions such as, “How is this conversation enhancing the enjoyment of our day?” “Is there anything else we could talk about so that we will leave feeling good rather than negative?”

Persevere! It can take but one person to redirect the negative talk. Also, suggest to the principal—since the principal is interested in a positive school climate—to put the situation up to the faculty. The staff may suggest some procedure or other idea to redirect such negative conversations.

By taking the initiative, you will be helping yourself, other members on the staff, and—perhaps most importantly—the effect this will have on teacher-student relationships.

Perhaps of all the approaches I have discovered, the most simple yet most effective one is eliciting, in contrast to imposing.

The following are from notes taken by Joy Pelton after attending one of my presentations—used with her permission:

ELICIT a consequence; don’t impose it.

Don’t tell a student what is going to happen if. . . . Rather, REDIRECT by saying, “George, what do you suggest we do about this?” “What else?” “What else?” until George comes up with a consequence that you agree with. Then respond with, “I can live with that.”

PEOPLE DON’T ARGUE WITH THEIR OWN DECISIONS.

Two characteristics for changing behavior: (1) There needs to be an acknowledgment that a change is necessary and (2) The person needs to own the decision.

Every time you use your authority to dominate, you deprive that child of the right to learn how to be responsible, to make a responsible choice.

Joy L. Pelton
Folsom/Cordova Center Coordinator
Department of Teacher Education
California State University, Sacramento

———–

Every time a teacher, parent, or supervisor IMPOSES, the recipient is automatically placed in a position of being a victim for the simple reason that choice is denied.

In contrast to imposing, when the consequence or a procedure is elicited then choice, empowerment, and responsibility are engaged. Victim-type thinking is negated, relations are not damaged, and a positive path to correct a situation is developed.

I received the following communication:

First, I want to say that I have taught for 25 years and have never had to use rewards or punishment for discipline. However, I have moved to a new school where every teacher in the school uses the “pull your card” or “move your boat,” etc., resulting in punishments or rewards.

I have never had to do this but have been able to TEACH MY STUDENTS TO BEHAVE BECAUSE IT WAS IN THEIR BEST INTERESTS AND THE RIGHT THING TO DO. However, some of the children I am now teaching have no idea how to use self-discipline. They asked me to create a chart. I was ready to make up my own little chart system when I came across your book on the Internet.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE KNOWN IS THE BEST FORM OF DISCIPLINE.

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom on this topic.

Jody Jarjoura
Senatobia, Mississippi

———–

More and more research is showing that incentives such as rewards work for manual, non-thinking types of behaviors. However, whenever even rudimentary cognitive skills are involved, rewards are counterproductive to the three most effective motivators: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

“If you do this, you will get that” (rewards as incentives), and “If you don’t do it, this is what will happen to you” (punishments and threats)—the old carrot and stick approach—are not nearly as effective as a more enlightened approach. Simply stated, motivation is best with commitment, not with compliance.

Sharing this enlightened approach is the purpose of this blog and the information at my website.

Forcing an issue often spoils the desired outcome.
—Abraham Lincoln

The old story of the salesman who lost a sale bears periodic repeating.

After he told his sales manager, “Well, I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,” his boss replied, “Your job is not to make the horse drink; it’s to make him thirsty.”

The “Art of Influence” is to INDUCE PEOPLE TO INFLUENCE THEMSELVES.

Posing a provocative question that prompts the other person to reflect is the most successful approach for increasing your effectiveness.

The June 6, 2011 issue of Time Magazine headlined an article “The Optimism Bias” (pp 40-46).

The article began, “We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures” and then gave the following  definition: “The belief that the future will be much better than the past and present is known as the optimism bias.”

A key ingredient of optimism is hope because it keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress, and improves physical  health.

The article relates optimism and hope to how memory may work: The core function of the memory system could be to imagine the future—to enable us to prepare for what has yet to come. The system is not designed to perfectly replay past events. It is designed to flexibly construct future scenarios in our minds. As a result, memory also ends up being a reconstructive process, and occasionally, details are deleted and others inserted.

To think positively about our prospects, we must first be able to imagine ourselves in the future. Optimism starts with what may be the most extraordinary of human talents: mental time travels, the ability to move back and forth through space in one’s mind.

The article postulates that without a neural mechanism that generates what the future may be like in a positive scenario, all humans could be mildly depressed.

The article confirms “positivity” as the  first principle to practice from the Discipline Without Stress Model.