Your Discipline Plan and the Consequences
I think it is a
very good idea to introduce your discipline plan and consequences on the very
first day of school.
Students need to know from
the ‘get go’ what will happen
to them. It can be reassuring to know what you will do if they are disobedient.
They want to know
how
safe they are from punishment
or how near to receiving rewards.
Everyone makes mistakes. Build a system that includes some forgiveness and room to correct
errors. Regardless of the system of discipline you use, the most important
principles are:
Be clear, consistent, and fair!
It helps students to be able to have visual
references for discipline matters. Some teachers employ
clothespins marked with students’
names, or reserve a place on a
black/white board where names are written if there
have been discipline infractions during the day.
You will need to work out for
yourself ‘how much is too
much.’ Some teachers use the old baseball
metaphor, “Three strikes and you’re out…,” and send recalcitrant students to
the principal’s office after three infractions.
also think you also need a carrot, not just a stick.
You can motivate your students to
want
to do and behave well in the class.
Gold stars on a score sheet, candy rewards, and other “carrots” have long been used in the classroom. The focus of the class should be about individuals
and the group learning
and achieving excellence, not about taking a lot of time to punish a “bad
boy or bad girl.”
In my classroom, I
use a card system, which I introduce on
the first day. On one wall of the room, I
hang pockets labeled with each child’s
name. In each pocket, I place 4 cards. Throughout
the day, if an issue comes up, I may walk over to the pockets and move a colored card
to the front.
Normally,
I place the
cards in the following order, with
green at the front:
If a child gets,
let's say, a yellow card; he or she has the opportunity to "work"
their way back to green. I have a 'take a break chair" for the
first infraction and then after that I pull the card. Again, if the child's behavior
improves, they have the opportunity to
earn their way back to
green. This is in line with “Responsive Classrooms.”
After a student reaches 3
warnings and I have turned up the red card in their pocket, they can expect that the 4th warning
will be an Office referral – they will have to go to the main office
to meet with the principal, vice
principal, school counselor, or other person assigned to handle
disciplinary matters.
After I explain the colors and their consequences, I do a
‘think-pair & share’ activity with the class, similar to the “Classroom Rules” activity. Students discuss what
kinds of situations would merit
a warning and a change of colored card. After about 10-15 minutes of
brainstorming and discussion, we do a whole group share
about discipline and
consequences.
The students generate examples of situations that might be considered
infractions. They share their ideas
about what kinds of infractions would warrant which color card. We discuss what
a yellow, blue, or red situation would look like – and how to avoid
or prevent them from occurring.
To make the cards:
I use four different
colors of construction paper – green,
yellow, blue and red. First, I laminate
several pages of each color. Then I cut
the laminated colored paper into
1 inch by 4 inch strips. You
will need four cards per student; i.e. if you
have 25 students, you will need 25 of
each color for a total of 100 cards.
To make the pockets:
On tagboard or wood backing,
use hot glue to affix one envelope
for each child in the
class. Write their names on each with
a marker. Stuff each envelope with four cards, 1 in each of
the 4 colors in the
order above.
One final note about your
discipline plan and the consequences: it does not matter so
much which
specific method you choose to
use – cards, clothespins, names on board,
etc. The trick is to temper your
discipline plan with common sense. Apply it fairly to all students without exception.
Be clear, consistent, and fair!
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