Wednesday, 15 June 2011
After posting...I started to think about the importance of implementing choices (explicit or implied) as outlined by Bennet and Smilanich. Choices are, in effect, a part of life. I believe implementing choices to be more consistent with the notion of discipline. In effect, we are teaching our students about choices in life - we are empowering them to make choices and to understand how specific choices result in certain consequences. What do other people think?
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6 comments:
Niomie, I totally agree, teaching children to make choices for themselves and allowing them to understand the consequences will empower them to have their own self discipline.
With choices, come decisions, with decisions, come consequences. For certain students the choice is to behave or misbehave and if the decision is to misbehave then there will be consequences.Might as well let the young ones have the opportunity to learn as much about unwise decisions as soon as possible. Much more serious choices will have to be made for them soon enough.
Niomie,
First of all I'd like to thank you for slightly inspiring my blog post for this topic with this second little bit of your posting.
Choice is something I’ve been talking about in my other class this semester (EDUC471) and is something that is extremely valued. I find it especially interesting to be thinking about choice in the context of discipline and something I completely agree with in terms of their relativity as opposed to punishment. Usually we think of choice in terms of positive activities (career choice, life choices, etc.) but the by infusing the concept of choice in terms of classroom management is something that will most surely change people’s attitudes on just how important proper and appropriate acts of discipline rather than punishment can achieve in not only stopping misbehavior but changing the way in which students think about their action in the freedom (for lack of a better word) to make the right choice.
I have been in classrooms where students had never been given choices and they actually had to be taught to think of themselves as part of the whole experience. I had to actually spell out: If you chose this, what might you feel and do....If you chose that, would you feel differently and what would you do....Try one and let me know. If it is a choice that you may reconsider to be the wrong choice, you get another chance....
Think of how that impacts their lives at home and with friends. A sense of empowerment is a powerful thing.....
Great discussion. Thanks a lot!!
I have been in classrooms where students had never been given choices and they actually had to be taught to think of themselves as part of the whole experience. I had to actually spell out: If you chose this, what might you feel and do....If you chose that, would you feel differently and what would you do....Try one and let me know. If it is a choice that you may reconsider to be the wrong choice, you get another chance....
Think of how that impacts their lives at home and with friends. A sense of empowerment is a powerful thing.....
Great discussion. Thanks a lot!!
I like this further unpacking of effective discipline, Niomie.
Within our blog's opperative definitions I agree. :)
It does bring to mind my ongoing thinking about rewards in the classroom... token economies, etc.
In practice I do use these but sparingly and only as a tool and a temporary measure.
I was thinking about why. Obviously I desire to see intrinsic motivation develop... which is a way of saying that I hope for an internal locus of good-decision-making in learners. However human beings are far more than strictly rational creatures, and more than decision makers. We are also adicts, habit-followers, rut-dwellers. :)
So... I think I use rewards in order to 'kick start' a new habit, or open up a new neural pathway (depending on your prefered lingo), or break an undesired negative pattern. This is basically a form of mild coercion; it is a directive act to open up what we might call the "volition horizon", to place a new prefered behaviour choice more favourably on the table as it were.
Hmmm.
My mind feels foggy.
I will stem the river of words here I think, and hope that this little bud of a thought is clear enough to be caught. :)
Later;
-Mark
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