Discipline without stress, punishment, but maybe rewards??

Our school uses the discipline without stress punishment or rewards system and so these principles are brought into the classroom. If a child is not behaving properly, they are asked to “check their level” to ensure that they are constantly thinking about what level of behavior they are acting on. If the inappropriate behavior continues, the students are asked to fill out a reflection which requires them to think about what they have done and how they will prevent themselves from acting out in the future. In my classroom, about half a dozen students have been asked to fill out reflections, many of them multiple times. My cooperating teacher does not hesitate to hand out reflection forms; however, the students almost always get a warning, sometimes two depending on the situation.

All of our teachers are currently following the behavior contracts that the students and their parents signed for the field trip and I don’t know about you’re classrooms, but in mine, these kids are terrified that they will not be able to go on the trip!! We have two students that already have two reflections and its only January! They have another 3 months to go and at this rate, they won’t be coming with us  My teacher seems to have pretty good control over the classroom and the students know what is expected of them – whether that’s from the school wide discipline program or if it’s my teachers doing or possibly a combination of the two but they really seem to get it! Rarely is my class every behaving so poorly that the lessons are unsuccessful which I think is great! However, I kinda feel that these five strikes and you’re not going on the trip thing is somewhat of a reward? They are rewarding the students with good behavior at the end of the semester – they get to go on the field trip if they don’t get five reflections… I don’t know, it just kind of seems like somewhat of a reward and kind of against the whole discipline without stress punishment or rewards – what do you guys think??

I feel that all three of us have such different classroom environments that each of our teachers has to approach discipline in different ways – maybe we could rotate between the classrooms because I really would like to see each of your rooms!! I’ve never dealt with lower grades much less a combination class and I have never seen a classroom with ANY EC students in it (weird yeah??) Anyways… just a thought!

Classroom Management

While I was reading this article - I was trying to think of a child that I have encountered that could be classified as an “EC” student and I couldn’t think of one until I thought back to when I was in elementary school and in kindergarten. I know… remembering someone from kindergarten?? I can remember ONE of my good friends from kindergarten that I did everything with… and this one kid Jason. He had some behavioral issues – I just remember him being loud and he wouldn’t like to work with other students at the centers (like the sand and macaroni table). Because it was so long ago – I can’t really remember whether or not Jason would have been considered “EC” or not. Other then Jason, I don’t think I was ever in classes either as a student or a teacher that would have been an inclusive classroom. Inclusion is really important not only to the development of the individual student but also to the development of the student’s classmates. I really liked the section about promoting membership in the classroom. I think that’s really important to ALL students – every child wants to feel like they belong in their classroom and in society in general. A lot of students tend to shut down when they do not feel like they have been accepted into their classroom by their classmates and their teachers. My cooperating teacher talks about her student’s safety as being her number one priority which creates a very safe environment for the students both physically and emotionally. Students with disabilities feel different already, when they are in a classroom with students that they see as “normal,” then they REALLY feel different and if the teachers and the students in the classroom don’t work hard to create a classroom that promotes membership (like the one talked about in the article) the students won’t feel as though they belong and feel even more different then they already feel and they are liable to shut down even more and fall even further behind.