You Can't Handle the Truth

BartmasBlurb#33

“You want the truth; you can’t handle the Truth!”

Freedom equals Responsibility

We are surrounded daily with whether or not we are going to take personal responsibility for ourselves. Throughout our early childhood and into adolescence we struggle with individuality and independence. One of the reasons I loved teaching sixth grade was the opportunity to mold young minds into self-guided missiles of learning and responsibility. Seeing young people make the decision to become positive leaders is one of the most rewarding experiences any adult can experience!

How do you teach a young person that with freedom comes great responsibility? You must give them incremental levels of responsibility! With the advent of technology we are asking students to take on immense responsibility with the care of and use of digital devices to become good digital citizens. How can we expect them to be responsible if we are not teaching them? One of the observations I have made in being involved with education is how our teaching of discipline changes from the lower elementary levels up through the intermediate grades. In fourth grade many teachers slowly get away from teaching students expectations and responsibilities. For some it is, “just,” expected that their classes behave. We must continue to teach the risk and reward associated with students taking on greater responsibility.  Just as we differentiate our subject areas, we must also teach discipline in differentiated instruction. Many of the students that we see today have little or no self-discipline being taught to them in the home. Many students truly do not even understand what freedom means. Freedom without self-discipline is anarchy. As we teach even older children the concepts of freedom we must interweave the concept of responsibility into the mix-there is a equal ratio of responsibility that must be present. When Russia slowly became more democratic in its form of government the adults in that vast country struggled with the whole concept of freedom.

In the lower elementary we give students responsibility by giving them tasks to perform in the class or for the class; anything from being the student that plugs in the chargers to the child who runs notes to the office. These are tasks that use freedom to teach responsibility. We use these to teach them the importance they have to the society of the class and school by doing jobs well. We teach positive regard for others. The majority of discipline issues I deal with in the day correspond with people saying negative things to others, or treating people in negative ways. It takes A LOT of self-discipline to tame your tongue. Look at the ancient wisdom about how dangerous the mouth is; “Loose lips sink ships,” “Sharper than a two sided sword.”

We must show students that the freedom of speech does not give us the right to just be mean to each other. It is not wrong to disagree, but we must teach opposition of viewpoints with respect. In the area of physical respect many students just simply cannot handle being close to another child…they can’t keep their hands to themselves. Most physical contact starts with either retaliating to words spoken or wanting attention. Some students just express themselves physically by bumping into each other or punching someone ion the arm. Boys do not hug a lot…they hit! We need to continually coach students on how to use their freedom with responsibility. In the secondary level we can use literature and government to teach the importance of using freedom responsibly. The book, Watership Down, Does an excellent job in using analogy to teach the responsibility of being free. Ayn Rand’s books can be used to coach responsibility in government classes along with the writings of our founding fathers.

If we can get our classes disciplined at the beginning of the year and revisit our discipline throughout the year, we will cut down on major disruptions and poor choices by our students. Freedom takes a lot of responsibility, if we continue to teach about it and model it, our school community will become a better place to be, and to be from.

"It's not a haircut; it's an attitude!"

BartmasBlurb#32

“It is not a Hair Cut; it’s an Attitude!”

Very much of what we expect in discipline is an attitude. To change discipline, self-discipline, we must effectively affect attitude. How? Many of our students are being raised in very negative situations. They are belittled and demeaned to the extent that they lack self-worth. For many of these students punitive discipline will not work. Just watch their demeanor, body language and their style choices. I have worn my hair in a flat top for over twenty years, but back in school my hair sometimes was to my shoulders. My hair cut was and is a direct reflection of my attitude. We cannot effectively teach these students discipline without giving them anchors to hold onto. What are these anchors?

Pursue Excellence:

This motto cannot mean you want perfection or a child to be a perfectionist. We want our student to constantly strive to become better in all arenas of life. This is all in having a positive attitude about hard work, and the returns on our investment of effort. To pursue means to chase after, to stalk, to attack, and to follow. We must teach our young minds HOW to pursue.

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." Herb Brooks USA Hockey

Our society is diminishing the importance of giving your best. We are slowly allowing mediocrity to be the norm. Many in the business world are at a loss because so many of our students come to them without a strong work ethic. They are late to work, and many miss workdays just because they don’t want to work. We as educators need to take the lead in developing students that want to perform at their best in all areas of their life. For years we have been told that our students need repetition in routine to teach expectations. After the first nine weeks many of us allow complacency to seep into our classrooms and hallway. If a student does not do something well, do we just take off points, allow it to pass, or do we explain how it does not meet expectations and have them redo it correctly? Do we give positive feedback? Discipline includes giving the positive as well as the redirection. What activities do we use to teach excellence? Science, math, inventions, sports, music, and the arts are filled with great examples of the concept of being disciplined, dealing with frustration, and pursuing on towards a goal. We have our own life examples of adversity and how we overcame it. Our days are filled with the opportunity to encourage students to strive for something better. Several generations ago our predecessors wished for a better life for their progeny. They did not expect it to be easy! They taught their children and grandchildren that they have to work harder to accomplish that dream. Our country's founding premise is an example of pursuing excellence. Did our founding fathers do everything perfectly? No! They continued to work at creating a better country. 

In teaching driver's education for many years it is amazing how hard the driving students work to be a safe driver. When they think about the enormous responsibility that is being entrusted to them, they listen and want to perform tasks perfectly. We need this same type of attitude towards our regular educational curriculum. Find the carrot, place it out in front of them, coach them on how to get that carrot, let them get a nibble...then move it out a little further!

 Some detractors of discipline would argue that you squelch creativity, and freedom in teaching discipline. This is far from the truth! With self-discipline comes true individual freedom. Students have to be taught when they are given a task and the latitude to use their creativity that is when they should be giving their best effort. It is a true reflection of an individual how well they complete a task. Your name on a paper or a project is you. How we allow students to speak in class and the school is part of pursuing excellence. Do we expect correct grammar, or do we allow slang and jargon to permeate our halls? When students are in classes and the hallways, do we allow frowning, slouching, negative attitudes or do we ask and find the root, and help them find that there is a solution or just someone that cares? Do we accept sloppily done homework, or ask that it be formatted correctly?  Think of ALL the, “little things,” we do in a school day; are they really that little?  We as adults must model this for our students. When students are watching us do they see us constantly re-evaluating, re-assessing and adjusting our own work to be better?

Pursue Excellence should be how we start our day, work during our day, and finish our day. Taking short cuts is not pursuing excellence. Being complacent is not pursuing excellence. Accepting mediocrity is not pursuing excellence. How can we as educators help our students pursue excellence?

Discipline is an Onion

Bartmas Blurb #31

Discipline is like an onion! It is not an ogre, but an onion. We all use different layers of discipline throughout our daily lives. We have personal, interpersonal, and extra-personal layers of discipline. Discipline has and will continue to be an integral aspect within our lives as we continue to live. Ultimately it is our choice how we will be disciplined or allow others to discipline us. Discipline will always fall into two categories overall: internal or external. These correlate directly to governance. We are either self-governing or we need someone to govern us. How we govern our classroom and school says a lot about us. Think about teachers or administrators that seem to just have a knack for a well disciplined classroom or school. How do they do it?

Think back to when your children, or you yourself were being potty trained.  We tried encouragement, rewards, timing, and other tricks. Some children potty train much more quickly than others, and some much later; miraculously one day it just happens. Why?  Like any other lesson of life discipline must be taught. Our ability to train ourselves or for others to train us depends fully on our making the commitment to be trained. Very few students...let alone adults are truly self-disciplined. These are the people that never have to be guided to do what is right, they just do it. The majority of students that we deal with on a daily basis permit or allow us to train them. They will listen and be compliant when there is an adult monitoring them. They are coachable. We only have to tell them why and how, and they respond by performing the task at hand. The first two groups of children would fit into the self-governing categories. There are other students that resist the coaching and must be handled by coercing or correction. These students cause more disruption and are more defiant in the classroom. They will still be compliant, but only because they are concerned with the negative level of consequence that might follow their poor self-discipline. This group is master at weighing risk and reward! The last group of young people we deal with are the most resistant to any discipline whatsoever. These are the young people that are in the minority, but cause the greatest disruption in the classroom. These last two groups will fall into the external governing category.

There are a lot of different variables that go into how we respond to discipline: Genetics, birth order, and environment to name a few. If we want discipline; we must train discipline. How do we do with our own diet and exercise? Discipline must be a daily lesson that builds throughout the year and spirals just as we do with any other curriculum. When we truly train our students to be self-disciplined or self-governing our job teaching other aspects of the curriculum will come with more ease because a greater number of our students will be disciplined.  Using character building programs fits very well with teaching discipline. Many of our students are not being taught to be disciplined anywhere else, so we have to keep this in mind when teaching. Daily reinforcement of expectations, procedures and rules will lead to fewer headaches later. Proactively teaching discipline is paramount to building a positive school culture and community. We can use motivational quotes, sports success stories, personal triumph stories and other short lessons to daily reinforce what discipline looks like.  Having a common language that is used with consistency will add a cohesive plan of discipline. A once and done approach will only lead to frustration and failure.

In the next BartmasBlurb we will discuss some common mottoes and language that might be useful to build self-discipline.