Assignment:
Step 1. Specify How You Will Present and Conduct Yourself
State your conclusions concerning what you must do to present and conduct yourself in a professional and ethical manner, in accordance with legal considerations. A few reminders are that you
- Must exercise due diligence over students
- Shall not intentionally expose students to embarrassment or disparagement
- Shall not disclose information about students obtained in the course of professional service unless disclosure serves a compelling professional purpose or is required by law
In addition to the NEA stipulations, professionalism requires you to do the following:
- Dress professionally, as an adult in a professional situation.
- Use appropriate language for the educational setting, with correct speech patterns and complete avoidance of obscenity.
- Treat others with respect and courtesy.
Step 2. Specify the Behavioral Goals for Your Students
Clarify the social, emotional, and moral learning students need in order to interact respectfully, now and in the future. Compare your views with the following reminders:
- Show positive attitude.
- Behave considerately toward others.
- Take initiative.
- Show self-direction.
Finalizing Your Personal System of Discipline 281 ISBN: 0-558-16606-7 Building Classroom Discipline, Ninth Edition, by C. M. Charles and Gail W. Senter. Published by Allyn and Bacon.
- Make a strong effort to learn.
- Assume personal responsibility for behavior.
Step 3. Describe the Classroom Conditions
You Will Provide
List the physical and psychological classroom conditions you can provide to help students do their work peacefully and develop into the kinds of people you hope they will be. You might wish to consider the following reminders:
- Comfortable physical environment
- Sense of community
- Positive attention
- Good communication
- Consideration for others
- Trust
- Interesting activities
- Student knowledge of expectations
- Continual helpfulness
- Preservation of dignity
- Minimizing causes of misbehavior
- Teacher charisma
- Student involvement in decisions about the class
Step 4. Specify How You Will Help Students
Conduct Themselves Appropriately
Explain what you will do to encourage students to do quality work, relate well with others, and conduct themselves in a responsible manner.
You might wish to refer to the following list of reminders:
- Help students meet their needs.
- Involve students in discussing and planning aspects of the class program, including behavior, interactions, instructional activities, and preferences.
- Identify and minimize conditions that lead to misbehavior.
- Teach students how to follow necessary routines and procedures.
- Give each student personal attention as often as possible.
- Develop trust with and among class members.
- Seek to energize the class when doing so seems appropriate.
- Select instructional topics and activities students enjoy and find rewarding.
- Use congruent communication and I-messages in speaking with students.
- Encourage student initiative and responsibility.
- Seek parental support for the class program.
- Teach students to use win-win methods for resolving problems and conflicts.
- When students misbehave, help them assume responsibility for correction and selfrestitution;
Use established interventions that preserve personal dignity Formalizing Your Personal System of Discipline Building Classroom Discipline, Ninth Edition, by C. M. Charles and Gail W. Senter. Published by Allyn and Bacon.
Step 5. Indicate How You Will Intervene When
Misbehavior Occurs
Clarify supportive actions you will take when common disruptions, neurological-based behaviors, or serious actions occur or appear imminent in your classroom. You might wish to consider the following reminders:
- Show interest in the student's work and ask cheerful questions, make favorable comments, or provide hints.
- Catch students eyes, send private signals, or move closer to students.
- Provide a light challenge: Can you get five more problems done before we stop?
- Ask students if they are having difficulty; ask what you might to do help.
- If the work is boring or too difficult, restructure it or change the activity.
- For more serious infractions, follow procedures that have been clearly established in advance, with student involvement and approval. (Indicate what those procedures might involve.)
- Talk with offending students calmly and respectfully. Don't lecture, threaten, impugn their dignity, or back them into a corner. Always try to help the student and the class.
- Teach students how to use win-win conflict resolution. If they have disputes, ask them to try to resolve their conflict.
- Conduct the interventions in a consistent manner. Don't give in to student wheedling or begging. Remind them that everything will be all right so long as they behave responsibly and show consideration for others. Use mistakes as learning opportunities, from which to make fresh starts.
Step 6. Think Through and Write Out How You Will Introduce and Explain the System to Your Students
Consider doing the following:
- Write, in outline form, what you will say, show, demonstrate, explain, and discuss with students when introducing your system. This may include indicating the behavioral goals for the class, a description of how you want the class to function, how you will relate to students, and how you want them to relate to you and each other so everyone has an opportunity to flourish in comfort and safety.
- Indicate how you will provide topics and activities for learning that bring interest, excitement, and competence to your students
lives.
- Specify and show on a chart the roles or jobs of teacher and students that will lead to the goals your program is designed to achieve.
- Identify behaviors and procedures you want students to understand clearly and describe how you will have students practice sufficiently to familiarize themselves with expectations. You might either state these behaviors and procedures in advance or lead students through a process in which they help you identify appropriate and inappropriate behavior for the class.
This activity should culminate in a brief set of agreements concerning how students and teacher are to behave, together with what Finalizing Your Personal System of Discipline 283 Building Classroom Discipline, Ninth Edition, by C. M. Charles and Gail W. Senter. Published by Allyn and Bacon.
Formalizing Your Personal System of Discipline philosophy of discipline theory of discipline practice of discipline will be done to help students (and teacher) behave more appropriately if class agreements are violated.
- Specify what you will do to inform your school administrator and students parents or guardians about your discipline approach. Indicate what you will do to enlist and maintain parental support.