Discipline
Posted by Amanda , Thursday, March 18, 2010 3:28 PM
Speaker: Michelle Grimes
Topic: Behaviors and Behavior Management
Class was a little different this week. Instead of having our speaker here in person, we used Skype and interacted with our speaker while she was in Kansas City! We also only had lectures two days this week. The rest of the week was spent cleaning the base (or in my case, washing, waxing and vacuuming our vehicles!) and working in the mornings at a school for children with special needs. For our two days, we spent time discussing discipline and the reasons children act up and looking at scripture for discipline.
Discipline is such an interesting topic and also one widely debated. Sometimes kids are really hard work. They act up quite often, or in some cases are quiet, withdrawn and don't want to participate. I think it's important that we get to the root of their behaviors and use the best discipline and encouragement we can. Every child is different and they all learn in different ways. That means that disciplining a child one way, might not work for the next child you need to discipline. It's so important to look at the individiual needs of each child you are working with. Also, another thing Michelle taught on was engaging your students. If you engage the students, you can eliminate 90% of behaviors. That's incredible. But if you think about, even adults work that way. If we aren't engaged, we don't learn a thing, we don't want to be in class, we have no interest whatsoever in what we are doing. Kids just need to be challenged and also accepted and involved in whatever they are doing.
As we looked more and more at what the Bible said about discipline, I think there was a very clear point God was trying to make. Discipline is good for us and He set discipline in place because He loves us and wants the best for us. Without discipline, we would be spoiled and destroying ourselves. Actually, the Bible even says for us to love correction and discipling, knowing that its for our best interests. I think often we look at it as a bad thing. Even as Christians, we don't want to discipline our children. But, really, it's good for them, as long as you are doing it through love, just like God does for us. It makes me think differently about the way things happen sometimes, like God is taking care of me and saving me from something worse. It's interesting...
One of the things Michelle said was, "The brain is a muscle--it needs to be worked out." She was saying how she tells her students that. I think it's interesting, because it's something we could all hear really. How often do we work out our brains? How often are we trying to learn new things--unless we are forced to? If we aren't challenging ourselves and learning new information, are we really growing? I've noticed that whenever I am not challenged and learning new things, I become depressed, stagnant and generally not as happy with life. This world is full of information, nature, beauty and new things. It is a neverending classroom. We can always be learning something new. Yet we squander our time playing Solitaire or taking naps. I am definitely not the exception to this. But I am going to challenge myself to find something new, something different about everyday and to learn from all experiences. Would you like to join me?
Another interesting thing Michelle talked about was repetition. It takes 11-27 times of something being repeated for the knowledge to actually make its way to a child's brain. Wow, that is quite a lot of repetition. It does make sense though. I know, for me, the more that things are repeated--the easier they are to remember. I've also heard it's the same for habits. If you repeat them more than 21 times they will stick--or vice versa, it takes 21 days to break a habit. It's a cool topic, and I wonder how much it is put into use while teaching. I think, especially for junior high and high school, it would be a really good tool to keep using. I remember quite a lot of repetition during elementary school, but not as much the older I got. I wonder if that's why I don't remember half the information I learned in high school ;)...
Discipline is crucial if you're working with children--you got that right.
Most of what I learned at AJB was that discipline requires leverage. If you negotiate with young people, you will get played. Over and over and over again. If you refuse to negotiate and hold something over the child--like punishment, denial of privilege, etc.--then you can get them to be disciplined. I like the broken window theory for this case. Little things can't be ignored (like broken windows)--minor transgressions should get full punishment that's due. And minor transgressions should be addressed EVERY SINGLE TIME they occur. Without exception. And without prejudice (in other words, no child gets special treatment because "oh they have such a rough home life"--letting things go is not doing the kid a favor). Consistency and correcting bad behavior are GOOD for the child. Punishment is GOOD. It shows that actions have consequences. And they do. They always do.
But I also think you might have it right that not everything works for everybody. This approach works for children who are absolutely out of control. A large group of already well-behaved children might not require draconian measures like this.