is on developing effective frameworks and strategies for educators, youth professionals, and parents to help difficult youth succeed. As one of the internationally acclaimed authors of Discipline With Dignity, Dr. Mendler has given many workshops and seminars to professionals and parents, and is highly acclaimed as a motivational speaker and trainer for numerous educational organizations.
Dr. Mendler is the author or coauthor of several books, including As Tough As Necessary, What Do I Do When … ? How to Achieve Discipline With Dignity in the Classroom, and Power Struggles: Successful Techniques for Educators. His book Connecting With Students provides numerous practical strategies that help educators connect with even their most difficult students. His articles have appeared in many journals, including Educational Leadership, Kappan, Learning, Reclaiming Children and Youth, and Reaching Today’s Youth. Dr. Mendler has been recognized for his distinguished teaching, and was a recipient of the coveted Crazy Horse Award for having made outstanding contributions to discouraged youth. He lives with his family in Rochester, New York.
He is cofounder of Discipline Associates, which provides training and staff development to educators and youth providers in the areas of behavior management and motivation.
Introduction
Chad no longer does any of the classwork that he finds boring. Beth complains endlessly, talks to peers constantly, and is forever asking irrelevant questions. When upset, Luis curls up under his desk and starts kicking it or makes noises. Rachelle picks at her arm until it bleeds and pierces her ears and lips in class. Bob often draws on himself and frequently sleeps in class.
Is it any wonder that most educators are exasperated as they try to simultaneously raise academic achievement while having to deal with unruly, disruptive behavior? A May 2004 study by Public Agenda found that more than one in three teachers said they either have seriously thought about leaving teaching because they are tired of dealing with behavior problems or know a teacher who has quit for that reason. MORE What Do I Do When … ? Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior addresses the need for strategies to effectively handle challenging students.
Several years ago, Rick Curwin and I wrote Discipline With Dignity (Curwin & Mendler, 1988, 1999), which set forth an approach to school and classroom discipline focusing on personal responsibility and shared community as the foundation upon which all successful strategies reside. The revised 1999 edition of our book reaffirmed its present relevance, despite the passage of years. Our goal was to provide educators with the information needed to deal both effectively and humanely with children, while showing how enhancing and preserving a child’s dignity along with providing a sense of hope are always essential. We highlighted the differences between methods of obedience with those of responsibility; illustrated the power of eliciting good behavior through increased student involvement; showed the relationships among stress, motivation, teaching methods, and discipline problems; and offered alternatives to lose-lose power struggles.
In 1992, I wrote What Do I Do When … ? How to Achieve Discipline With Dignity in the Classroom, emphasizing that an understanding of the basic needs that drive student misbehavior is a key to identifying effective strategies of prevention and intervention. Our book, As Tough as Necessary: A Discipline With Dignity Approach to Countering Aggression, Hostility, and Violence (Curwin & Mendler, 1997) provides strategies for interacting effectively with students who are hostile, aggressive, or violent. Discipline With Dignity for Challenging Youth (Mendler & Curwin, 1999, 2007) shows how to effectively work with especially difficult youth. All of these comprehensive texts present and discuss the many facets of in-school and out-of-school life that converge to create discipline problems. In addition, these books offer the framework that serves as the foundation upon which schools and classroom teachers can develop all-inclusive discipline programs that work. The reception among educators to our efforts has been phenomenally uplifting while simultaneously humbling. The daily testimonials of appreciation we hear from fellow educators who thank us for “all we have done” resonate against the backdrop of all that still needs to be done. Evans (2002) recently reminded us that “what has changed over the last thirty years is not the skills of our teachers but rather the lives of our students.”
We are all extremely busy, and there are too many demands placed upon us (some of them ridiculous). As educators, we are expected to meet the academic needs of behaviorally diverse students, many lacking parental nurturance, some without a roof over their heads, and more than a few wearing labels and acronyms such as oppositional defiant, attention-deficit, autistic, EBD (emotional-behavior disorder), LD (learning disability), SBD (severe behavior disorder), and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). These students present instructional and behavioral challenges never before tolerated in mainstream school settings. Therefore, as educators we can continue to do what we have always done and hope that somehow things will get better, or we can adapt with the times and implement strategies in our classrooms that are likely to get better results. The very essence of MORE What Do I Do When … ? Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior is an ample supply of strategies for handling a wide variety of challenging situations that virtually every educator will face. This book provides proven ways for dealing effectively with misbehavior, while focusing on ways to meet the daunting task of creating and sustaining an effective learning climate that promotes positive behavior.
The primary goal is to offer educators who are pressed for time a practical, easy-to-read book of specific strategies that offers resource methods of prevention and intervention. MORE What Do I Do When … ? is a hybrid resource in that it presents some of the most effective strategies first identified in What Do I Do When … ? and our other books, along with new approaches that have been shared and developed by many educators throughout the country. Although there is no substitute for comprehensive, theoretically sound texts that also offer practical advice, this book of tips is designed to give busy educators many specific methods that motivate students and prevent discipline problems from happening and effective interventions that stop misbehavior while preserving everyone’s dignity.
EIGHT UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES
Eight basic principles and beliefs are at the core of good methods of discipline. Discipline With Dignity prides itself on being a philosophy that can cultivate a lot of different strategies. Not all strategies work for all people because the personality and style of the person using the strategy will determine its effectiveness—at least as much as the strategy itself. Two teachers can use the same words to tell a student to sit down and have very different results. While strategies may need to vary, the basic elements that underlie all strategies can serve as a framework for all educators. Just as we know that nutrients and water are necessities for all living things to grow and flourish, there are certain ingredients that all good methods of discipline must have in order to succeed. Although MORE What Do I Do When … ? is a hands-on, practical guide of tips to help with a variety of school behavior problems, we begin with the following eight principles that form the foundation for the strategies in this book.
Principle 1: Discipline Is Everyone’s Job
I have attended several suspension hearings in my career. Although a viable alternative to suspension may not always be feasible, every time a student is suspended the school gives up all control over that student’s whereabouts and behavior. Because we are all busy, it may be easy for us to dismiss the student’s absence as “not our problem.” In fact, many of us feel relieved that the student’s absence has reduced our level of stress. But if the suspended student is not in school, there is a very good chance that he is out in the community idling the time away. What was a school problem can quickly become a community problem. Even worse, we could become a target if the student decides to fill vacant time by breaking into unoccupied homes.
