Classroom Management: Kohn’s Theory

1. Classroom Management:Kohn’s Theory Marisa Santana Gloria Cano

2. Alfie Kohn • Is an American author and lecturer who has explored a number of topics in education, parenting, and human behavior. • He is considered a leading figure in progressive education. He has also offered critiques of many traditional aspects of parenting, managing, and American society. • Kohn’s challenges to widely accepted theories and practices have made him a controversial figure, particularly with behaviorist, conservatives, and those who defend the specific practices he calls into question, such as the use of competition, incentive programs, conventional discipline, standardized testing , grades, homework, and traditional schooling.

3. Scenario • Students are coming back from recess and it takes them up to 15 minutes to settle down and give their attention to the teacher.

4. Classroom management • Punishment • Reward

5. Stop Saying “Good Job” • The more we say “I like the way you….” or “Good________ing,” students rely on our evaluations and our decisions about what is good/bad rather than learning to form their own judgments. • It leads them to measure their worth in terms of what will lead us to smile and dole out some more approval.

6. No rewards • Students who are praised lavishly are less likely to persist with difficult tasks or share their ideas with other students. • Good Job does not reassure children, it makes them feel less secure • Some of these children will grow into adults who continue the need of someone to pat them on the back and tell them whether what they did was OK.

7. No rewards • When discouraging misbehavior, one can not really say the child is now “behaving himself”. It would be more accurate to say the praise (Good Job!) is behaving him. • The alternate is to work with the student-child to figure out the reasons why he/she is acting that particular way.

8. No punishment • Creates a negative classroom environment. • Leads the teacher to blame the students. • Creates an authoritarian learning environment. • Leads the teacher to ignore problems with the curriculum. • Child behaves only to avoid punishment (what happens to me if I do or don’t do this?)

9. Kohn’s Theory • Self discipline. • Have students reflect on their behavior and come up with ways to fix it. • Guide them on the reflection of their own values. • No punishments, no rewards, but good personal values!

10. Kohn’s Theory • Student’s need to be engaged in the lesson, activity, conversation. • Student’s need to form their own judgments and work out their strategies to solve problems (educational, social and behavioral.)

11. Scenario • Students are coming back from recess and it takes them up to 15 minutes to settle down and give their attention to the teacher.

12. Kohn’s Theory • Engage the students in thinking for themselves: How long is it taking us to get settled? Why? What can we do about that? • This approach saves time in the long run, reduces the number of problems, and ultimately gets kids started thinking their way through their problems.

13. Good Values • “…reject rewards and punishments…[because] a child may come to act in the desired way only in order to receive the former or avoid the latter…. Students [will] be self-disciplined, to internalize good values so that outside inducements are no longer necessary.” • In a consequence-based classroom, students are led to ask, "What does she want me to do, and what happens to me if I don't do it?"

14. Good Values • In a reward-based classroom, they're led to ask, "What does she want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?“ • Notice how similar these two questions are. Rewards and punishments are really two sides of the same coin. And notice how different either one is from what we'd like children to be thinking about: "What kind of person do I want to be?" or "What kind of classroom do we want to have?"

15. Democratic Community • To help kids engage in such reflection, we have to work with them rather than doing things to them. We have to bring them in on the process of making decisions about their learning and their lives together in the classroom. Children learn to make good choices by having the chance to choose, not by following directions.

16. Independent practice • Sandy refuses to share her glue stick with Amy while working on an art project. Camille says, “it’s ok Amy, you can borrow my glue. ” Teacher while monitoring art station says, “good job, Camille sharing your glue, thank you!” • Miguelito and Juan are talking during reading time and teacher says, “Hey, kids this is your third warning, you owe me 5 minutes of your recess.” • Sam keeps on disrupting reading time by getting up constantly to take drinks of water, sharpen his pencil or going to the restroom. Teacher takes Sam to the side and talks to him about what is disturbing him, teacher says, are you feeling ok? Is there something bothering you? You got up about 5 times in 30 minutes, what do you thing you could do about it?