Gentle Discipline in Classroom Management

 

Yesterday, I joined three webinars from British Council. So guys, if you are English teachers, or you are interested in teaching, I do suggest you to join this “club”. Open the link teachingenglish.org.uk then register. It’s free, you can look for thousands of lesson plan and fun activities there, and once you’ve been registered, you can access its monthly newsletter (it’s sent through email) and join its free webinars just like I did!

The seminars were “Setting up Activities and Tasks Efficiently in 5 Steps” by Ela Moyle, “Gentle Discipline in Classroom Management” by Zahra Zuhair, and “Creating Your Own Learning Materials – Six Easy Steps” by Desislava Duridanova. For me personally, the webinar from Zahra from Bahrain was the greatest one. Zahra is an ESL teacher (with a DELTA qualification) with the British Council since 2014 and a graduate of International Relations (MA) from the University of Leicester. She is also a researcher on various subjects related to teaching.

One thing attracted me was when she threw a question to the audience, “Think back when you were punished as a child or teenager. What had you done wrong? How did your teacher respond? How did it make you feel? And how did it affect your behavior in the future?”

There were so many responses on the chat column, I will show you some;

“The went out of the class and asked us to do a task, I did it and stood next to the door when the teacher was coming, he observed me I was there and he stood me up near the board and slapped me of my face that was the punishment that I never forget.” (Karam Ali)

“There’s an unforgettable experience I had when I was sitting in primary 1. It was raining and I was late. When entering the classroom, I was already expecting any punishment or rebuke from any teacher. Instead, I was praised by my teacher as she pointed out that I still managed to get to school even though the weather was bad. It was a big relief and ever since has been one of the greatest compliments I ever had from my past teacher.” (Alfonso)

I also gave mine, “When I was 14 in Physics class, I talked to my friend because it was boring. My teacher got angry and called me then gave me his “speech” before the class. It was so embarrassing! Moral value: Make your class fun so your students don’t talk when you do.”

Zahra reviewed some, then explained. Teachers should know that young brains are different from ours. Students’ brains are complex, changing, and changeable (3Cs). Their brains are complex; There is a part called reptilian brain or downstairs brain and upstairs brain. The reptilian brain is the center of sensory and instinctive behavior which has the task of regulating basic needs, while the upstairs brain is the part of the brain which control the rational or logical thinking, and emotional awareness. What teachers should know is that the upstairs brain is NOT developed completely yet until someone turns 20!

Therefore, teachers, who must be more than 20, should be more aware that this is us who should be more mature. We should understand well that when our students sometimes do something “naughty”, this is due to their undeveloped logical thinking and emotional awareness. As an adult handling the class, we should be able to train our students’ brain through our upstairs brain. This is us who have already that part of the brain. The responsibility is on us.

There are five steps teachers can do whenever dealing with difficult behaviors. Zahra made it into an acronym: LURNA.

L means we should Listen to what our student is saying, or to pay attention what they are doing,

U means we should Understand the difficulties our student may face (They may have some problems at home or whatever),

R means we should Regulate our own emotions to help students do the same. How could we regulate other people’s emotions when ours are not fine?

N means we should Negotiate a solution instead of forcing a way only,

Then A means we should Act towards that solution.

Simply, in applying the Gentle Discipline, we should identify the trigger first, validate and understand that, then negotiate a solution. Students learn through examples. How we react, and how we deal with it. When we give them aggressive enforcements, it would not be effective enough. Zahra said, aggressive enforcements will only give short-term results and the naughty corner. Even when it makes students feel embarrassed.

One example Zahra gave based on her experience was when one boy in her class broke his mini whiteboard by taking off the frame (Each student in her class was using mini white board). Zahra came to him, and told him why it was not okay and why he should not do that. She did not ask why he did that because everyone knew that what he did was not good. Zahra then offered him to use an A3 paper sheet (this is a negotiation, isn’t it?), and he agreed. In the next class, Zahra offered whether he wanted to use an A3 paper sheet again or the mini whiteboard. The boy answered, “The mini whiteboard.” Since that time, that boy never redid that mistake again.

At last, Zahra gave us a message, “When we respect our students, they will do what you want. We should be able to put ourselves in our students’ shoes. Sometimes we should treat our students as “people” instead of students.”

Well, this was so impressive for me personally! Hopefully all teachers on this earth could be better and better in applying this sort of gentle discipline.

Perhaps that is all I can write! Thanks a lot for being willing to read my whole story. See you!