MORE What Do I Do When … ?
Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior
Allen N. Mendler
Copyright © 2005, 2007 by Solution Tree Press
Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher and the author.
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Originally published as Just in Time: Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior. Copyright © 2005 by Solution Tree (formerly National Educational Service).
Cover design by Grannan Design, Ltd.
Art by Barbara Murray Sullivan
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-934009-43-7
To the memory of my parents, Harold and Ida Mendler, who raised me with discipline and dignity. And to my sister and brother, Andrea Yekutiel and Scott Mendler, with whom I have shared so many meaningful life events.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the numerous educators throughout the country who shared their stories and strategies that made this book possible. I have been blessed with the good fortune of having had many opportunities to share my knowledge with you and to learn so much from you that I can pass along to others. I have found that there is always a wealth of untapped great ideas among faculty in every school, yet these ideas too often go unshared due to various constraints. Much of my work involves helping educators share their best ideas with each other. My hope is that MORE What Do I Do When … ? Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior will help make life a bit easier for educators by enhancing the success and improving the behavior of our students.
A special thanks to my son Brian Mendler, a youthful yet wise special-education teacher and outstanding Discipline With Dignity presenter whose dedication to making life better for his challenging students has had a dramatic impact on many of their lives. I thank Brian for his editorial comments and for contributing his “legacy” strategy. In addition to Brian, I thank my wife, Barbara, who recently retired from a lengthy career in education. At her retirement dinner, one speaker after another referred to her as always being “all about the kids.” Wonderfully, she has also always found the time and energy to be there for our family and for me. Our lengthy talks about kids and schools have shaped much of my thinking over the years.
I want to give special thanks to my editors at Solution Tree for their fine work. I also wish to acknowledge Carolyn Pool, acquisitions editor at ASCD, for enthusiastically embracing this book in its earliest form. I also wish to acknowledge Lori Erickson and all the folks at the Otter Creek Institute for their support of my work and their flexibility in allowing me to schedule seminars that fit my life. My program manager at Discipline Associates, Tammy Rowland, deserves special mention due to her excellence at keeping Discipline Associates well-organized. Our primary associates—Willeta Corbett, Jerry Evanski, Brian Mendler, Dave Zawadzki, and Colleen Zawadzki—deserve special mention for the fine work they do in teaching discipline seminars to educators throughout the country. Finally, and as always, a particularly special acknowledgment of my partner, frequent coauthor, and best friend, Rick Curwin, for his constant optimism, great sense of humor, and love.
Contents
How to Effectively Use This Book
PART 1—PREVENTION, INTERVENTION, AND CHOOSING A DISCIPLINE METHOD
Chapter 1: Introduction to Strategies
Six Key Criteria to Consider When Choosing a Discipline Method
Chapter 2: Tips for Welcoming Students
Set Up Your Classroom in a Welcoming Way
The Urgent Messenger
Invite Challenging Students to Participate in Extracurricular Activities
REPRODUCIBLE: My Interest Inventory
Fifteen Quick and Encouraging Statements
Accentuate the Positive Concerning Negative Behavior
Chapter 3: Tips for Developing Effective Rules and Consequences
Tips for School-Wide Discipline
Show Proper Ways for Changing Rules
Involve Students in Making and Modifying Classroom Rules
Review Rules Regularly and Consider Emphasizing a “Rule of the Week”
Characteristics of Effective Consequences
Consider Using Students to Create Consequences
Easy Math: Fairness = Success + Responsibility