Punishment

 I met a parent today who left me with mixed feelings. Do I want to hit him? Do I need to burst with laughter right in front of him??

So, this well educated father ( who is an engineer by the way) said, “ With all respect to all what you do and all your techniques and philosophies, I think the only way to discipline my son is to spank him.”
……….
I stared at him for a moment to gather my thoughts and ideas, because I just wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine (a punch in the gut). Don’t worry guys, I didn’t do that.
I was able to convince him that a good teacher is always in control and he or she doesn’t need to be violent with the children to discipline them. After he left, it hit me… What if a teacher believes that the only way to control a class is by a wooden stick?? And even worse, what if a teacher uses verbal abuse thinking that words are only words and they can’t cause harm to these children in our classes.
I am not a parent, I have no idea how mothers deal with their kids at home. But to me, a child in my class is my responsibility. This child must be comfortable and he or she must like to come to class. How can he or she feel that way with an abusive teacher (think of everything that might hurt the child’s feelings as an abuse).
A teacher might say, “Well, you can’t control a class without some kind of authority. The good teacher is the one that controls the class and the students”
I agree with the last part, but the approach is the thing that I don’t agree with.
I would like to share with you what I usually do, and with a little training from the children’s part, it works like magic.
Pause for a little bit when a child does something wrong. Let the rest of the class notice that something wrong has happened and just…. Carry on. Talk to the child that misbehaved alone after class. Highlight the behavior not the child. Explain to him/her why it was wrong to do so and so. Even better ,let him/her talk about the wrong thing that happened during class. They understand no matter how young they are. Of course, there must be consequences, but not from the first time. You can agree on the consequences of the unwanted behaviors with your students in the beginning of the school year. Write these down on a notebook that you will keep all the school year long. These can be as simple as removing a star from the motivation chart, or as serious as staying in class during PE. ( believe me, the star thing is more serious than losing one’s home for the younger students).
And remember, reward comes along with punishment. Little things that you might do as reward will keep you in control not by the wooden stick, but by love and caring for those little angels.
Rasha