Copyright, © Thomas D. Wintle, 2006

I

Tom Wintle: "Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise" (Dt.6.6f).

How many of you remember your third grade teacher? How many of you can remember your third grade teacher's name? Now, how many can remember the name of your minister when you were in third grade? (Guess that puts me in my place!).

I remember Mrs. Start, in our Baltimore suburb of Catonsville, back in 1950-muffled. Kindly, gentle, motherly. But it was my 4th grade teacher that is seared into my memory: Miss Lite, Miss Rose Lite -- misnamed, I thought, for no light escaped from her, she never smiled, I thought she was mean, she gave me extra homework that others didn't have to do, she made me lead the slow-readers group rather than participate in my own reading group. I was so glad when fourth grade ended!

And then, on the first day of fifth grade, Miss Lite walked into our classroom -- she had become the fifth-grade teacher. I think I became an atheist that day(!), or at least, I realized that God did not always arrange things the way I wanted! But, you know, I learned more from Miss Lite than any other teacher. I learned to work.

Both the Jewish and the Christian religions put great emphasis upon learning. Religion is not just something you do -- rituals and ceremonies -- but is also something you are supposed to think about . . . think about in ways that change you inside. "Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning," goes one classic prayer of the church, "Grant that we may . . . read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them."

This morning's lesson from Deuteronomy contains one of the most important commandments in Jewish worship, the Shema: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone." And then the line that Jesus picked up: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" -- that is, with your whole being. But the part I especially liked is when we are told what to do with the great stories and commands of God's people: "Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise" (Dt.6.6f) Such words remind us that parents should be resident theologians.

Jesus, of course, is addressed more frequently as "Teacher" than anything else. The Parable of the Sower seems to be a warning that we might miss the seeds of learning if we are unreceptive -- like rocky ground with good intentions but no depth, or well-beaten paths where we are simply drawn along with the masses, or thorny ground where the crowded schedules of our days chokes the life out of our spiritual lives.

The Puritans who organized this church insisted upon education, starting Harvard college soon after arriving on these shores. As one contemporary wrote, and is inscribed on Johnston Gate: "After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship and settled our civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust."

Likewise, the first covenant of First Parish Church includes a section saying that educating our children is one of the reasons for having a church.

And, to add just one more item in my brief for the importance of education: there is a portrait hanging in the State House reception room near the Senate chamber. It is a rather poor portrait, but the subject is significant. It is Horace Mann. He was a Unitarian who became the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. Before his work, education in Massachusetts was most often for those who could pay for it. But Mann, and many Unitarian ministers, campaigned vigorously for free, non-sectarian, public education. They argued that the school house, like the library, was the foundation of American democracy. Education, you may recall from my sermon on salvation, is what saves us one of the most troublesome aspects of the human predicament: ignorance.

So, my friends, what more can I say? -- our worship theme for May is "success" and education, whether formal or informal, is fundamental to success in any endeavor. Last week was teacher appreciation week, and today is Mothers Day. I am pleased that I was able to recruit a teacher and a mother to speak! When I heard the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year speak to education students about "effective classroom management," I thought: that's also about effective life management, and that could be a sermon.

II

Suzanne Wintle: I knew better. I've been doing this for thirty-five years. But that cute little smile and the forlorn look in his third grade eyes melted my heart. (And yet I knew better.)

"Please Mrs. Wintle can I have my things back? I won't play with them. I promise"

"Ok Luke, a few, if you can use them appropriately."

I pulled down the box holding his treasures. Jared picked through his 75+ erasers all with little hand drawn faces and chose one large one; he said he had named him Hector. Then he pulled out his pencil box, it was empty except for five pencils. (That seemed safe.) And finally he chose his Vaseline Lip Care tube. (Well, after all, he did have chapped lips).

I spelled out my expectations to Luke, "Ok, now if you can use these appropriately, as they were designed to be used - you can retrieve more of your treasures from the box tomorrow."

"Thanks Mrs. Wintle."

"Now get busy with your reading."

Off I went to conference with a few students on their reading progress. After two conferences I looked up and saw Luke grinning up at me from across the room. (Mmmmm, not good) As I got up to check on him, Luke was engaged in a flurry of evasive maneuvers. What I saw when I got to Luke's table made me grin. Then quickly I went into teacher mode. Luke had been busy. First he had pulled off all of his pencil erasers and drawn tiny faces on them.

"They have names," he declared. (Great fine motor skills I thought.)

Next he had smeared his Vaseline Lip Balm all over the top of his green ribbed pencil case. (I admit it did lend a nice sheen to his scratched up case.) But finally the piece de resistance, Luke had broken off each pencil tip and placed it in the cap from his water bottle. Then he had filled the cap with Purell. (That being on the shelf next to the box of Kleenex.)

I confronted Luke about his little experiment and his response was, "It is a science experiment Mrs. Wintle. I wanted to test my hypothesis."

"And what is that Luke?"

"My hypothesis is that I think Purell will dissolve the pencil tips. I just don't know how long it will take. I'm timing it."

Ahhh, where to begin? Now clearly if all of my classroom management problems were as benign as that scenario, I would be happy. But the fact is, Luke is a super bright little nine year old with tons of potential. He wiles away his days creating eraser characters, and imagining worlds beyond my own. He should be pouring that energy into learning and developing his reading and writing skills. It is my job as his teacher to funnel that energy and imagination into the business of school. In this scenario I had broken one of my own cardinal rules. And that is what I am here to talk with you about this morning, preventing and solving discipline problems. My belief is that most effective classroom management systems use proactive strategies designed to prevent discipline problems rather than strategies to correct problems when they occur. Now to be sure I am speaking about classroom management this morning, BUT don’t we all deal with management/discipline issues of all kinds every day, at home, at work, in the supermarket, just about everywhere?

There are, according to Mark and Christine Boynton in their book, Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems four components crucial to establishing an effective discipline system: first---positive adult-child relationships, second---clearly defined parameters of acceptable behavior, third---monitoring skills, and finally---consequences.

I believe the most important factor and the very heart of any discipline plan is developing positive adult-child relationships. We all want to feel cared for and valued. Children are no different. When children feel that you value and care for them as individuals, they are more willing to comply with your wishes. I have this great Calvin and Hobbes cartoon on my desk at home. Calvin in the first frame is shouting, “I’m in a very crabby mood, so everybody just leave me alone! I hate everybody.” In the next two frames Calvin stomps off, then he stops and looks around. Finally in a small voice he says, “Nobody recognizes my hints to smother me with affection.” Let me give you a few examples of how I give and show affection in the classroom and how I develop positive student teacher relationships. Many of these examples have direct application to daily common occurrences.

As the buses roll in each morning I leave what I am doing in the class and move to my classroom door. As the children come down the hall I address each one with a personal greeting. "Nice haircut, Beau." "How's that new baby sister of yours, Meghan?" "Did you have a good time at ski club yesterday?" In this way I am able to connect with every student, even Brandon who walks down the hall each day with his ski cap covering his eyes. "How many fingers am I holding up Brandon?" As the children take off their coats at their lockers and empty their backpacks, from my vantage point in the doorway I can see it all...the heated exchange at the locker, (I'll have to check on that later in the day) the too tired look on Ethan's face, the hacking cough from Olivia. We are, my students and I, about to spend the next six and a half hours together. It's important to get off to a good start. To do this I need to focus my total attention on the children, nothing is more important at that moment. Not my email, nor my phone messages, they can all wait.

Alfie Kohn says, "Children are more likely to be respectful when important adults in their lives respect them. They are more likely to care about others if they know they are cared about." Think about the adults in authority you know that you have valued. What are the most important factors that stick in your mind about them? Most people will say, “They made me work hard, they seemed to really care about me, and they were fair.”

There are many things, simple things that can be done that will show we care, and are fair. We need to monitor the amount of attention we give to our children. Do we treat our children equally? When you ask a question do we give sufficient wait time for our slow processors to process? If a child doesn't know an answer, don't give up on her and move on to the next child or supply her with the right answer, give her hints so that she will get it. Do we give our children our full attention? We need to tell our children directly day after day that you believe that they have the ability to do well.

When we must correct a child we should do it in a constructive way. Never put him down or humiliate him, especially in front of his peers. Children will recall how we made them feel long after they have forgotten the consequences they earned as a result of their actions.

Frustration and stress are the great enemies of our best intentions. I could carry on for some time about the sources of stress for teachers: difficult students, irate parents, overwhelming amounts of paperwork. For an educator the question is not IF you will become frustrated or stressed but WHEN you will, and HOW you will deal with it. At the National Teacher of the Year Conference in Dallas this past January all of the state TOYs were given advice for getting through this very busy year. Our Workshop leader said first, "Don't whine.” (Teachers unfortunately are great whiners). We complain when our room is too hot, we complain when our room is too cold. Mary Beth also said, “Remember Q-Tip, Quit Taking It Personally.” It's easy to take the misbehavior of a child as a personal affront. If we allow that to happen the encounters we have with children or adults will simply escalate. We all have sources of stress and frustration in our jobs, our lives. Remember Q-Tip, quit taking it personally.

While building positive relationships is the foundation to a strong discipline system, relationships alone are not enough. It is also critical to clearly define parameters of expected behavior, to monitor those behaviors, and to implement consequences when necessary.

Robert Marzano is one of my favorite researchers and writers of all things educational. He found that "across the various grade levels the average number of disruptions in classes where rules and procedures were effectively implemented was 28 percentile points lower than the average number of disruptions in classes where that was not the case."

Every adult should formally take time to TEACH and enforce clearly defined parameters of acceptable behavior. Many adults make the mistake of announcing rather than teaching these parameters. Let me give you an example from my classroom. I have a Noise Meter in my class. It is a chart that shows a continuum from 0 to 3, zero represents NO VOICES, 1 represents BUDDY VOICES, 2 represents TABLE VOICES, and finally 3 represents CLASS VOICES. I have a thumbs-up magnet that moves along this continuum. I place this magnet on a number depending on the noise level I expect to hear in the class during a specific activity. At the beginning of the year we practice identifying what each level sounds like. We play a game creating each level of noise based on where I move the magnet. But you know what, I have to revisit this practice at various times throughout the year. Children forget about expectations, and that's when they get in trouble. Trouble can be prevented with a quick review of expectations.

Setting and teaching clearly established parameters for acceptable behavior is an important component of any discipline plan. When they are done effectively and monitored closely, consequences rarely need to be used. The third component of an effective discipline plan is putting monitoring skills into practice. Thompson defines monitoring as, “Being acutely aware of what each child is doing every minute. It requires the hyper-alertness of a combat veteran...it's the famous ‘eyes in the back of your head.' That is the hallmark of excellent teachers.” It is the teacher who can write on the white board and at the same time tell a student in the back of the room to stop passing notes. Marzano defines monitoring as "withitness... remaining 'with it' (aware of what is happening in all parts of the classroom at all times) by continuously scanning the classroom, even when working with small groups or individuals." That's where I broke my rule with Luke. I gave him back a privilege, some of his stuff, and then left him to his own devices for too long. I should have checked back with him within the first 3 minutes. I needed to make sure he was ready to focus on reading not pencil tips.

Good strategies for monitoring good behavior include maintaining proximity, practicing the "LOOK," and invoking silence. Sometimes the most effective monitoring technique is to not say anything. Adults tend to want to fill quiet spaces with talking. After asking a child to open to page 200 in the math book or turn off the TV and come to dinner, be quiet and wait for them to comply, wait for everyone to comply. That is a good lesson for all leaders.

The best discipline plans strive to limit the need for punishments and negative consequences by having a preventive emphasis. But I know that even with all other strategies in place sometimes it becomes necessary to apply consequences for children who have made bad choices in their behavior. Marzano categorizes interventions into five groups: Teacher reaction, tangible recognition, direct cost, group contingency, and home contingency.

First is the reaction of the adult in charge. Sometimes an adult simply needs to tell a child that his behavior is inappropriate or appropriate. Children can’t always identify what appropriate behavior looks like. Under the category of tangible recognition an adult will provide a child with some symbol or token for appropriate behavior. Often for younger children it can be a sticker on a behavior chart, a smile, or thumbs up. Direct cost gets down to business. This intervention involves direct or concrete consequences for misbehavior. The longer I teach the more creative these become. My favorite involves eating lunch with the transgressor. During lunch I get to know the student a little better, and they are separated from their peers for a brief time. We usually both come out of this consequence knowing more about each other and ourselves. Group contingencies can be implemented where a group of children need to face consequences. A group of girls found fooling around in the restroom, may be asked to miss recess to make up work they missed while in the restroom.

I never forget to get the parents involved. That's where home contingency comes into play. Most parents I have dealt with want to become involved and they want to know early on if their child is on a downward slide. I have a favorite strategy I use with my children. If a student has been warned once about inappropriate behavior to no avail the next step involves this scenario. I call the student over to me and ask her to write her name and phone number on a slip of paper. I tell her, if she can start making good choices about her behavior I will return this paper to her at the end of the day, and she can rip it up and throw it away. However if she continues to make poor behavior choices, then after school I will have to call her parents. The student makes the choice. The best part is at the end of the day when I return the slip of paper I watch her gleefully rip it to shreds.

The responsibility we have as adults in working with children is immense, and it has far-reaching implications into the life of every child. Each of us can remember wonderful and not so wonderful teachers whom we encountered. Each of these teachers affected us in powerful yet different ways. It is up to us to strive to develop powerful positive relationships with children while at the same time remaining consistent and firm in our expectations. When we are able to do this on a daily basis we are helping to develop respectful, honest, and contributing members of society for the future.

Haim Ginott stated this powerfully in his book Teacher and Child:

Dear Teacher,
I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness. Gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.

So I am suspicious of education. My request is: help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns. Reading writing and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane. (p.245)

I hope these thoughts may have been helpful to you as parents or simply as people who care about children. Remember to provide clear, consistent rules and parameters of behavior and to evoke fair and meaningful consequences. But above all, be strong role models for our children and strive to form positive, caring relationships. For your efforts, you will be remembered by your children as one of those wonderful adult role models who made a positive difference in their lives.

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