Why Can't Character Ed End Your Classroom Management Nightmares?

Character ed is becoming more and more popular in schools all over the U.S. But in our workshops around the country, more and more educators and counselors are complaining that character ed is not the solution for every youngster. They want to know what is wrong with character ed approaches.

First, let's make sure you know what character ed is. Character ed approaches attempt to use character-building to ensure or engender appropriate behavior. A character ed approach to bullying might require that the bully apologize and make amends to the victim of the bullying, for example. Character ed methods essentially use a single force to elicit satisfactory conduct. The logic is that by building character, conscience and moral values, students' behavior can be improved or maintained at a satisfactory level.

Unfortunately, human beings are not "uniform" creatures. Single-mode interventions of any type can be expected to fail with at least a portion of any group. Character ed is subject to this potential flaw just like any other style of student management. The education world does tend to move from trend to trend, and character ed may be the current one. This article will explain the biggest flaws and serious safety issues you may encounter if you use character ed, and will explain how to supplement character ed approaches to make them more effective with different types of youngsters. We'll also look at how to avoid the predictable safety issues that character ed methods can engender.

WHO DOES CHARACTER ED WORK WELL WITH? Ironically, character ed works best with the students who least need it. So, character ed can most impact youngsters who have a conscience, remorse and values. Obviously, youngsters who fit that description are not likely to be your worst bullies and agitators.

WHO DOES CHARACTER ED WORK WORST WITH? The sentence above may not be grammatically correct, but that is the least of your problems. Character ed works worst with students who lack a conscience, remorse and compassion. A whopping 11-15% of young people will fit this description. The mental health term that might be applied by a counselor to some of these youngsters is "conduct disorder," but the rather grim bottom line is that character ed is utterly ineffective with these students. You can can't successfully use conscience-based approaches with students who lack a conscience. These students will be your worst bullies and agitators yet character ed is virtually powerless to control them. These students are likely to be the source of many of your worst classroom and group management nightmares but character ed is utterly ineffective when used with them-- plus, safety concerns may be generated.

HOW CAN CHARACTER ED CAUSE SAFETY PROBLEMS? Safety problems can easily be created or worsened by using character ed methods with conduct disorders (children without a conscience). Here is an example: A conduct disordered child bullies another youngster. The bully is given classic character ed-style consequences such as being asked to apologize and make amends. Lacking relationship capacity, the child is unable to benefit from these relationship-based approaches, but it gets worse. Having been caught and required to make an apology may have angered or annoyed the bully, putting the victimized student at high risk of retribution.


ARE THERE OTHER SAFETY CONCERNS? Character ed approaches often involve helping the misbehaved child understand the harm he has done to his peer. If you help the bully "understand" how his behavior upset or saddened the victim-- which was his goal in the first place-- aren't you marking the victim for more torment? Bullies love a strong negative reaction from their victims, and character ed methods often highlight the victims' negative reaction. The effect is to place a "kick me more" sign on the back of the victim. Expect the bully's problem behavior towards the victim to increase. There are additional, important safety concerns that we cover in our workshops, books and ebooks (www.youthchg.com); we have covered just the most common concern here.

HOW CAN I SUPPLEMENT CHARACTER ED TO AVOID SAFETY PROBLEMS? It's easy to supplement character ed methods and eliminate the safety concerns. The most important step is to be sure all your staff are trained to know about conduct disorders. You must use a different set of interventions with conduct disorders. You can continue to use character ed methods with others if you are satisfied with the results that style of intervention delivers with some students.

HOW ELSE CAN I ENHANCE CHARACTER ED TO WORK BETTER? Character ed won't make up for a lack of skills, a bad attitude, or if students lack the motivation to improve their behavior. Add in those items, and watch the improvement. So, be sure to teach all the skills you want students to use, and cover everything from what to say to where do hands belong and not belong. Any behavior that you expect, you must teach. Without skills, students can not perform better no matter how much you build their character. Similarly, character ed usually doesn't make up for a bad attitude or poor motivation, so be sure to teach both of those. If you are thinking that no one knows how to teach students to have better attitudes and motivation, then you haven't been exposed to my terrific motivation-builders and bad attitude-busters. Great methods do exist. For example, check out a completely free sampler of great bad attitude-busters at www.youthchg.com/solvat.html so you can see that these tools do exist.

A Special Education Success Story With ADD And ADHD

The Problem

In our rapidly moving culture, special education students, diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are an ever-increasing challenge for teachers. Having taught in some capacity for nearly 40 years and being a parent of an active little boy, I have studied these conditions with immediate personal interest.

Holding Their Attention

Early in my work with the attentionally challenged, I observed that if the learning activity were engaging enough, many of these students could hold attention for long periods. Special Education students diagnosed with ADD or ADHD often have the ability to attend for long periods working with computers or video games. I wondered, could the problem lie more in the pace of the learning activity?

Give Them What They Need

Subsequently, I began to provide activities in my classroom that had some of the same qualities of the immediate response achieved in those computerized attention-holders. One of the most successful of these was the excavation of fossils.

The Setup

Fossil excavation was a 6-week class - more of a club, really ? in which students excavated a real fossil fish from a soft rock matrix. This time the class was made up of many special education students with various learning challenges, especially ADHD. The outcome of the class was remarkable.

Getting Their Interest and Attention

We started with a sort of guessing game involving fossils hidden in velvet bags and moved quickly into individual excavation of the fossils. Within minutes, my work was done; the students worked independently for the remainder of the two-hour class. My hardest work that day was to enforce clean-up-the students simply didn?t? t want to stop working.

Tools And Supplies

The only tools needed for this activity were small screw drivers-the sort that are available from any hardware store in a set of increasing sizes beginning with an eye-glass tool . I also provided magnifiers of varying types. The most sought after were the dissecting microscopes, which gave the individual the best view of the fragile fossil. However, much of the work could be easily accomplished using the naked eye or a magnifier in a stand, just to leave the hands free.

And Then There Are the Behavioral Challenges

I was presented with a new challenge about halfway into the second class: a behaviorally disruptive student who had been removed from another class. I did what I could to introduce him to our work and bring him up to speed. His initial work was little more than digging a hole through his rock, paying little attention to the fossil it contained.

Success!

Then a wonderful thing happened. Another boy, a challenging special education student who generally had little academic success, began to teach. You see, this boy was enthralled with digging out the fossil and he was having incredible success. He single-handedly took over and my work was done.

Help! My Classroom Is Out Of Control! How To Control The Uncontrollable Classroom Now

"They're yelling." "They're disrespectful." "They're rude." "They're inattentive." "They're off task." "They're side-talking." Does that describe your class or group? If it does, you're not alone. Those are the nonstop complaints we've been hearing at our workshops and at Live Expert Help on our web site. The classroom management issues are serious, frequent and dominant, but we're here to help.

Here's the answer to the misbehavior. You have to teach the behaviors before you can expect them. This does not mean restating the expectations. This means that you actually teach the specific skills that you want to see in your classroom or group room. This means that you teach each aspect of the target behavior, just as you must teach all elements of spelling or riding a bike, in order to ensure mastery. So, you have to teach all the skills for acting in a respectful manner, talking one at a time, hand raising, focusing, and so on.

Although we won't include any here, be sure that you use lots of our popular motivation-makers so your youngsters value your site and service. (There is a sampling of our dynamic motivation-makers on our site at www.youthchg.com/nws3moti.html) The more students value your service, the more their behavior will reflect that. Similarly, the less they value your service, the more their behavior will reflect that too.

Here are some ways to teach "mouth control", but don't forget to cover all the other behaviors that youth and children need to act acceptably in your setting:

Give Me Five

This is a fun intervention for younger students. Have the child give you a "high five" slap while saying: "High Five! 2 ears listening. 2 eyes watching. 1 mouth shut."

Do the Wave

This is an incredibly fun intervention that doesn't come alive at all in writing; you simply have to give it a try to appreciate how wonderful it is. This intervention can be used with any age group. Raise your hand, then teach your group to fall silent while rhythmically clapping to this beat: 1-2, 1-2-3 (two slow claps and then three fast.) Most classes quickly learn to instantly transform from rowdy to silent. The effect of the sudden clapping is similar to a crowd doing the wave at a basketball game. Allow students to take turns performing the job of raising a hand to initiate the clapping. You end up with a very quiet room-- with no work required on your part to achieve it.

The Mouth Goes Shut

This device is fun with any age group, and it's quick and simple. You simply raise your hand and teach your class: "When the hand goes up, the mouth goes shut." If you wish, a student can perform the raising the hand part of this intervention for you.

Dragnet Helps

This device generates instant quiet. Sing the theme of the TV show, Dragnet: dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun. Teach students to be quiet in time to sing the last note with you. (The entire tune: dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun, dun!)

Classroom Behavior Barometer

Craft a barometer out of poster board and show green, yellow and red areas on the barometer. Label the green area as "Go," the yellow as "Caution," and the red as "Stop." Affix a moveable pointer and move it as necessary to alert the class to how well they are controlling their verbal behavior. You may use a traffic light signal instead of a barometer, if you prefer.

How Often to Talk

This intervention is so simple, yet so often overlooked. Ideally, every teacher or counselor would offer this help to their group at first contact. Kids do not magically know how often to talk during your class or group. Some talk nonstop while others never speak at all. Have your class establish a recommended number of times to talk per hour. You can even create a chart to show each group member how they are doing. But it's important to remember that you must give specific, quantifiable goals to students prior to expecting them to conform. Without a specific number, many children will be unable to discern what is a "reasonable number of times to talk." If you have problems with talk-outs, test out this suggestion. You may be very surprised.

The Talk Thing

Younger children, youth with ADHD, and many other populations, can have trouble maintaining proper "mouth control." If you don't like to require hand raising, or you have found it ineffective, then consider using a "talk thing." "What's that?" you wonder. A talk thing is any item that you designate, but prior to talking, the youngster must be holding the talk thing. You can use a tennis ball, a pen, or any item that your group selects. You are simply substituting external structure for that lack of internal control. Many youngsters find the talk thing to be silly and fun, and may comply more readily. For youth who impulsively speak out a lot, the talk thing can provide brake

Conduct Disordered, Oppositional Defiant, Violent, Disruptive Students: Must-know Safety Information You May Not Have

There are three types of kids who may be at the highest risk of extreme violence. Obviously, you must take seriously any threat or indication of danger from any kid, so if a dangerous child you know doesn't fit one of these categories, please don't just breathe a sigh of relief. Rather, the point of emphasizing these three top-risk youth, is to have you apportion your time wisely. You can't monitor each child equally. This information may guide you on who you monitor most closely, especially in the absence of other events or information to guide you.

In this space, we will have time to cover only one of these youth in any kind of detail. We will cover the second two kids in a subsequent article. But, we understand you may want to know all that right now, so if you want to learn more immediately about any of these three youth, go to our web site to http://www.youthchg.com/hottopic.html and read a reprint of the full article that this text is excerpted from. Our information on the 3 most violent kids was first published by The Child Welfare Report in 1998, and is updated and revised here.

The youth at highest risk of extreme violence may be the conduct disordered child. If you don't already know this term, visualize the fictional character, J.R. from the TV show "Dallas" because the hallmark of being a conduct disorder (c.d.), is having no heart, no conscience, no remorse. Only a mental health professional can diagnose a conduct disorder for sure, but being aware that you may have a conduct disordered child in your class or group, is important to ensuring your safety, along with the safety of your kids, because you work with conduct disorders completely differently than other kids. Since the c.d. child has little relationship capacity, you should not use relationship-based approaches with a diagnosed conduct disorder.

It would be insensitive to call a conduct disorder a "baby sociopath," but that is close to what the term means. It means that the child acts in ways that appear to be seriously anti-social, and the concern is that the child may grow up to be a sociopathic type of person. Since this child cares only about himself (c.d.'s are predominately male), there are little brakes on this child from serious or extreme violence. Not every conduct disordered child will engage in horrific behavior. There is a range of misbehavior c.d.'s may get involved with, ranging from lying to setting fires or being a sexual predator. At the most serious end of the spectrum, lies the possibility of extreme violence, such as a school shooting. 

Learning Math With Manipulatives - Base Ten Blocks (Part I)

Base ten blocks are an excellent tool for teaching children the concept of addition because they allow children to touch and manipulate something real while learning important skills that translate well into paper and pencil addition. In this article, I will describe base ten blocks and how to use them to represent and add numbers.

The numbering system that children learn and the one most of us are familiar with is the base ten system. This essentially means that you can only use ten unique digits (0 to 9) in each place of a base ten number. For instance, in the number 345, there is a hundreds place, a tens place and a ones place. The only possible digits that could go in each place are the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. In this example, the place value of the ones place is 5.

Base ten blocks turn the base ten concept into something children can see and touch.

Base ten blocks consist of cubes, rods, flats, and blocks. Cubes represent the ones place and look exactly like their name suggests - a small cube usually one centimeter by one centimeter by one centimeter. Rods represent the tens place and look like ten cubes placed in a row and fused together. Flats, as you might have guessed, represent hundreds, and blocks represent thousands. A flat looks like one hundred cubes place in a 10 x 10 square and attached together. A block looks like ten flats piled one on top of the other and bonded together.

In order to use base ten blocks to add numbers, students should be familiar with how to represent numbers using base ten blocks. To see what base ten blocks look like, and to try them out, go to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives:

http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_154_g_1_t_1.html

To represent a number using base ten blocks, make piles of base ten blocks to represent each place value. If your number was 2,784, you would make a pile of 2 blocks, a pile of 7 flats, a pile of 8 rods, and a pile of 4 cubes. It is useful to arrange the piles in a row in the same order that they appear in the number as that will be useful later on when children learn the paper and pencil algorithm.

Another useful skill to practice is trading base ten blocks. Each block can be traded for 10 flats, each flat for 10 rods, and each rod for 10 cubes. Going the other way, 10 cubes can be traded for one rod, 10 rods for one flat, and 10 flats for one block.

One simple use of base ten blocks that translates well to a paper and pencil method of addition is to add by regrouping. To add two or more numbers, start by representing each number with base ten blocks. Put all of the cubes from both numbers in the same pile; do this with the rods, flats, and blocks as well. Next, trade any groups of 10 cubes for a rod. Trade any groups of 10 rods for a flat; then trade any groups of 10 flats for a block. To read the resulting number, count the number of base ten blocks left in each pile and read the number.

To illustrate this procedure, picture the addition question, 568 + 693. After representing both numbers with base ten blocks and combining the piles of like base ten blocks, you should have a pile of 11 cubes, a pile of 15 rods, and a pile of 11 flats. Trading 10 of the cubes for 1 rod means you now have 1 cube, 16 rods and 11 flats. Trading 10 of the rods for one flat results in 1 cube, 6 rods, and 12 flats. Trading 10 of the flats for one block gives you your final piles of 1 cube, 6 rods, 2 flats, and 1 block. The answer to the addition question, therefore, is 1,261.

Latin Lives On--333 Common Words Identical in Latin and English

"Latin Lives On" is news you can use in English, Latin and History classes: every day your students use words that have remained entirely unchanged for 2000 years...

Almost 15 years ago I was riding the New York subway and chanced to read a sign about rapid transit. It struck me that this word transit must be pure Latin, that is, unchanged in a single letter in 20 centuries. Nero wrote this word, and spoke it! I was astonished. Were there other such survivors? Yes, and one by one they came to mind, exit, ego, verbatim, stratum, bonus, alias, minutia, victor. All pure Latin. Or more precisely, pure Latin-English.

But how could all this be such a shock? I had studied Latin for three years in high school and almost entered a Latin course at Princeton, where I majored in English literature. I had certainly heard endlessly about origins, etymologies, derivations, and roots. I had heard a hundred times that English is profoundly indebted to Latin.

But here's the rub, etymologies and derivations are abstractions, and dry ones. To say that a word derives from Latin or Chinese or Arabic is interesting but not gripping. To say that you're speaking a word unchanged in 2,000 years is gripping. I'm sure this situation is unique in the worlds' history. There are, I suspect, few if any French words identical to Latin ones, even though the etymological debt may be greater. So it seems that by some marvel of perversity my books and teachers had harped on origins without ever declaring one of the most arresting facts of our culture, that we daily use words that Cicero used.

I was, of course, aware of the legal phrases and the occasional italicized Latin word. (If a word is italicized, or should be,  it is ipso facto not English.) But my emphasis here is on common English words, the profoundly ordinary words that do not announce their heritage. Words like editor, pelvis, opera, humor, labor . . . .

Reasoning ad hominem. I suspected that a majority of people have had a similar experience. Informal research confirms this. I have over the years asked dozens of people these three questions, Did you take Latin? If so, do you know whether there are any words that are the same letter for letter in both Latin and English? And if you think so, can you give an example?

The answers can be simple summarized. Roughly half of the people who took Latin state flatly that there are no such identicals. These people, by the way, quickly add that there are, of course, thousands of cognates and derivative and linguistic descendants and so on and on. "You know," they say, "like manufacture and homicide." Then they look proud of themselves, confident in their ignorance. What's even more intriguing is that the other half, the people who assert confidently that there surely are such words, can virtually never think of even one!

How can all this be?

There is Latin on sundials and Latin on coins and Latin on doorways and Latin on college rings, and all of these occurrences are interesting. But the most interesting Latin of all is most definitely the Latin on our lips.

Would you not think that Latin teachers (and English teachers as well) would be eager to capitalize on these amazing survivors from a long-ago culture? Yes, if you reflect on it for a minute, you would think that. But they generally do not.

Something there is in the pedagogical mind, it seems to me, that does not like to consort too intimately with the immediate, the known, the obvious, the vulgar slant on things. If salt and pepper will illustrate a point in chemistry, you can be reasonably sure that the chemistry text will speak in dispassionate tones of copper sulfate. And something there is in every textbook that is poisonously concerned with seeming professorial in the worst sense versus going for the students' hearts or, better still, guts.

In short, the epiphany that started out with the word transit has led me to a whole world of insight, insight into how education should and should not be conducted. I have been thinking obsessively about my own education, and the thing that strikes me over and over is how teachers and courses so often conspired to avoid mentioning the stupendously relevant, the breathtakingly fascinating, or the unforgettably immediate. Let me offer as Exhibit A the accompanying list of 333 common words that are letter-for-letter the same in Latin and English!

I hope that this list of glorious survivors will be used widely (and xeroxed ad infinitum) to help excite beginning Latin students and to make Latin seem easier to learn and more vital to all our lives.

It probably goes without saying that the meaning of the words or the pronunciation or the part of speech (or all three) may have shifted over the centuries. But the changes and differences are themselves fascinating and instructive. What the Romans meant when they said bonus and alias, and what we mean, can provide an interesting story and a visceral way to remember a word and its full historic freight.

My list was stopped, somewhat arbitrarily, at 333, mainly because I liked the symmetry of the number. Naturally, every Latin scholar will think of words that might have been included. Indeed, the list could be pushed to 350 or even 400 (or, with lots of medical terminology, to 500 or 600). But you quickly reach more and more obscure words, which defeats my purpose. The power of this list does not come from its comprehensiveness, but from the ordinariness of the words. The power comes from being able to say to a high school class, "You already know these words." Omissions, therefore, are not of moment. What's important is that Latin (and English) teachers can use this list to increase the efficiency of their classes. Simply declare, as dramatically as possible, "Isn't this amazing?" Here are all these words you already know and "guess what?" Caesar wrote these same words! Nero spoke at least a few of them while Rome was burning. The early Christians, awaiting the lions, used these words in their prayers."

This list, simply by being, tells us all 'viscerally and unforgettably' that Latin lives on. In our minds. In our thoughts. In our sentences. In our lives.

Learning Math With Manipulatives - Base Ten Blocks (Part II)

In part one of this article, you read about representing and adding numbers using base ten blocks. Once these two skills are mastered, it is time to move onto many a child's nightmare: subtraction. Subtraction, as you may have heard, is essentially addition in reverse. It can be an arduous task on paper, but it can be quite easy with base ten blocks.

Recall that there are four different base ten blocks: cubes (ones), rods (tens), flats (hundreds), and blocks (thousands). Groups of ten base ten blocks can be regrouped or traded for equivalent amounts of other base ten blocks; for instance, ten cubes can be traded for one rod because both are worth ten. For subtraction, it is useful to know how to trade down rods, flats, and blocks. Trading down means converting larger place value blocks into smaller place value blocks. For instance, one flat can be traded for ten rods since they are both worth 100.

Before describing the subtraction procedure, let's go over some vocabulary . . .

Minuend - The amount from which you are subtracting.

Subtrahend - The amount that you are subtracting.

Difference - The answer.

In the equation, 234 - 187 = 47, the minuend is 234, the subtrahend is 187, and the difference is 47. Most people don't bother with the terms minuend and subtrahend, but they are useful in describing the subtraction procedure using base ten blocks.

To begin, represent the minuend with base ten blocks. Try to keep the blocks in order from largest to smallest as this will help to transfer knowledge and skills to paper and pencil methods later on. Remove from the minuend piles, enough blocks to represent the subtrahend. If there aren't enough blocks available, trade some of the larger place value blocks until there are enough smaller place value blocks to remove. The resulting piles after the subtrahend is removed represents the difference.

In the example, begin by representing 234 with 2 flats, 3 rods, and 4 cubes. The goal is to remove 187 or 1 flat, 8 rods, and 7 cubes from these piles. Removing one flat is simple enough, but 8 rods and 7 cubes are difficult to remove if there are only 3 rods and 4 cubes! To solve this problem, trade in one flat for 10 rods, and one rod for 10 cubes. The result would be 1 flat, 12 rods, and 14 cubes. Removing the subtrahend - 1 flat, 8 rods, and 7 cubes - at this point would leave no flats, 4 rods, and 7 cubes. The difference is whatever is left after removing the subtrahend, so the difference is 47.

For beginners, it would be wise to start with subtraction that does not require trading. For example 1954 - 1831 would require no trading because there are enough blocks in the minuend to remove the subtrahend. For more advanced students, questions that include zeros can present a bit of a challenge. For example, 4000 - 3657 would require several trading steps all starting with four blocks. Math-Drills.com has several thousand free math worksheets including subtraction questions with no regrouping (trading). One of the nice features of this website is that answer keys are provided, so students can get feedback on their results.

With enough experience, students learn subtraction on a conceptual level and are better equipped to apply it to pencil and paper methods later on. Students who only learn the paper and pencil method don't always develop a conceptual understanding of subtraction and are less able to identify errors in their work.