Three Steps to Self-Discipline

Abstract

Ms. Hopkins! Ms. Hopkins, latoya ripped my paper," wailed Joshua. Ms. Hopkins looked up from reading group and across the room at latoya.lips pouting, latoya rebutted defiantly, "Yeah, well, he called me the Bword. Said I was a black B." Before Ms. Hopkins could respond, Joshua interiected, "She said Iwas a crummy little cracker first." "Hold it right there," commanded Ms. Hopkins, rising from her chair. "What's going on here?" Both children began to talk at once, charging each other with pelly and serious offenses.Above it all, Richard chimed in: "They been fussin' with each other all morning over in Ms. Johnson's room." "He's lying on them! They ain't done nothin' over there," flashed latoya's best friend, Marissa."Have, too, and you beller shut up, fool," retorted Richard. With four students now furiously arguing and trading insults, the rest of the class put aside their work anticipating an entertaining donnybrook. With a sigh, Ms. Hopkins abandoned the reading group to restore order in her resource room and get the children back on task. 36 • THE COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN S everal years ago, the faculty at the elementary school where I was the behavior resource teacher agonized that they were spending far too much time stopping, or at least delaying, disruptions to classroom instruction and campus misbehavior. A large number of exceptional students had been mainstreamed and "included" in general education classes, but teachers were not scapegoating them as the cause of our classroom and school discipline problems. Because the discipline failure was schoolwide, the administration and faculty began to design and implement strategies for school improvement in discipline, community relations, and academic performance.