Subtle Differences

19. February 2009 · 3 comments · Categories: Communication, Education · Tags: , , ,

I had the good fortune of listening to one of my favorite educators talk to a group of pre-service teachers about discipline and classroom management. I asked her to give this talk because she deals with some of our most challenging students, yet has very few attendance problems and almost never has a discipline issue.

I don’t even think she realized the power of what she said this morning because she kind of glossed right over it, but she told the soon-to-be teachers that as soon she sees a possible attendance issue emerging with a student, she will pull him or her aside and say (in her best tough-love delivery):

You know if you get to six absences, you and I are going to have a talk.

Consider just for a minute the difference between a statement like that and:

You know if you get to six absences, I’m going to send you to your administrator.

The difference is subtle, but it’s there. If you’re a student, one of those says, “We are going to work this out,” and the other one says, “I’m going to make you someone else’s problem.”

Guess how many of her kids get to six absences.

If they act like this on camera…

04. September 2008 · 5 comments · Categories: Education · Tags: , , ,

Someone suggested I check out “The Principal’s Office” on truTV a few weeks back and I think I can say with confidence that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for reality TV.

For one, I’m sure this was reenacted at least a teensy bit, but there are definitely some lessons all of us admin-types can take away from this. For example, you can’t fake the beat-up, here-it-comes-again look on this kid’s face as he walks out of the gym. This kid’s felt the wrath before and knows how this is going to end:

It’s fascinating to watch the principal work, though. Watch how he asks questions and ignores the answers. He’s not really asking. He thinks he knows the answers and is only asking the kid so he can catch him in a lie and further pile it on. Smooth, huh? Yeah. The end part is pretty clearly phony which detracts from the whole thing. But, hey – this is truTV. If it was good it’s be on Fox.

And this kid? I mean, seriously?

This kid is either super-sensitive or the best actor I’ve ever seen in my life.

And finally, I’ll leave you with some comic relief. I would totally make this kid my office aide. He’s already got the discipline code memorized as demonstrated by the whole “paraphernalia/contraband” debate that the admins let themselves get sucked into.

This cat is smooth and he clearly knows how to run the show. The admin tag team just make his button-pushing soooo easy and rewarding that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

The next time you have a kid in your office, try thinking about how you’d feel if you ended up on TV. Would you be proud of the way you handled it? Would you be able to say you really listened to the kid? Or was your mind already made up from the start?

Do you sit behind your desk, putting a physical barrier between you and the offender, or do you pull up a chair next to the kid and meet on his level?