CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE

Classroom management and effective discipline are skills that all beginning teachers must learn. Classroom management refers to those procedures or routines a teacher uses to maintain a smoothly running classroom; discipline refers to those techniques or strategies a teacher uses to respond to specific acts of student misbehavior. (p.1)

The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the application of Reality Therapy as a form of classroom and school discipline with the Cooperative Discipline model. The first section of the essay examines the two models in terms of their basic philosophies of discipline, underlying assumptions, and key terms. This is followed by discussion and illustrations of overt teacher behaviors associated with the two discipline models. The final section of the essay delineates the strengths and limitations associated with both approaches.

Basic Philosophies, Assumptions, and Key Terms

According to Welch and Dolly (1980) reality therapy, as applied to the educational setting, derives from a philosophy of counseling in which efforts are made to help counselees deal with personal problems by creating more realistic "quality worlds" (what they want), and/or figuring out better choices (what they do) to satisfy what is in their quality worlds. When clients do this, they are said to feel better and to be

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ense of self-esteem. Overt Teacher Behaviors Reality Therapy Reality therapy utilizes both cognitive and behavioral approaches in the remediation of classroom misbehavior. For example, George (1980) developed a disciplinary approach based on reality therapy in which students' improved their behavior by examining moral dilemmas. It was noted that teachers can help students to build more moral and ethical frameworks for their behavior by utilizing cognitive and behavioral strategies that are either at the threshold or just beyond the threshold of students' moral reasoning stage. Engelhardt (1983) reported that the Douglas School System in South Dakota has successfully operated a Time Out/Discipline Model program in their middle school for five years that was developed based upon reality therapy. The core components of the program involved teachers engaging in several overt behaviors. These behaviors included: involvement with the student as a caring friend; focusing their concern on students' present behavior, not their past behavior; encouraging student acknowledgement of the appropriateness of chosen behaviors; development of a plan for better behavior which may include referral to the Time Out room for help; fostering s
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Approximate Word count = 2497
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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