As a would-be teacher, I would be dealing different students in a classroom with different behaviors, personalities, likes, and dislikes, abilities and different family backgrounds and orientations socially and economically. Therefore, I cannot deny the fact that anytime, I will encounter behavioral problems and crises.
Dealing with behavioral problems with my student will not be easy especially to an inexperienced teacher like me. However, thanks to Lee Canter for making the impossible into possible. Lee Canter is the developer of the Assertive Discipline or the Counter Behavioral management. Together with his wife, they developed this program because they saw and observed that teachers were often unable to get rid of unwanted behaviors in the classroom. They attributed this problem to a lack of training in behavior management and they believe that no student has a right to prevent teacher from teaching and another student from learning and it is the teacher’s responsibility to enforce them.
I am very fortunate enough because this will be of a great help to me if I will be in field. This gave me an idea that to have an order and conducive for learning classroom is to establish a limited number of rules and consequences for both positive and negative behavior, apply them consistently, and act assertively, as a leader. The rules must be specific and clear enough for the students to follow, yet general enough that they can apply to a variety of situations. They are to be based upon observable behaviors and applicable throughout the day or class period. Further, rules must be clearly and repeatedly articulated and posted in the classroom. I also learned that to confidently enforcing the rules, I should maintain a countenance so that the focus of the discipline is on the child’s behavior rather that the child.
As a teacher, I should calmly and unemotionally applies consequences to undesirable behavior being assertive without being hostile or angry. In addition, in order to motivate students to behave, I should always use positive support to encourage students to continue appropriate behavior increase a student’s self-esteem and reduce behavior problems. And lastly, I should be consistent with the rules so that I can create a very positive environment for the students.
Therefore, it is clear to me now that what most of the teachers doing in the classrooms now are not the right thing, it would be easy if they will impose assertive discipline especially to the kind of students that the teachers are now dealing with. That only shows that they lack training or knowledge in terms of behavior management. Maybe through this, I can make a change.
