Teachers hear discipline plan
City teachers hear discipline plan

By Brian Kimball

Published: June 12, 2008

Disrespectful, stubborn, disruptive, troublemakers – that's how some teachers describe students with behavior problems whom they discipline on a regular basis.

More than 150 Oklahoma City Public Schools teachers were at Douglass High School on Wednesday to learn from a mental health expert about how to better manage students with difficult behaviors.

"The goal is to have educators ... have different strategies to accommodate behaviorally challenging kids and to increase the energy to do it because it wears you out,” said James L. McDougal, assistant professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Oswego.

He said teachers must provide positive learning and teaching environments, positive models and regular positive reinforcement.

For example, don't post a rule that reads, "No talking out of turn.” Instead have the sign read "Remain quiet unless called upon,” he said.

"Behavior management is always evolving,” said Ginger Sherman, a Hawthorne Elementary special education teacher. "Ten years ago it was, ‘If you don't do this you get your name on the board.' It was more negative. Now it's like, ‘State it positively,' and it works. It does work.”

McDougal gave 53 seminars across the nation last year and said he received a lot of positive feedback.

"So many times we fall into the pitfalls of thinking of behavior and negative consequences,” said Arden Kaiser, a seventh grade math teacher at Jefferson Middle School. "(McDougal) is emphasizing consequences for positive behavior, which by all means is the way to do it. That's the way real life is.”

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