Changing
Student Behavior:
Let's
Look in the Classroom
Nationally known educational
consultant Dr. Randy Sprick spoke to hundreds
of Memphis
City Schools’ teachers, principals and
community members at the school district's
Blue Ribbon Summit, giving them advice on positive
behavior strategies.
“We are honored to have
such an expert on behavior educating the MCS
community on effective strategies for classroom
management,” said Dr. Carol R. Johnson,
Memphis City Schools superintendent. “This
is what the Blue Ribbon Plan is all about -
bringing people
together to find solutions to student behavior
problems.”
Sprick spoke about several issues
relating to behavior management in schools,
including teacher responses to unruly students
and the impact that lunches, recesses and free
periods
have on student behavior.
“How a teacher handles
a situation determines whether that situation
escalates or de-escalates
and whether a student is humanized or dehumanized,” Sprick
said, encouraging teachers to
interact with students in a positive and professional
manner.
Sprick also stressed the importance
of school-wide discipline initiatives, a part
of the Memphis City Schools’ Blue Ribbon
Plan. Often, he said, classroom behavior is
affected by situations outside of the classroom,
like lunch periods.
Therefore, Sprick said, school
officials must analyze data from referrals
and determine what is causing increases or
decreases in behavior patterns. He praised
the school district's Blue Ribbon Plan for
including data analysis as a key component.
“Schools should include
in their plan a goal of changing something
for the better every year to
structure their schools for success,” Sprick
said.
One of the most important aspects
to getting good behavior from students is giving
more positive feedback than negative, Sprick
said, citing a statistic that most teachers
give students three to 15 times more negative
attention than positive attention.
“This doesn’t mean
teachers should ignore negative behavior,” Sprick
said. “It means they need to make a constant
effort to give three times more positive comments
than negative.”
Sprick ended his speech
with the final aspect of a successful behavior
plan - correcting misbehavior calmly, consistently
and immediately.
Blue Ribbon Plan developers hope
participants in the summit will take what Sprick
said to heart and use it in the school and
classroom behavior plans that they will create
under Blue Ribbon.
