My Classroom Management Plan combines principles and

techniques from Mendler and Curwins Discipline with Dignity as well

as Fayes Love and Logic. I do believe in the use of reinforcement for
teaching classroom rules and procedures, but I dont believe that
reinforcement should remain in place once the students have learned
rules and procedures. A teachers goal should be to help students
achieve a level of desire and internal motivation to follow rules and
procedures without needing to be rewarded for it. Classroom
management is not a one size fits all policy and it needs to be
individualized to fit the needs of the teacher and students. Mendler
and Curwins model matches this idea and focuses on the idea that
everyone in the school setting should be treated with dignity. I think
that part of treating students with dignity involves giving them a voice
and a chance to be responsible for their own actions and behaviors.
As a Special Education teacher, I think that it is important to
reinforce desired behaviors at first. I believe this is an effective way to
teach rules and procedures to students with disabilities, until you can
eventually relinquish the reinforcement so that the students are
behaving based on internal motivation and desires. The center of my
management plan takes core elements from Discipline with Dignity and
Love and Logic. I think both of these theories fit my personality well
because I believe in giving students the responsibility to solve personal
matters for themselves, to a certain extent. I also think that when

students feel respected and appreciated, they are far more likely to
behave. Within limits, I think it is important to let students make
choices for themselves. If teachers dedicate a significant amount of
time to providing consequences for every problem, they are taking
away valuable time that they could be using to simply prevent
misbehaviors. This being said, consequences are needed at times, but I
think that educators should provide them with empathy so that they
can help to motivate their students to not misbehave in the future.
In my current placement, we use Love and Logic everyday. For
example, there was a situation on the bus where one of our students
was teasing another student in our class. The bus driver brought this to
my Cooperating Teachers attention and she used love and logic to
handle the situation. When the two students entered the classroom in
the morning, she asked them to go sit together in the time-out room.
She then went in the room to facilitate a discussion between the two
students, but allowed them to work through the problem themselves
essentially. We also use behavioral contracts, similar to what Mendler
and Curwin describe in their Discipline with Dignity model. These
contracts outline what the problem behavior is, how to correct it, the
consequences if it is not corrected, a more desirable behavior, and a
plan to correct the behavior. Both the student and the teacher sign the
contract. Behavioral contracts give students control of their behavior,
but also hold them accountable.

The Core Principles of my Management Plan:

1. Dont simply punish, rather teach the correct and desired
behaviors.
2. Students deserve a voice and need to be heard in the classroom.
3. Rules and/or consequences should be natural and logical while
preserving the students dignity and motivating them to correct
their behavior.
4. After a problem behavior occurs, the encouragement to correct
behavior and improve self-esteem is equally important as
providing the consequence.
5. The teacher should not try to eliminate all forms of misbehavior,
but rather help students make appropriate choices and decisions.