Holy moly are the possibilities endless regarding frameworks for classroom management practices throughout the world. Just to name a few we have PBIS, Leader in Me, BIST and also conscious discipline. Many have their pros and cons, as with all things however I air on the side of agreeing with more of what the PBIS and conscious discipline frameworks stand for. It is a dream of mine to teach early childhood education and I believe that these two frameworks would fit perfectly into the mold of the type of environment I want to build for my future students.
To begin we have conscious discipline. Here are few of the things that I super LOVE about it.
1. I enjoy the focus on building social emotional skills as well as self-regulation. Within the younger grades especially. Children between the ages of 1-5 are growing and changing every day, with this added focus on social emotional learning students are not just learning what to do and what not to do but they are learning the why behind it and what their actions are doing to others. This helps build a more conscious member of society, even in the younger ages.
2. I love the voice that it gives to students. Instead of a teacher telling a student what they are doing is right or wrong and why conscious discipline opens up a conversation that gives students a voice to express and reflect on their actions.
3. Conscious discipline eliminates the idea of rewarding or punishing behavior.
4. Conscious discipline also allows for stronger relationships to be built between the teacher and students, as well as the students within the classroom.
Shifting gears to PBIS now.
1. PBIS uses three different tiers of intervention levels. This is cool because it gives the teachers options if behaviors within the classroom persist past the first tier. Which we can always hope that they won’t, but we couldn’t be that lucky.
2. The focus on prevention over punishment.
3. The main goal that all students can learn the proper behaviors. Overall, going back to my reflection on Colvin, I believe that students MUST be given the proper tools to succeed with their behaviors at the beginning of the year. Taking time and days to teach the wanted behaviors and the consequences will save the teacher many hours of instructional time because of unwanted behaviors.
Overall these are the points that I enjoy about each PBIS as well as conscious discipline. These are also points that I will use to guide my future classroom climate.
Miss Trone 