Assertive Discipline with a Biblical Twist
Timothy Heaton is a professor of education at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, where he has served on the faculty for the past 20 years. He currently is heading up a joint program with Central State University regarding diversity, and he recently became a board member for their Institute of Urban Education.
Dr. Heaton has been involved in the teaching profession for over 33 years. He was an administrator and a teacher at Dayton Christian School in Dayton, Ohio, and he has taught all grade levels in some capacity. He is noted for being a frequent conference speaker at national and international conferences. His topics range from Assessment and Classroom Management to Gifted Education as well as a host of other education topics.
Dr. Heaton holds a BA in education, an MA in Christian school administration, and a PhD in curriculum and instruction. He works with public, international, and Christian school teachers from around the world, and he traveled recently to Malaysia, Thailand, and Kenya. He has upcoming trips planned for Japan, Africa, and Indonesia to assist teachers in those areas.
We as Christian educators have to find a consistent discipline system that makes students take ownership of their actions.
A few years ago the faculty members of our Christian school were doing a Bible study on Proverbs. We were studying the four different types of persons who are described in Proverbs: the wise, the simple, the fool, and the scorner. We discussed that in many instances students who were making simple mistakes were being treated by the teachers as if they were exhibiting foolish behavior, and students displaying foolish actions were being identified as scorners. Our study gave us much biblical information, but we never got around to implementing any sort of consistent way of dealing with the students and their behavior.
At that time, many of the staff were enamored with the methods expounded in the book Lee Canter’s Assertive Discipline (Los Angeles: Canter & Associates, 3rd ed., 2001). Many public schools in the area were using Canter’s methods, and several of our teachers began to use them in their classrooms. I wasn’t as convinced as other teachers that assertive discipline was truly the best form of discipline just because the system seemed to work well. I had done some study on discipline and had learned that the words discipline and disciple had the same root word. This convinced me that my discipline had to be more proactive rather than reactive and punitive. Therefore, I became bent on finding a way to establish a plan that would help discipline my students as well as disciple them, thus helping them gain wisdom as that described in Proverbs and make wise rather than unwise decisions.
Assertive Discipline with a Biblical Twist
I decided that it would be best to combine aspects of the assertive discipline method with the information from Proverbs to create a consistent class discipline system. I found four large pocket charts at a teacher supply store and labeled them Wise, Simple, Foolish, and Scorner respectively. On each chart, I put verses from Proverbs that describe how to correct the behavior from that particular category. Each chart had three pockets that ran the width of the chart, and in each of these pockets I could insert cards with individual student’s names on them.
The Wise Chart
On the first day of the week I put all the individual name cards into the Wise chart, filling all three rows. Each day, their names ended up on the chart that best described where their behavior was at end of that day. The next day the students began trying to work their way up from where their behavior ended up the day before. Yet on Monday, everyone got a fresh start, and all names were moved back to the Wise chart.
The Simple Chart
On Monday, everyone got a fresh start, and all names were moved back to the Wise chart.
On the Simple chart the verses from Proverbs indicated how a person who makes simple mistakes can gain wisdom. We brainstormed together as a class to determine what a simple mistake was and what a foolish mistake might be. This way the students had some ownership in the discipline system. I informed the students that for each simple mistake a student made, that student’s name would move down a row. However, if the student began making wise decisions (wising up), then the student’s name could move up row by row until it was returned to the Wise chart. I made sure that there were no penalties for simple mistakes, and since there were three rows on the chart, each student got three chances before his or her name was moved to the next chart, the Foolish chart.
The Foolish Chart
The Foolish chart, with its three rows, had a penalty listed under each of these as well as appropriate Bible verses dealing with how to correct foolish behavior. If the student’s name was in the third row of the Simple chart and the student continued to make simple mistakes, then that student’s name would move to the first row of the Foolish chart, which had the penalty of a “recess plan.” If the name was still in the recess plan row at recess time, the student stayed in and identified orally—as the teacher put in writing—what the problem was and how the student was going to “wise up.” The student then signed the recess plan and went out to recess. If the student did not wise up, that student’s name continued to descend down to the next row of the Foolish chart, which was labeled “call home.”
Actually, the column should have been more accurately labeled “call the parent at work,” which is usually what happened. At the first break in the schedule, if the student’s name was still in that row, I would take the student to the nearest phone and call the parent at work. All the student was to say to the parent was, “My name is in the call home row of the Foolish chart, and I plan on wising up.” Normally there were instructive comments given on the other end of the phone, but no parent ever asked to talk to me. From information sent home and explained at the parent orientation, the parents knew how the discipline charts worked. They knew that there had already been an intervention with the recess plan and ample opportunity for the student to wise up.
Usually after a phone call was made to the parent, the student got serious about trying to wise up. Honestly, I don’t remember any time that any student progressed further than this row on the chart. Yet, there was a third row labeled “time-out,” and if perchance the student didn’t wise up after the phone call home, then he would go to a time-out area of the room to sit in isolation and think about his actions and what he was going to do to change them. When the student was ready to rejoin the class, he could leave the isolation area and speak to the teacher about how he was going to change his behavior.
Teacher Directed
I should note that if a student made a serious violation of a school rule or acted in a very foolish way—in a way that was not a simple mistake but was more deliberate or thoughtless—then the student’s name would be moved immediately to any one of the rows of the Foolish column. In fact, the teacher always had the discretion to move a student’s name to any level on any chart at any time, depending on the seriousness of the action. The teacher could also move up students’ names to any level of any chart when wise choices were made. Of course, when a wise choice was made, it was always duly noted with a comment such as, “Thank you, Bob, for making a wise choice; you may move your name up one row.”
The Scorner Chart
Though I never had occasion to use it, I did construct a fourth chart that had serious consequences listed for each row. The first penalty was “principal visit,” the next was “parent conference,” and the third was “expulsion” because ultimately, as Proverbs says, you have to cast the scorner out.
Modality Instruction
I found myself looking for positive ways to help a student move up the chart instead of just seeing the negative.
Another unique feature about this chart system was that the students moved their own names themselves. Actually, this system of discipline was aligned with research regarding the three different modalities on how a child best learns: visually, auditorily, and kinesthetically. The child sees her name visually on the chart, she hears the teacher say to move her name either up or down the chart, and finally she has to physically get up and move her name, incorporating the kinesthetic modality.
I had learned that you can write children’s names on the board and their behavior doesn’t change, or you can orally correct children repeatedly and their behavior doesn’t change. All of these efforts tend to fail because the children have not taken ownership of their behavior because the discipline wasn’t presented in their best learning modality. I urged parents to use similar charts at home and to reinforce the verses regarding making wise and unwise choices. I find it interesting that using charts to modify unacceptable behavior is a favorite technique used on the current television program Nanny 911.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions come up often about whether this form of discipline is embarrassing to the child. My response is that it is no more embarrassing than writing names on the board or calling out names to correct students in class. The teacher very calmly says individually to the student, “Johnny, you forgot your homework. This is a simple mistake and not a wise decision, so please move your name down one row on the Simple chart.” Or the teacher says quietly to the student, “Betsy, you’ve repeatedly not been paying attention in class and have been looking out the window. This was not a wise decision. Please move your name to the third row of the Simple chart.”
The question has been asked, “What do you do if students complain or argue with you about where you’ve asked them to move their name?” Because you are the teacher, it is not a matter to debate. You are the authority, and they need to respect and obey you.
Another question that comes up is whether you need to have a list of exact rules so that you are fair in enforcing them with each student. I always taught my students and their parents that the correct definition of fairness is that it doesn’t mean equality but rather it means giving each child what that child needs. I told parents, “Thomas Jefferson said that all men are created equal but God says that all men are created unique and different.” This definition aligns itself with the research on differentiated learning and how you need to know each child and teach to that individual child. The same is true with discipline. The consistency comes with the use of the chart and the consistent use of the categories. All children must take responsibility for their behavior and for making wise or unwise decisions.
A question was raised regarding what to do when a student misbehaves in another class. I handled this situation in the following way: if a student acted up with a teacher other than me, that teacher merely had to send a note to me with the student’s name on it, and that student’s name went automatically to the first row of Foolish chart (or if already on the Foolish chart, then down another row).
My Name on the Chart
I added another unique feature to this system: my name was on the chart along with the students’ names. I wanted to show students that I made simple and even sometimes foolish mistakes and needed to gain wisdom also. I wanted the students to learn that making wise choices is a lifelong activity.
Changed Lives
Using this system brought about several changes. First of all, there was a change in the students’ day-to-day thinking. They now were repeatedly hearing about making wise or unwise choices. With their choices and consequences consistently before them, I saw—and their parents confirmed—that the children were thinking about their actions and determining whether they were making wise or unwise choices.
This system also had a very positive result on my behavior as well as the students’. Before I used this system, I found myself reacting to whatever situation came up, and at times these reactions were somewhat emotional, mostly because I saw no change in behavior despite my repeated corrections of the students. Or perhaps in the past a student had exhibited poor behavior and had gotten on my nerves, and I would find myself anticipating poor behavior or a bad attitude, to the point that even with a minor infraction I would overreact.
With this system, if I was getting frustrated with a student, all I had to do was look over at the chart and see exactly where the student’s name was on it. Many times I found that because a student had a history of making unwise choices I could easily overreact to a simple mistake by that student if I didn’t have the chart to consult. I also found that I changed in my way of looking at the students; I found myself looking for positive ways to help a student move up the chart instead of just seeing the negative.
The Store
One of the best results to come from this discipline system happened in my classroom at the end of a week. During this time when other classes were having lots of discipline problems, my students were working at getting back in the Wise column by the last period of the day. They had an added incentive: I had coupled this system with a token economy, using bonus bucks that I gave out for various reasons, including making wise choices. On Friday afternoons, only those students whose names were on the Wise chart could go to the class store and buy trinket-type items with their bonus bucks.
The Wisdom Trophy
At the end of each school day I recorded the student names that were in the Wise column. Then at the end of the grading period I went to the local trophy shop and bought a small, inexpensive trophy that included an engraved nameplate for the student whose name had stayed the most consistently on the Wise chart. This trophy—called the Wisdom Trophy—soon became a coveted item in the class, and I saw students making wise choices not only in their behavior but in their academic work as well.
International Application
I’ve introduced this system in many education seminars and conferences around the world. I know of some schools in the United States that are using it or have modified it for their schoolwide system. Several years ago I was in Kenya, Africa, doing seminars for schools there. At the end of my seminar, a Ugandan teacher told me about one of the most horrid discipline problems I’d ever heard of. I was so moved by her story that I gave her the charts I had brought for the demonstration, thinking to myself, “This student needs more than my system of discipline.” But I asked her to give it a try.
She sent me an email several months later and told me that the student had made a remarkable change. She said that he had so desperately desired to become wise that his entire behavior changed at school as well as at home. The teacher even received a commendation for most improved classroom behavior for her class because her principal was so pleased.
Get Wisdom
Will this discipline system work in every situation? I don’t know, and I am certainly not claiming it to be God ordained. I do know that we as Christian educators have to find a consistent discipline system that makes students take ownership of their actions. They need to realize that they make wise and unwise choices daily and that these choices come with rewards and consequences. The students need to be discipled in a formal way to make wise decisions. Ultimately they need to learn God’s ideal, and they need to, as Proverbs says, “get wisdom.”
A Wise Discipline Plan Q2 2007