(Additions for Forum Discussion of Goleman 2 on Behaviorism)
Embarassing students through behavioral strategies like “time out” are common in classroom management. Teachers wanted to modify behavior but ended up disheartening the students. I clearly remembered one of my classmates then who was seated at the rear row of the room was very talkative while our teacher was discussing one topic on reading comprehension. Our teacher became irritated that she almost throws a chalk to my classmate. She called her name loud as if her teeth were chattering with a chill. My classmate was directed to transfer to another row together with other misbehaving students. I heard Madam commented that those who could not answer well should better shut up their mouths and listen well enough to her. She said that it is better not to report to class rather than having red cherry lipstick on but could not recite. Such comments were intended to my talkative classmate who usually comes to class with her hair blowered up and her lip was of the same color as our floor wax. From then on, she was branded by our teacher as CHERRY instead of calling her by her real name, SHERRY.
I conform to Diane Trampe’s post in our Forum Discussion on Behaviorism written on 10/11/12 that some teachers just end up “power tripping” and continuously pick on the class clown and it is unethical to use time-outs just to embarrass students. Sometimes, the “power of time out” is used to the point when it doesn’t make any sense at all.
My other Goleman 2 mate, Criselda Dacanay stressed on this topic that we must remember that to effectively change thoughts and perceptions, we must first change the student’s behavior so that his or her environment would begin responding differently to him or her. If we focus only on cognitions, the world around the student remains the same and the generalizability and long term effects of behavioral change would be minimized.
Considerably, in the above cited situation, debriefing as cited by Michelle Dimaano in our forum on 10/20/12 would be helpful as it capitalizes an important “teachable moment” when the learning is relevant to the student and it assists in getting closure to the problem as well as rebuilding relationships. The key questions may be used as: “What did you do?” “What was your concern or need?” “What will you do next time that would be acceptable?” “Will you make a commitment to behave differently next time?”
These concepts are noteworthy in SHERRY’s case.
INSIGHTS’ KEEPER 