Thanks to my talented colleague Jen Adkins, we had a good staff discussion on classroom management today.

We first read Discpline Is The Problem – Not The Solution by Alfie Kohn.

As with most of his pieces, it’s very thought-provoking and, in my opinion, generally paints things too much in black-and-white terms (though I do think the last piece of his I shared here was exceptionally good: I Think This Column On Asking Questions Is One Of The Best Piece’s Alfie Kohn Has Ever Written).

After reading the Discipline article, we took a few minutes to write down answers to these questions that Jen developed (and which she gave me permission to reprint here):

1. Which parts of the article did you identify with? Why?

2. With what did you take issue or disagree with? Why?

3. Could Kohn’s ideas lead to a more equitable classroom?

4. Further ideas for improving the dynamic in my own classes are:

Then, we talked about our responses in small groups.

It was time well-spent.

I’m adding this post to Best Posts On Classroom Management.