Redirecting for a Cooperative Classroom (RCC)
Challenges Facing Teachers
Schools are searching for ways to enhance their programs and teacher effectiveness. Redirecting for a Cooperative Classroom (RCC) provides practical and valuable classroom techniques for working cooperatively with students, parents and school staff. Working together, parents, administrators and teachers can handle students’ behavior in ways that help students accept responsibility.
Are you frustrated by students who… ?
– Continually break the rules
– Act lazy and unmotivated
– Blame or accuse others of unfairness
– Do the opposite of what is asked
– Give up and do not participate in class activities
– Believe that no one likes them
– Blame others and involve you, as the teacher, in their peer conflicts?
This Program is for YOU!
Being a teacher today offers a tremendous challenge. Having effective strategies for handling today’s teacher/student relationships can make teaching and school a lot more exciting. The “Redirecting for a Cooperative Classroom” (RCC) program is based on developmental studies that show that children benefit socially, psychologically, and academically from learning to handle everyday problems positively and creatively. The RCC Program will give teachers an opportunity to reflect on effective ways to maintain classroom control while fostering student dignity and responsibility in the classroom. The program is based upon the work of Dr. Rudolph Drekurs, a highly noted researcher, therapist, educator and author of the famous book, “Children the Challenge”. The program is endorsed and recommende by pediatricians and mental health professional nationwide.
Here are some of the seminar topics:
(The semiar(s) may be as short as 1/2 hour or as long as 8 hours, depending on the school’s and teacher’s needs.)
Understanding Why Children Misbehave
As more the teacher understands the student’s behavior as more he/she can avoid future conflict. Often teachers use the same discipline methods for all kinds of different behavior and wonder why they are not effective. It is important for the teacher to diagnose the behavior in order to effectively redirect the students misbehavior.
– understanding children’s needs & developmental stages
– learn how to redirect the four mistaken goals of behavior
(attention, power, revenge, inadequacy)
Building a Successful Relationship Between Children & Teachers
– understanding the “emotional bank account”
– understanding the importance of “genuine encounter moments”
How to Prevent Misbehavior & What to Do
When Misbehavior Does Occur?
Teachers learn that punishment, force or control is an external motivation. The child thinks, “As long as my teacher is in control I don’t have to take responsibility. Punishment results in the child feeling resentful and angry, but logical consequences teaches him to take responsibility for his own action.
– the effective use of natural and logical consequences
– how to avoid everyday power struggles
– what to do when children fight / peer rivalry
Ecouragement vs. Praise and How the Results Differ
Strategies of encouragement support a student’s persistence and small successes, rather than praise, which is usually given to a student when a task is done. It helps low achieving students, who often give up easily and frequently say, “I can’t…” or “I don’t know how…” to continue with work.
– building and maintaining high self-esteem
– internal motivation vs. external motivation
– encouragement strategies
How to Talk so Children Will Listen & Listen so Children Will Talk
As teachers we often block communication or use feeling stoppers without being aware of it. They complain that their students don’t listen, but maybe anaware that their students are not feeling heard and understood in a manner that validates their feelings.
– how to talk so children will listen and listen so children will talk
– handling feelings
– teach students to communicate with dignity and respect
Conflict Resolution / Circle Time
Conflict is an inevitable, pervasive and potentially valuable element of life. Used appropriately, it can be a means to personal growth for students.
Teachers learn how to effectively promote social, emotional & problem solving techniques for their students. Circle time create a safe and accepting athmosphere for talking and responding in the classroom. These sessions enable students to have opportunities to listen and respond critically to each other. These skills transfer and are of particular benefit during critiques, where students are able to better express their thoughts and feelings more effectively.
As students improve in managing conflicts they will experience increased social support, improved relations with the teacher and other classmates, and expand self-esteem. Building effective relationships among students is important not just for reaching agreements, but for shaping how they choose to disagree, for example regarding choices they make in the classroom. It broadens their capacity to understand diverse cultures, assisting them to live in a multicultured world.
Sharing the responsibility with students frees the teacher to concentrate more on teaching and less on discipline.
Ecouragement Vs. Praise and How the Results Differ
(Strategies of encouragement support a student’s persistence and small successes, rather than praise, which is usually given to a student when a task is done. It helps low achieving students, who often give up easily and frequently say, “I can’t…” or “I don’t know how…” to continue with work.
– building and maintaining high self-esteem
– internal motivation vs. external motivation
– encouragement strategies
How to Effectively Communicate
As teachers we often block communication or use feeling stoppers without being aware of it. They complain that their students don’t listen, but maybe anaware that their students are not feeling heard and understood in a manner that validates their feelings.
– how to talk so children will listen and listen so children will talk
– handling feelings
– communicate with dignity and respect
What to do When Children Fight / Peer Rivalry
Internal Control
Increased personal control translates to higher performance in the classroom and frees the teacher to concentrate more on teaching and less on discipline.