Articles

Public discipline systems—like Class Dojo, stoplights, moving clothespins along a colored card, writing names on the board—can certainly be appealing. Some days can feel as if they’re spent just disciplining, and public discipline systems promise to turn that around by decreasing misbehavior and increasing motivation through the use of visual…

What do you do when a student flat-out denies doing something you know (or are at least pretty sure) she did? Are consequences ever appropriate in this situation? Do you just give up and move on? Do you enlist parents’ help? It can be a hard call to make. I…

Logical consequences are directly related to children's behaviors and help them to fix their mistakes. The use of logical consequences is one part of an approach to discipline used in the Responsive Classroom. It’s a powerful way of responding to children’s misbehavior that not only is effective in stopping the…

Scholastic published this article on the Responsive Classroom approach to rules and logical consequences for the August 2003 issue of Instructor magazine. It was reprinted with permission on the Responsive Classroom website, September 2003. Kathryn Brady, Mary Beth Forton, Deborah Porter, and Chip Wood are the authors of Rules in…

School rules. The mere mention of these words can elicit heavy sighs and moans from children and adults alike. Rules order us around. Rules constrict us. "No running, no hitting, no pushing, no cutting in line, don't interrupt . . ." As one young child put it, "You want to…