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Fellowship Paper
Located in an old furniture store on Main Street in Hyannis, Sturgis Charter School, grades nine through twelve, began its fourth year of operation in September 2001. Basic to our charter is the commitment to become part of the International Baccalaureate Organization, a worldwide consortium of schools that offers students the chance to earn the IB Diploma by meeting the organization's standards of academic excellence, creativity, and service to school and community. Sturgis Charter School exists, however, not only to prepare students to meet the highest standards of academic achievement but also to support parents in raising their children as responsible adults. Such a mission is achievable only in an environment where students feel a sense of belonging, where there is absolute respect for one's self and others, and where everyone assumes responsibility for the quality of life around him or herself. At Sturgis, we believe that developing positive relationships with students and helping them to reflect on and take responsibility for their behavior is at the heart of everything we do. To that end, we have committed ourselves to a responsibility based, as opposed to a consequence based, approach to student discipline, employing the theory of William Glasser and the methods of educational consultant Jim Fitzpatrick, who has worked with Sturgis Charter School for the past three years. As a result of this practice, the dominant social culture at Sturgis Charter School is one of respect and kindness. Most public high schools attempt to manage student discipline with a system of consequences and publish in their handbooks long lists of student offenses and resulting punishments. A look at the detention and suspension lists at any of these high schools, however, will reveal a high rate of recidivism. What this tells us is that detentions and suspensions do little to help students learn new, responsible behaviors to replace the ones that are not working for them or for their school community. What is worse, such policies ultimately have the effect of taking responsibility away from students because they are never asked to reflect on what they did, to fix any damage that was done, or to plan to do better. Sending a student to the office and assigning a punishment is perceived to be much more efficient, and most educators are neither trained nor supported in handling student conduct any other way. In such schools there exists a climate of coercion, and relationships between adults and students are often adversarial. Because it is the mission of every public high school to help students become good citizens and responsible individuals, and because a school's culture profoundly affects the quality of the teaching and learning that goes on, Sturgis Charter School's responsibility based approach to discipline serves as a model for change to the many high schools where student attitudes are marked by mistrust, disaffection, and outright opposition.
The primary goal of Sturgis' alternative approach to student discipline is to create a positive school culture where the motivation to work and learn becomes intrinsic rather than tied to the promise of rewards and the threat of punishments. Only when students feel a sense of belonging and emotional safety can they become deeply and personally involved in their learning. Our staff is committed to sending three essential messages to all students when they enter our classrooms: This is important. You can do this. I won't give up on you. Ours is a school where adults treat students with warmth and respect, regardless of who they are, what reputation might precede them, or what their behavior might be. Our commitment to establishing a caring and noncoercive environment is rooted in control theory. In his book, The Quality School (1992), William Glasser explains that all human beings are born with five basic needs built into their genetic structure: survival, love (belonging), power, fun, and freedom. His theory is called control theory because, contrary to what the name might imply, we are always trying to control our behavior in a way that best satisfies one or more of these needs (43). Control theory, then, contradicts the stimulus-response theory, to which most schools adhere, and which asserts that human beings are motivated by external stimuli, i.e. carrots and sticks. Educators who understand control theory know that trying to control student behavior is a waste of time. As Glasser reminds us, human beings only have control over their own behavior. Bossing or coercing students into working hard and behaving responsibly will only backfire; in order to cultivate intrinsic motivation in students, both the school environment and the schoolwork must be need-satisfying. Glasser contends, "When students say they hate school, it is because they are being asked to work hard at something that does not fulfill their own needs" (90).
Two essential elements characterize a school with a noncoercive approach to student discipline. The first is a need-satisfying environment, and the second is a consistent and uniform method of counseling students with problematic behavior. The student needs which most often go unmet in schools are: belonging, power, and freedom. Of those, the need for belonging is perhaps most fundamental. Glasser states, "What [students] want is what we all want--to feel good. If we can help them to feel good, they will listen very carefully to what we ask them to do and, most of the time, will do it" (74). Understanding this, the staff at Sturgis Charter School takes the time and in a most deliberate manner builds positive relationships with students. Creating a warm and friendly environment is the first step in satisfying a student's need for belonging. We do not underestimate the value of socializing with students or, as our consultant Jim Fitzpatrick would say, "giving them the time of day." Saying hello at the door each morning, taking the time to talk or play chess with students at lunch, or expressing any genuine interest in their lives, communicates two crucial messages: that the adults in this school care about who they are and who they become and, most importantly, that we are not their adversaries. At Sturgis, the staff agrees that students should always be treated with courtesy and that there is never any place for bossing, threatening, or punishing students. Like all human beings, students have a need for power, and the simple act of listening to students goes a long way in satisfying this need. Teachers and administrators at Sturgis know the importance of not only listening to students when they have concerns about school or other aspects of their lives but of actively seeking their input and advice. Specifically, teachers are encouraged to make explicit to their classes, especially at the beginning of the year, that expectations for how they will treat one another and conduct themselves will be arrived at by consensus and that, above all, if problems arise, instead of punishment, they will work together to solve them. A common exercise in this regard involves the students' constructing a list of things that teachers do to offend students and the teacher's constructing a list of things that students do to offend teachers. Once the class has reflected on both lists, the teacher then asks the students, "Which list do I have control over? Which list do you have control over?" The point, of course, is that we cannot control others' behavior, only our own; thus, every member of the class is responsible for the quality of the learning experience they will have together. The class then goes on to make a set of expectations or rules by which both teacher and students will live, and that list is then displayed in the room. Again, no punishments are associated with these rules, only the understanding that they will work collectively to solve any problems. Other examples of empowering students through listening go from something as simple as a teacher consulting students who are serious cyclists about what kind of bike to buy, to the principal inviting students to tea or an open forum to discuss their ideas for the school. Not only does listening to students in these ways satisfy their need for power in school, it also reinforces the message that the adults in this school care about them. Satisfying students' need for freedom in school strikes many educators as unfeasible. Assumptions that adolescents will necessarily abuse any freedom given them prevent most schools from affording their students even the smallest degree of independence. At Sturgis, our downtown location provides our school with a unique opportunity to interact with the community. Unlike most suburban high schools where students are isolated from the community at large and forbidden to leave the building during the course of the day, Sturgis students are free to leave school during lunch (with permission from parent or legal guardian). We give them this freedom for a number of reasons. First, it tells students that we trust them. Second, it provides an important lesson on the connection between freedom and responsibility. Students who do not return from lunch on time and are not seated and ready to learn when classes begin disrupt the learning environment for the entire class; these students neglect their responsibility not only to themselves but to their teachers and classmates as well. Third, it creates opportunities for students to interact with people outside their age group and outside the school community. Students learn about their responsibility as representatives of their school. Other characteristics of our school environment that allow students a sense of freedom are the absence of bells and hall passes. Again, these gestures communicate a sense of trust and a belief in personal responsibility.
In order to counsel a student through a behavioral problem successfully, a positive counseling environment and a positive counseling relationship must have been established before the particular behavioral problem is examined with the student. This is why the staff's commitment to creating and maintaining a noncoercive, need-satisfying atmosphere, both in the school at large and in every individual class is so critical. When an issue of student conduct arises, a student who believes that the adult involved cares about her/him is far more likely to take responsibility for a situation and work with the adult to resolve it. As Jim Fitzpatrick (1999) contends, "Everything that works in a school will be because of the relationships. Everything that doesn't work in a school will be because of the relationships." Similarly, Glasser points out that teachers are in a better position than guidance counselors or administrators to counsel students because they have already established a safe, noncoercive environment in the classroomthe most favorable environment for a positive counseling relationship. At Sturgis, we have used Jim Fitzpatrick's Responsibility Training as our method of counseling students. It is a problem solving/discipline process based largely on control theory and the work of William Glasser. Like Glasser, Fitzpatrick contends that in the right environment and with the right training, the teacher is in the best position to counsel students through most discipline problems because a friendly and trusting relationship has already been fostered. This is not to say that administrators in our school are not involved with discipline. Any teacher who feels she/he is not making progress with a student gets support from the principal or associate principal who will use the same approach to counseling; in general, however, teachers are encouraged to use the Responsibility Training process the moment there is a discipline issue. If the classroom climate is safe and noncoercive, in most cases it requires only a moment to help the student adjust her/his behavior. If the problem behavior is chronic, the student is asked to write a plan for change with a method of self-evaluation built in, i.e. how the student will know whether or not the plan is working. For tough cases, the student and adult may decide to build a consequence into the plan, but only if the plan is broken two or three times, and never as part of the first plan. It is important that the student help decide the consequence. Generally speaking, parents are not involved unless there have been three or more unsuccessful attempts to help the student change. We want to send students the message, particularly at this age, that we believe they can and should work out their own problems with the help of the adults in the school. In cases where disorderly behavior persists despite multiple efforts, students may be asked to go home to write a plan and at this point parents are asked to help. Such a student may not return to school until the plan is completed. A re-admit meeting is held with the student, parent, and the involved educator(s) to discuss the plan and how the student's success will be evaluated. It is made clear to students that while we do not punish for disruptive behavior, we do not tolerate it either. The Responsibility Training process involves asking a series of questions in order to get the student to first evaluate her/his behavior and then decide to change it. For minor disruptions or problems, the adult uses "the short form." "The long form" is used if the student needs to reflect more thoroughly on the behavior and make a deliberate plan for change. Throughout the process, the teacher should emphasize the following (Fitzpatrick 1998, 7):
The staff at Sturgis uses the following list of Fitzpatrick's prompts to help them counsel students. The process always requires students to evaluate their behavior (make a value judgment), plan to do better by changing the behavior and, if necessary, fix any damage that was done to anyone or anything.
The Long Form What are you doing?
Is that helping: your group? OR What do you need to do? As always, the teacher asked the student if her tardiness was helping her teach, given that her lesson was interrupted, or helping the student learn, given that she had missed the lesson's initial instructions. She also asked if her tardiness was helping the other students stay focused on the beginning of the lesson. Obviously, the student had no problem making the judgment that her behavior was disruptive and inconsiderate. When the teacher asked what her plan was, she said she would make sure to use the bathroom well before the end of lunch so she would not get caught in line. When the student broke the plan the first time and came in late, the teacher asked to speak to her again, this time with the associate principal present. The associate principal asked some questions to get the student to articulate what this particular teacher had done for and meant to her and that her behavior was making the teacher's work harder, something she did not want to do. She agreed that she would not only use the bathroom earlier, but that she would wear a watch and keep a very close eye on it. Tardiness was never again a problem in that class. In fact, the student was often seen racing down the hall to get there on time. Another incident involved two students who were throwing paper clips at each other while the teacher was doing a problem on the board. As in the case above, the students liked this teacher very much and appreciated not only the excellent instruction and supportive environment but also the high expectations for both academic achievement and conduct. When one of the paper clips struck the teacher in the leg, she decided that she wanted an administrator and the parents to be involved. Though this was not the usual protocol, the associate principal, knowing the teacher's intent was not punitive, agreed and contacted the parents. She explained what had happened and that they would like to handle the situation with Responsibility Training. Because both parents were familiar with the school's alternative approach, they stood behind it. They understood that there would be no punishment, only a respectful insistence that the students take responsibility for what had happened and figure out a way to fix any damage done. Both students resolved the problem, taking full responsibility for what had happened and with a plan for avoiding such distraction in the future. Both students readily judged their behavior as inconsiderate of both their teacher and their classmates. What was most impressive, however, was the students' ability to understand and articulate the harm that was done and to come up with some very concrete ways to fix things. The students knew they had damaged their relationship with their teacher and had also damaged their reputations as students in the class, leaving their classmates with an impression of foolishness and immaturity. It was far enough along in the year that students knew when they were asked, "How are you going to fix this?" the adult was not looking for an apology, but rather a concrete action or behavior. Both students were asked to get back to the associate principal at the end of the day with a plan for how they were going to prevent such conduct in the future and how they were going to fix things with their class and their teacher. The students did want to formally apologize to the teacher. It was clear that the gesture was genuine. But, they also felt it was important to reestablish their reputations as responsible students. To do this, they offered to demonstrate a problem on the board each day as needed until the year ended in three weeks. They also agreed to choose seats far away from each other. Most students will tell you that getting a detention is much easier than taking responsibility for their conduct. And they're right. Being accountable for our behavior requires us to engage with and consider the feelings of others. It also requires action.
Obstacles to implementing this practice have mainly to do with overcoming a deeply ingrained discipline paradigm. Most of us were raised in homes and schools with consequence based discipline, and most of us believe that people are motivated by a stimulus outside ourselves and not, as Glasser asserts, by the need to satisfy inherent human needs. What is more, as Fitzpatrick asserts, adherence to the stimulus-response theory is especially problematic in a society where people have little fear of authority. Still, there are teachers, parents, and even students who want to see children punished for their offenses and feel it is not enough to ask the child to reflect, make a value judgment, repair any damage done, and make a plan for change. They feel, ironically, that this approach is somehow soft or permissive. Conversely, students who do recognize the work involved in being held accountable have asked, "Couldn't you just suspend me?" In addition, guiding a student through the process of taking responsibility for his/her actions can require a lot of time. Nonetheless, at Sturgis we have found that when we spend that time early in the year, the end result is great; discipline problems decrease dramatically and the culture becomes one of maturity, integrity, and achievement. Unfortunately, even among educators, the belief persists that "neither students nor teachers can be trusted to do what is best for them; they have to be told what to do and coerced into doing it" (Glasser 55). And so perhaps the greatest obstacle in implementing a noncoercive approach to student discipline, particularly in established schools with deeply embedded cultures, is conquering skepticism and cynicism among school staff. Because Sturgis is a young institution, we have had the opportunity of being able to hire teachers who share the values of this noncoercive approach and are eager to learn and practice its method. But for many teachers, expectations born of their own schooling experiences often constrain their willingness to try anything different, and it takes a gifted school leader who, through the skillful application of control theory, can lead his staff to embrace change.
The Massachusetts Department of Education performed its year two site visit on June 6, 2000. This excerpt from their report (Massachusetts 2000, 2)provides evidence for Sturgis Charter School's success: "There is ample evidence that the school is a physically and emotionally safe environment as well as a supportive community encouraging individual respect. Observed student behaviors showed a level of maturity unusual in most schools. Highly respectful interactions were frequently observed, and comments from both parents and students themselves spoke specifically to the student behavior as being a strength of the school." In addition, the fact that we have had no violence, only one instance
of graffiti, and only one incidence of smoking in our building since September
2000, indicates that Sturgis has established a positive school culture where
the norms of behavior are mature, respectful, and responsible. In order for other public schools to implement this practice of developing responsible behavior among their students, the school leaders first need to be convinced of its efficacy. Because the evidence for our success is largely anecdotal, and because, as a charter school, we are charged with disseminating our innovative practices, Sturgis welcomes visitors. The mature and respectful nature of our student body is immediately apparent to anyone who enters the building. One suggestion that Glasser makes for larger schools in The Quality
School is that they begin the transformation by creating a small school
within the existing institution. This school within a school would serve
as a laboratory and a model for school-wide change. Although this kind of
paradigm shift may be easier to effect in a small school, it is not impossible
for larger schools or even whole districts to become what Glasser calls
"Quality Schools." The Johnson City, New York schools serve as
a model for established districts, and consultant Jim Fitzpatrick has also
worked successfully with many larger schools. His outstanding work and support
is available to any school leader who has the vision and the courage to
change the culture of her/his school.
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