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Discipline for Home and School: Teaching Children to Respect the Rights of Others Through Responsible Thinking Based on Perceptual Control Theory
Book by Ford, Edward E., Ford, Edward
110 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
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March 21, 2020
Despite the title, this book is not a general guide regarding discipline, but it is instead an overview of a specific discipline theory known as Responsible Thinking Process (RTP).
This book was recommended to me to me by an administrator after we shared our mutual respect for RTP. This respect was fostered on my part by experiencing it fully established in a community. I found it not only to be effective but empowering for both teachers and students.
Technically, I have worked at two schools who would claim to be an RTP school; however, as explained thoroughly in the book, this practice is a community effort and must be applied in all facets of a school for it to be truly effective. So in that sense, I have really only experienced it in one location since the other location had a "Responsible Thinking Room," but no teachers were officially trained in the system, no negotiations were made by students, and ultimately no coaching was made to help students improve themselves and change their thought-processes, so it's not accurate to say it was a Responsible Thinking school; instead, it was a school with a time-out room labeled "Responsible Thinking Room."
The other school, the one actually practicing RTP, had been doing this for an entire generation. In fact, it started in the 90's at about the time when this book was written. All parents are now familiar with it, students have been trained in it since kindergarten (some even before in the pre-K building), and experienced teachers are well-versed in its implementation. The system did not work for me in my first year of teaching because I lacked the confidence and understanding to properly execute it within my own classroom, but by my second year, I used it as a tool to manage my classroom, help students become better individuals, and foster positive relationships even after misbehavior. Fellow teachers loved it. Students respected it and believed it was fair. However, a couple years later, it is my understanding the district is currently moving away from it.
So why? Why would a district who has had success for an entire generation with community buy-in move away from an established and respected system of discipline? As Ed Ford explains, a change in administration can make all the difference. My old school has seen its fair share of turnover at the instructional and leadership levels, and unless you have been formally trained in the goals and nuances of RTP, you will probably have a first year like mine or, like many administrators (especially those with little experience in the classroom), will perceive this system as punitive. This perception is fraught with irony since just 25 years ago, as Ford explains often in his book, RTP was deemed too soft for some districts to adopt. That speaks volumes to a profound culture shift that I am too young of a teacher to have completely observed but still amazes me nonetheless.
Though part of this change obviously stems from a paradigm shift in how we approach discipline, part of why districts may have moved away from this system may also have to do with funding. Even at my old school, the real RTP school, lack of funds did limit its complete implementation. Some of the RTP schools mentioned in the book, published in 1997, had a full-time TEACHER running the Responsible Thinking Room (RTR). One school mentioned even had an additional aid to assist in this room. At my school in the year 2017, RTR was run by two part-time paraprofessional split between the morning and afternoon shifts (part-time so the district did not have to give either full benefits). They ran the room in different ways and communicated with teachers at different levels of effectiveness. In addition, they had to manage check-outs of books, sign-ups for the library, and online learners while also managing RTR, an attached room to the library, and making the necessary calls home to inform parents on their child's decision to come to RTR. If the process ever toed the line of punitive, it was more to do with the lack of resources to make it an extension of the educational process. However, even with the lack of formal training on my parts, and even with this lack of resources, RTP has been by far the most organized, relationship-based discipline system I have witnessed in education.
Reading this book was intriguing because it highlighted everything I did not know and showed me deficiencies in my own execution and understanding, but it also troubled me. I could see how the current view of discipline may have originated from RTP--the emphasis on relationships, less punishment and more encouragement to make positive choices, but so many of the other cornerstones of RTP --ownership by students, classroom entrance as a privilege, and the necessity of communication between all shareholders of a child's education--seem to have been lost in translation.
This book was recommended to me to me by an administrator after we shared our mutual respect for RTP. This respect was fostered on my part by experiencing it fully established in a community. I found it not only to be effective but empowering for both teachers and students.
Technically, I have worked at two schools who would claim to be an RTP school; however, as explained thoroughly in the book, this practice is a community effort and must be applied in all facets of a school for it to be truly effective. So in that sense, I have really only experienced it in one location since the other location had a "Responsible Thinking Room," but no teachers were officially trained in the system, no negotiations were made by students, and ultimately no coaching was made to help students improve themselves and change their thought-processes, so it's not accurate to say it was a Responsible Thinking school; instead, it was a school with a time-out room labeled "Responsible Thinking Room."
The other school, the one actually practicing RTP, had been doing this for an entire generation. In fact, it started in the 90's at about the time when this book was written. All parents are now familiar with it, students have been trained in it since kindergarten (some even before in the pre-K building), and experienced teachers are well-versed in its implementation. The system did not work for me in my first year of teaching because I lacked the confidence and understanding to properly execute it within my own classroom, but by my second year, I used it as a tool to manage my classroom, help students become better individuals, and foster positive relationships even after misbehavior. Fellow teachers loved it. Students respected it and believed it was fair. However, a couple years later, it is my understanding the district is currently moving away from it.
So why? Why would a district who has had success for an entire generation with community buy-in move away from an established and respected system of discipline? As Ed Ford explains, a change in administration can make all the difference. My old school has seen its fair share of turnover at the instructional and leadership levels, and unless you have been formally trained in the goals and nuances of RTP, you will probably have a first year like mine or, like many administrators (especially those with little experience in the classroom), will perceive this system as punitive. This perception is fraught with irony since just 25 years ago, as Ford explains often in his book, RTP was deemed too soft for some districts to adopt. That speaks volumes to a profound culture shift that I am too young of a teacher to have completely observed but still amazes me nonetheless.
Though part of this change obviously stems from a paradigm shift in how we approach discipline, part of why districts may have moved away from this system may also have to do with funding. Even at my old school, the real RTP school, lack of funds did limit its complete implementation. Some of the RTP schools mentioned in the book, published in 1997, had a full-time TEACHER running the Responsible Thinking Room (RTR). One school mentioned even had an additional aid to assist in this room. At my school in the year 2017, RTR was run by two part-time paraprofessional split between the morning and afternoon shifts (part-time so the district did not have to give either full benefits). They ran the room in different ways and communicated with teachers at different levels of effectiveness. In addition, they had to manage check-outs of books, sign-ups for the library, and online learners while also managing RTR, an attached room to the library, and making the necessary calls home to inform parents on their child's decision to come to RTR. If the process ever toed the line of punitive, it was more to do with the lack of resources to make it an extension of the educational process. However, even with the lack of formal training on my parts, and even with this lack of resources, RTP has been by far the most organized, relationship-based discipline system I have witnessed in education.
Reading this book was intriguing because it highlighted everything I did not know and showed me deficiencies in my own execution and understanding, but it also troubled me. I could see how the current view of discipline may have originated from RTP--the emphasis on relationships, less punishment and more encouragement to make positive choices, but so many of the other cornerstones of RTP --ownership by students, classroom entrance as a privilege, and the necessity of communication between all shareholders of a child's education--seem to have been lost in translation.
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