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Considerations in planning for a 'Responsibility Room' By Kathy Curtiss kcurtiss@povn.com
With crystal clear purpose and intentional conversations, a responsibility room can be an enormous benefit to a school building. Beware however, implemented correctly, the idea of personal responsibility must be adapted school wide and this process often challenges the very core beliefs of many teachers in the learning community. At their very best, responsibility rooms will teach students the skill of self-regulation, strengthening the partnership between student and teacher, and diminish their need over 3-5 years of operation. At their very worst, they become another place to coerce students into compliant behavior in school. For the disconnected students who won’t comply, they become a place to build resentment and do time. Purpose: To strengthen the partnership between the student and their teacher emphasizing self-regulation behaviors that are necessary in the social environment of a learning culture. Psychology: If a responsibility room is implemented with a belief that students are externally motivated and what will help them joint the learning community is to stimulate them with either incentives (like grades, field trip or food) or punishments (like loosing something fun, doing physical labor or doing time), it will fail. As harsh as this sounds, the belief is "learn it or we’ll hurt you" and this approach does not teach much but submission, at best, and destroys relationships among its users. The more controlling the teacher, the less chance of influencing the student to learn what we want to teach them in school. If a responsibility room is implemented with a belief that students are internally motivated and what will increase student achievement is creating the conditions for learning. Most of this responsibility, however, lands on the teacher to challenge themselves on not only classroom management skills, but instruction and assessment practices as well. The belief here is "learn it so you won’t hurt yourself" and this approach holds students accountable for the learning and strengthens relationships at the same time. When teachers learn choice theory it helps them 1) understand the need for and 2) strategies to make their transitions from controlling students to influencing students. Keeping the attributes of choice theory in mind, teacher will understand 1) all behavior has a reason, 2) motivation is internal, and 3) the person is always seeking balance. Prevention: If a responsibility room is implemented effectively, a school wide focus will be working hard to create the three conditions for learning in their classrooms. This focus is proactive and attempts to diminish discipline problems in the classroom by focusing, with the students, on teaching and learning. Creating the Conditions: The goal in any school would be to set an overall direction toward these three conditions, then, as the years go by, continually evaluate and adjust as needed to get closer and closer as each year goes by. Culture: Instructional strategies that are compatible with this type of culture are: Resources: Meaningful Learning Resources: Assessment based in Self-Evaluation and Reflection Resources: Currently many teachers and building cultures spend a majority of their time doing intervention with problems that pop up, finding very little time to be proactive. Focusing on the conditions can change the amount of time invested in interventions. This action research can document the gradual, but intentional transition.
Intervention: When problems occur, the interaction between the teacher and the student is focused on setting goals for meaningful learning as well as establishing a mutual understanding of the limits, boundaries and their purposes. Effective interventions hinge on the cooperation of three key people in the life of a referred student: When implemented ineffectively, the teacher is sending the student to the responsibility room saying something like, When the student returns to the classroom, a re-entry conference is essential. Whether it is 10 seconds or 10 minutes, the conversation needs to happen between the student and the teacher. The goal of this conversation is to strengthen the relationship between the teacher and the student and focus on meaningful learning. The Responsibility Room Person – when the student indicates they are ready to begin to think about solving the classroom problem, engage the student in a discussion on the situation, the choices, and the goals. If needed or requested, involve the teacher in the process. Send the student back to class for their re-entry conference with the teacher, when they are ready to strengthen their relationships with the teacher and focus on meaningful learning. The Administrator – to be aware of what is happening with the responsibility room; As the data is recorded, what is likely to occur is a large number of referrals are coming from a small number of teachers. This might indicate who needs instructional leadership in creating the conditions in their classroom. Frequent referrals indicate a symptom that is happening in the classroom, related to the conditions. With these issues it’s the principal who need to help, not the responsibility room person.
Issues that will be worked out at the building level: Paperwork flow for documentation of progress. Staff needs to decide what data points will be collected to assess the responsibility room and building wide focus on the process. If the process is working, here’s an example of a line graph of the number of referrals over a year.
Important Concepts to Remember: Training Recommendations: It is imperative, if a responsibility room is going to be effectively implemented, that the training be addressed on a school wide basis. Choice Theory: Theory into Practice Coaching and Follow-up |
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