Discipline With Dignity

406 Words2 Pages
Dr. Allen Mendler is an educator and school psychologist who is best known for creating and developing Discipline with Dignity classroom management methodology along with Dr. Richard Curwin. Dr. Mendler was born on October 21, 1949, and he received a Ph.D. from Union Institute in Education in 1980. He is an expert in aiding educators solve and prevent behavioral issues in the classroom and in aiding troubled youth in the classroom. Mendler is a former school psychologist and claims the troubled teens he counseled helped lay the framework for Discipline with Dignity. His experience working with difficult students led him to search for a plan to prevent problems from occurring in the first place. He believes that building relationships between the teacher and students is at the core of preventing future behavior problems. Discipline with Dignity is a management plan that allows the teacher and students to come up with a mutual contract for appropriate behavior and guidelines in the classroom. The plan also stipulates that the teacher and students should mutually decide on consequences for any breaches in their contract. The contract is known to all parties involved, including the principal and parents of the students. There are three major components according to Wolfgang (2001): prevention, action dimension, and resolution. There are also several other components, which include focusing on long-term behavioral change, remembering that discipline is part of the job, rules should be logical, teachers should model what they preach, always portray dignity while disciplining, hold responsibility in higher regard than obedience, stop using ineffective methods, and keep in mind that being fair does not mean treating each student the same. Of the three main components, the first step is prevention. Prevention means pre-planning, which includes foreseeing
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