Chapter 8

The Ginott Model: Hiam Ginott

Notes by: Greg Micheletti

 

Assumptions regarding student behavior:

 

·        Teachers should strive to interact with students more effectively and treat them with understanding, kindness and respect.  This will improve student behavior.

·        Positive communication by teachers bolsters the self-concept of students, which in turn produces better classroom discipline.

·        Students can learn to be autonomous and responsible

·        Accepting and clarifying students' feelings improves classroom behavior

·        Improper use of praise encourages dependency

·        Punishment does not work, it encourages misconduct

·        Insulting students causes them to rebel

·        Promoting cooperation increases good discipline

 

Most of Ginott's work was published in the early 1970's.  Seems like Faber and Mazlish advocate most of his ideas.

 

Ginott's recommended practices are organized around basic themes: practicing congruent communication, fostering independence in students, avoiding the perils of praise, renouncing the use of punishment.

 

Practicing Congruent Communication

 

Delivering Sane Messages

 

The spoken word is one of the teacher's greatest powers.  When children misbehave, teachers should always address the situation rather than attach the child's character and personality.

 

For example - a child forgets to bring gym cloths to class.

 

Wrong: "You are so irresponsible.  You always are forgetting things.  When are you going to learn what is right?"

 

Right: "You need to bring your suit tomorrow.  It is impossible for you to participate in PE when you don't have proper clothing."

 

Expressing Anger Appropriately

 

Teachers should never deny their feelings and must learn to express them genuinely.  However, they need to learn to express anger appropriately.  Anger must be expressed without insult.  To do this, simply describe what you observe and state how you feel. 

 

Example:  " You have thrown paper all over the floor.  I am angry.  I am furious.  Your have endangered the lives of other students by ignoring rules in the lab."

 

Do not hide annoyance or pretend to be patient.  However, attack the problem rather the person.

 

Avoid Using Labels, Criticism, and Sarcasm

 

Labeling is disabling.  When students are labeled, seeds of doubt are sown in their minds that are difficult to eradicate.  Teachers should also avoid criticism.  Make suggested changes rather than criticize.  Students will then use the teacher's advice to improve their work instead of reacting negatively to the criticism. 

 

Ginott calls a teacher's acid tongue a health hazard.  Caustic comments deflate self-esteem and block learning.  When children are hurt by sarcastic comments, they become preoccupied with revenge fantasies.

 

Acknowledging Student's Feelings

 

When children are told they have nothing to fear, their fear increases.  A student who fears taking a test is better off being told "tests are sometimes scary" instead of "these problems are easy to solve."  Nothing to fear comments invalidate student feelings.  Teachers should show students that their feelings are honored and their opinions accepted.

 

Fostering Independence in Students

 

Teachers should show interest in student' success and communicate acceptance to them.  They need to help students achieve greater independence.  Dependency breeds hostility.  Improving student-teacher relationships does not involve doing more for students but rather helping them to achieve greater independence.

 

Encouraging Students' Autonomy

 

Far less enmity is encounter when students are given a full measure of autonomy.  Children need to make as many choices as they are qualified to make as soon as they are able to make them.  Encouraging autonomy breaks down student' dependency and helps avoid hostility.  When teachers make students too independent, they often become excessively lethargic and indecisive and ever resentful.

 

Helping Students Deal with Their Feelings

 

Students get confused when they are told how they should feel and realize that the do not feel that way.  Instead of telling students how they should feel when they are distraught, teachers need to help young people learn to sort out their feelings so they can avoid confusion and unwarranted reactions.  Teachers should first listen to the problem, rephrase it in a clarifying way, and ask students to examine their options before making a decision.

 

Paraphrasing communicates to students that you understand how they feel, and it helps them to see their emotions from a different perspective.

 

Avoiding the Perils of Praise

 

Praise has generally been accepted as a way of helping students improve their behavior.  Ginott, however, believes that praise can either be destructive or productive depending on how it is used.  Evaluative praise, he says, is destructive.   Statements such as "Good Boy", "Great Job", and "Good Work", invite dependency, evoke defensiveness, and create anxiety.  This type of praise fails to promote self-reliance, self-direction, and self-control.

 

Children see evaluative praise for what it is and rebel when they realize they are being manipulated.  The power of teachers to praise is also the power to condescend.  When they dispense praise, teachers have an appearance of superiority over their students.  Ginott underscores this point by turning the situation around.  If we met Picasso, he says, we would not say to him, "This painting is well done.  Keep up the good work."  Instead, we might say, "Thank you for enriching my life with your paintings."

 

To praise appropriately, teachers need to tell students what hey have accomplished and let them draw their own conclusions about its value.

 

When some students are praised for high marks, others may well draw that they are bad students because they scored lower.  School achievement does not determine the students' worth.

 

Disciplining Students

 

According to Ginott, the most critical aspect of discipline is finding effective alternatives to punishment.  Punishment is likely to enrage students and make them uneducable.  Good discipline requires teachers to act with kindness and patience over a period of time.  Good discipline, says Ginott, "is a series of little victories in which a teacher, through small decencies, reaches a child's heart."

 

Discipline requires a lot of self-control on the part of the teacher.  There should be no insults, not name-calling, loss of temper, rudeness, threats, lectures, or overreactions.  Teachers must exhibit compassion and love even when children defy them.

 

Children do not think of how they are going to improve behavior while being punished.  They seethe inside and plan their revenge.  Responsibility and respect cannot be forced into children any more than loyalty, honesty, charity or mercy can.  Children must learn these characteristics by watching the behavior of others and emulating it.

 

Preventing Discipline Problems

 

Ginott does not propose an explicit plan for preventing discipline problems.  Instead, he emphasizes the need for teachers to be loving, warm, and patient.  This approach, he says, will prevent many discipline problems.