Reviewed by John M. Holland
NBCT/EC Gen – Head Start Teacher
Richmond, VA

It has always seemed to me that classroom discipline is very
"sticky". By sticky I mean, French toast for breakfast at
a Title 1 school where everyone eats the same breakfast, type
of sticky. Discipline is sticky because you take the memories
of your actions home with you every day. Discipline is sticky
because your students become different people depending on
how you interact with them.

When I think of "sticky" discipline, I think of a preschool student
I actually had to hold on my lap while he screamed, "I hate
this f* n school." Eight months later, the same kid has become
one my best students.

That situation was sticky because I knew this student's age, emotional
development, home environment, and perception of me as a man
and his perception of me as his teacher. All of our past interactions
and whether this battle was really important enough to fight
were part of the situation.

The Educator's Guide to Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems
is definitely not sticky. It is clean, dignified, and correct.
It is not useful, teacher oriented, or meaningful. As I read
this book I felt as if I was in a staff meeting with required
content that must be provided by a school's administration.
This book comes from a world of staff meetings and PowerPoint.

As I read, I imagined myself sitting in a beginning-of-the-school-year
"professional development" session presented by a new principal
in a high school. While my mind wandered from actually reading
the book, I thought, "Is discipline really this simple." I
couldn't find anything wrong with what the authors said in
their book. In fact, I agreed with most of it. I think my
biggest issue with the book was the delivery.

I couldn't get past the fact that every topic was addressed
as a PowerPoint slide first and then as a brief paragraph
describing the information. I also couldn't get past the sheer
number of forms it provided to help "create" discipline.

I thought, "Perhaps I am not the right audience." I am a seasoned
preschool teacher in an inner-city school. There was a great
deal of description of high school classrooms and procedure.
I decided to give the book to a fresh mind to read. A student
teacher in the building had been experiencing trouble with
discipline. I offered her the Educator's Guide and
explained that I did not necessarily recommend it but, I had
it readily available and I thought she might gain some insight
from the reading. When this novice teacher brought back the
book she said, "I kept finding things that I wanted to read
about in the table of contents but, when I went to the chapter,
I didn't get anything out of the reading."

Hmm, I may not be crazy after all.

I can not let this book go without some positive comments. Maybe
it's the preschool teacher in me that just needs to give praise
for anything worthwhile that one of my students has accomplished.

The portion of this book that really made me take notice is the
chapter on Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD). This disorder
is one of the more recent diagnoses popular for difficult
students. It is similar to ADD/ADHD in that the diagnosis
is a collection of behaviors.

The book describes how traditional behavior modification techniques
and philosophies will not work with a child that has ODD.
The book did not explain the disorder thoroughly enough for
me to understand it, but I found this
description on the Internet.

Diagnostic Criteria: A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and
defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which
four (or more) of the following are present:

• often loses temper
• often argues with adults
• often actively defies or refuses to comply with
adults' requests or rules
• often deliberately annoys people
• often blames others for his or her mistakes or
misbehavior
• is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
• is often angry and resentful
• is often spiteful or vindictive

Note:
Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more
frequently than is typically observed in individuals of
comparable age and developmental level.

I might describe at least one of my students this year as
ODD, not strange, just oppositional. Actually, this diagnosis
might describe some of my favorite students over the years,
(like I said, discipline is sticky.) The chapter on this
disorder is the first one I have encountered. This chapter
would be very helpful to a teacher who was encountering
behaviors similar to those described above.