With All Due Respect: Ronald Morrish
by Jo Lein, Executive Director of Teaching and Leading Initiative of Oklahoma
With all of the craziness going on in the world, it is easy for students to come into our classroom with all sorts of baggage. They carry in the negative interaction with a guardian in the morning, ongoing substance abuse in the household, the loss of a loved one, community factors, and much more. These traumas can manifest behaviorally in the classroom.
With All Due Respect author Ronald Morrish, it is important to think through what schools (not just classrooms) can do to support positive behaviors that support learning and safety. Morrish asserts, “Classroom management alone will not give you the kind of students you want.”
What does he mean by this?
Classroom Management Workshop.
Join us to learn effective strategies for managing your classroom while being relevant, having rigor, and building meaningful relationships. Learn from veteran teachers, instructional coaches, and professional development leaders that know what it’s like to teach in today’s classroom. Dig deeper during our interactive breakout sessions specifically for SPED, Elementary, Middle, and High School teachers.
There is a distinction between classroom management and classroom discipline. Classroom management means that we are just “managing” the behavior that comes into the classroom. “Discipline is about developing and creating appropriate behaviors, not just managing the ones that are already there,” Morrish says. So, if we want cooperative, respectful, insightful students, we need to be proactive in approaching discipline, not management.
What about school discipline? “But Mr. Fox lets me have my cell phone out!” We all know those teachers that let school policies slip. But these teachers set up negative interactions in other classrooms. Schools must move beyond the days of classroom management and move towards school discipline. It means that teachers are on the same page about policies, consequences, and systems.
Jo Lein
Executive Director, Teaching & Leading Initiative of Oklahoma
Dr. Jo Lein is the founder of the Teaching and Leading Initiative of Oklahoma, a nonprofit organization that brings instructional coaching to under-resourced districts and trains existing leaders in areas of instructional leadership. She is also currently an adjunct professor at York College (Nebraska) and Johns Hopkins University and a commissioner at Oklahoma’s Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.
Would you like Jo to come to your school as a Professional Development Speaker? Reach out today!