CANTER ASSERTIVE DISCIPLINE MODEL

Assertive discipline is an approach to classroom management developed by Lee and Marlene

Canter. It involves a high level of teacher control in the class. It is also called the "take-control"
approach to teaching, as the teacher controls their classroom in a firm but positive manner. The
approach maintains that teachers must establish rules and directions that clearly define the limits of
acceptable and unacceptable student behavior, teach these rules and directions, and ask for
assistance from parents and/or administrators when support is needed in handling the behavior of
students.
The underlying goal of assertive discipline is to allow teachers to engage students in the learning
process uninterrupted by students misbehaviour.
Part of this approach is developing a clear classroom discipline plan that consists of rules which
students must follow at all times, positive recognition that students will receive for following the rules,
and consequences that result when students choose not to follow the rules. These consequences
should escalate when a student breaks the rules more than once in the same lesson. But (except in
unusual circumstances) the slate starts anew the next day.
Assumptions of this approach include:

Students will misbehave.

Students must be forced to comply with rules.

Teachers have needs, wants and feelings and the right to teach without interruption by
students misbehaving.

Punishment will make students avoid breaking rules and positive reinforcement will
encourage good behavior.

Brief overview of model

Assertive discipline is a structured,systematic approach designed to assist educators in

running an organized, teacher-in-charge classroom environment.

This program is a common sense, easy-to-learn approach to help teachers become the
captains of their classrooms and positively influence their students' behavior.

Today, it is the most widely used behavior management program(walker, 1997).

Assertive discipline has evolved since the mid 70's from an authoritarian approach to one
that is more democratic and cooperative.[1]

Authorities contribution to discipline

This company, Canter and Associates, Inc., was founded by Lee and Marlene Canter in
1976.[2] They used this company to market their assertive discipline program.

They also marketed products aimed at educating teachers on other topics such as
motivation, violence prevention, conflict resolution, and instructional strategies with titles like
"How to Get Parents On Your SideTM".

They provided professional development training for teachers, and materials that could be
used by universities for degree programs and graduate-level course work.

In 1998, Canter and Associates, Inc. was purchased by Sylvan, now Laureate International
Universities.[3]

The main focus of the discipline

The key to this technique is catching students being good.

Recognizing and supporting them when they behave appropriately, and on a consistent basis
letting them know you like what they are doing.

For Canter, students obey the rules because they get something out of it.

Doing so, or conversely, understand the consequences of breaking the rules.

Assertive discipline in some form is likely the most widely used discipline plan in schools.

Teachers who use assertive discipline say they like it because it is easy to use and is
generally effective.

Principal teachings

I will not tolerate any student stopping me from teaching.

I will not tolerate any student preventing another student from learning.

I will not tolerate any student engaging in any behavior that is not in the student's best
interest and the best interest of others.

Most importantly, whenever a student chooses to behave appropriately, I will immediately

recognize and reinforce such behavior.

Finally, assertive teachers are the "boss" in their classroom. They have the skills and
confidence necessary to "take charge" in their classroom.

Usage

Dismiss the thought that there is any acceptable reason for misbehavior.

Decide which rules (4 or 5 are best) you wish to implement in your classroom.

Determine negative consequences for noncompliance.

Determine positive consequences for appropriate behavior.

List the rules on the board along with the positive and negative consequences.

Have the students write the rules and take them home to be signed by the parents and
return an attached message explaining the program and requesting their help.

Implement the program immediately.

Weaknesses of the discipline

According to Canter, there are only three types of teachers: non assertive, hostile, and
assertive; there is no other type of discipline system.

Canters research to develop the program was with children with special needs. Canter
assumes that the system will work with all students.

Rules and consequences are determined by an authority figure and students are told they
can choose to obey or not.

DREIKURS LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES MODEL

Rudolf Dreikurs was the founder and the medical director of the Community Child Guidance
Center of Chicago. He spent much of his life as a consultant in public schools explaining how
his theories could be translated into practice for classroom management and discipline.
Dreikurss writings were influenced by social pyschologist Alfred Adler. Adler believed that the
central motivation of all humans is to belong and be accepted by others. First of all humans are
social beings. Thus, all behavior, including misbehavior:
is orderly, purposeful and, directed toward achieving social approval
Dreikurs suggested that a behavior is a result of individuals purposes. We do not simply react to
forces that confront us from the outside world. Our behavior is the result of our own biased
interpretations of the world. We do not act according to the reality that surrounds us, but rather

according to our own subjective assessment of it. Dreikurs suggested that a behavior is a result
of individuals purposes. We do not simply react to forces that confront us from the outside
world. Our behavior is the result of our own biased interpretations of the world. We do not act
according to the reality that surrounds us, but rather according to our own subjective
assessment of it.
Unfortunately, when situations are open to personal interpretations, individuals make
unavoidable mistakes in perception. When we choose how to behave, we almost never have all
the facts we need to make adequate choices. Therefore, our choices are subjective. Only a few
people investigate the conditions present in particular situations. We make assumptions and
believe that these assumptions are true. Human beings all have a need to belong and be
accepted. When a student is unsuccessful in obtaining acceptance, a pattern of misbehavior
begins. All misbehavior is the result of a childs mistaken assumption about how to find a place
and gain status.
Dreikurs identified four types of goals that motivates childrens misbehaviors:
1) Attention getting
2) Power and control
3) Revenge
4) Helplessness or inadequacy
How does a teacher understand the goal of the misbehaving child?

If the teacher feels annoyed, then the childs goal is attention getting.
If the teacher feels beaten or intimidated, then the childs goal is power.
If the teacher feels hurt, then the childs goal is revenge.
If the teacher feels incapable, then the childs goal is helplessness. Preventing discipline
problems:

Dreikurs did not believe in the use of punishment, reinforcement or praise. Instead, he believes
that natural/logical consequences and the process of encouragement are the most useful
techniques for preventing discipline problems. Praise vs. Encouragement According to Dreikurs,
encouragement is more important than any other aspect of child raising because a misbehaving
child is a discouraged child. Encouragement corresponds so well to childrens goals. Children
seek approval and encouragement is a legitimate way to do it. Encouragement focuses on effort
rather than achievement, so it gives positive feedback to children who are trying hard but may

be unsuccessful. Encouragement motivates them to continue trying. Praise is very different from
encouragement. It focuses on the level of achievement.
Praise
1) Praise is a reward given for a completed achievement
2) Praise tells students they have satisfied the demands of others
3) Praise is patronizing. The person who praises has a superior position.
4) Praise stimulates competition
5) Praise stimulates selfishness
Ex:

If a student writes on the walls of the school,

The teacher may keep her after school (punishment)

The teacher may ask the student to clean the walls (logical consequence)
If a student damages classroom materials,
The teacher may send a note to the students parents (punishment)
The teacher may prevent the students use of classroom materials until he chooses to use

them properly (logical consequence)

If a student is late for the class,
The teacher may keep her after school (punishment)
The teacher may ask the student to wait at the door until she receives a signal that her late
arrival will no longer disturb the class (logical consequence

KOUNIN GROUP MANAGEMENT MODEL

The Kounin Model of Withitness & Organisation
Good classroom behavior depends on effective lesson management, especially on pacing,
transitions, alerting, and individual accountability.
Kounin's Key Ideas
1. When teachers correct misbehaviors in one student, it often influences the behavior of
nearby students. This is known as the ripple effect
2. Teachers should know what is going on in all parts of the classroom at all times. Kounin
called this awareness, 'withitness'.
3. The ability to provide smooth transitions between activities, and to maintain consistent
momentum within activities is crucial to effective group management.

4. Teachers should strive to maintain group alertness and to hold every group member
accountable for the content of a lesson, which allows optimal learning to occur.
5. Student satiation (boredom) can be avoided by providing a feeling of progress and by
adding variety to curriculum and classroom environment.
The Ripple Effect
From Kounin's studies into this phenomenon, he concluded the following:
The ripple effect may occur as the teacher gives encouragement ("Good, I see that many of you
are almost finished") and as the teacher gives reprimands ("I see a few people who may have to
stay in after class to finish"). The ripple effect is most powerful at the early childhood/primary
level. It is weaker at the secondary and college levels where it depends on the popularity and
prestige of the teacher.
Withitness
Kounin coined the term "withitness" to describe teachers' knowing what was going on in all
areas of the classroom at all times. Kounin determined that this trait is communicated more
effectively by teachers' behaviors than by their words, and further, that it is effective only if
students are convinced that the teacher really knows what is going on.
Kounin found that if students perceive that teachers are with it (in that they immediately choose
the right culprit and correct misbehavior), they are less likely to misbehave, especially in
teacher-directed lessons. Handling the correct deviant on time is more important to classroom
control than is firmness or clarity of a desist.
Overlapping
Kounin states that overlapping is the ability to attend to two issues at the same time. Here is an
example:
A teacher is meeting with a small group and notices that two students at their seats are playing
cards instead of doing their assignment. The teacher could correct this either by:
1. Stopping the small group activity, walking over to the card players and getting them back on
task, and then attempting to reestablish the small group work. or
2. Having the small group continue while addressing the card players from a distance, then
monitoring the students at their desks while conducting the small-group activity.
As you can tell, the second approach involves overlapping. Overlapping loses its effectiveness if
the teacher does not also demonstrate withitness. If students working independently know that
the teacher is aware of them and able to deal with them, they are more likely to remain on task.

Movement Management
Kounin's research revealed an important relationship between student behavior and movement
within and between lessons. He did not mean physical movement of students or teachers. He
meant pacing, momentum, and transitions.
Teachers' ability to move smoothly from one activity to the next, and to maintain momentum
within an activity has a great deal to do with their effectiveness in controlling behavior in the
classroom. In smooth transitions, student attention is turned easily from one activity to another,
thus keeping student attention on the task at hand.
Comments on Kounin's Model
The techniques advocated by Kounin for class control are all intended to create and maintain a
classroom atmosphere conducive to learning. By keeping students busily (and happily)
engaged, behavior problems are reduced to a minimum. In order to function as Kounin
suggests, teachers must be able to deal with the entire class, various subgroups and individual
students, often at the same time. Kounin does not believe that teachers' personality traits are
particularly important in classroom control. What is important, he insists, is teacher's ability to
manage groups and lessons. To reiterate, teachers must learn to:
1. Know what is happening in every area of the classroom at all times and communicate that
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

fact to students.
Be able to deal with more than one issue at a time.
Correct the appropriate target before misbehavior escalates.
Ensure smooth transitions from one activity to another.
Maintain group focus through alerting and accountability.
Provide non satiating learning programs by emphasizing progress, challenge, and variety.

There is no doubt of the value of Kounin's suggestions in maintaining a good learning

environment, one that also prevents misbehavior For that reason his suggestions fit best into
the preventive facet of discipline.
As an entire system of discipline, however, teachers find that Kounin's suggestions are of less
help in supportive discipline and almost no help at all in the techniques of corrective discipline,
where misbehavior must be stopped and redirected positively.
Application of the Model
(Donna will not work)
Donna, in Mr. Jake's class, is quite docile. She never disrupts class and does little socializing
with other students. But despite Mr. Jake's best efforts, Donna rarely completes an assignment.

She doesn't seem to care. She is simply there putting forth virtually no effort. How would Kounin
deal with Donna? Kounin would suggest to teachers that they use the following sequence of
interventions until they find one that is effective with Donna.
1. Use the ripple effect. "I see many people have already completed half their work." Look at
Donna, later comment, "I'm afraid a few people will have to stay late to complete their work".
2. Let Donna know you are aware she is not working. Say to her, "I see you have barely
started. This work must be done today!"
3. Call on Donna in discussions preceding independent work, as a means of involving her in
the lesson.
4. Point out Donna's progress when it occurs: "Good! Now you are on the track! Keep up the
good work."
5. Provide variety. Continually challenge Donna to accomplish more.
6. Hold Donna accountable with group focus techniques. Do not disregard her just because
she has been nonproductive.

Thomas Gordon Classroom Management

Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.)
Created in 1970.
He wrote a book giving more parents access to these new parenting philosophies.
Word spread and soon other countries wanted to have this program available as
well.
The book is published in thirty three different languages.
Over five million copies of the book have been sold world wise.
Over one million people have participated in his trainings throughout t forty five
different countries.

Teacher Effectiveness Training (T.E.T.)

Teachers wanted to learn the same skills as were taught to parents.

In 1974 he developed this training and wrote the T.E.T. book.

This course has also been taught around the world.
Eliminates authoritarian teaching.
Eliminates punitive discipline within the classroom.
Leader Effectiveness Training (L.E.T.)

First created in the 1950's

Became more popular in the 1970's
Growing acceptance of participative management.
Taught to hundreds of companies.
Many fortune 500 companies.
Emphasizes both democratic and collaborative leadership.
Focuses on effective communication skills.

Family Effectiveness Training (F.E.T.)

What Is The Gordon Method?
It is a comprehensive model he created that both establishes and maintains
successful relationships. He fully believed that when people use authoritative forms
of power it damages relationships, but when he coached them the people skills that
will lead to better communication and conflict resolution they established more
positive relationships. This training really has been successful in improving peoples
relationships. This was created over a length of time with a lot of research and
observations. Ultimately he noticed that when someone listens to another showing
acceptance and trust, healthier relationships are formed. With healthier
relationships problems can be solved much easier. The core message of his model is
that everyone needs equal consideration. This model focuses on character building
and training and not rewards and punishments. The focus is on creating an
environment of mutual respect. Equality for all is the common theme throughout his
method.
What Skills Did He Teach?
Active Listening- the practice of paying close attention to a speaker and asking
questions to ensure full comprehension. (Encarta)

It is a method of listening where one person reflects back their understanding of

what a person had just said.
Confirms whether or not a message was understood.
Allows speaker to correct what they had said if the message was misunderstood.
Ultimately it really does show an acceptance of one another's thoughts and
emotions.
Active listening

I-Messages/ statements- tell other people how you feel about their behavior.
Instead of blaming another person, which generally leads to negative emotions such
as anger, guilt, and hurt feelings, you focus on a particular behavior and how it
makes you feel. (encyclo)

This is a device used for impelling others to change their behaviors because of its
effect on your ability to meet your needs.
This is an alternative to way to let others know about a behavior being
unacceptable that doesnt point a finger and blame each other.
It concentrates on how it affects and makes you feel.
This allows people to peacefully confront someone without the other person feeling
like they are being attacked.
Makes people much more willing to change their behaviors versus other forms of
persuasion.

No-Lose Conflict Resolution- Which means that both parties win and it is not a winlose situation.

This is a six-step method for settling conflicts so that everyone is content with the
provided solution.

This is most effective when everyone participates because the solutions then
become higher quality.
More often than not, when everyone agrees the new pan becomes regimen.
The effectiveness of this can be more easily explained by the common sense
Principle of Participation: People are more motivated to comply with decisions
which they had a part in reaching. (McLeod, 2007)

Recognition of Behavior Windows- Recognizing that all relationships have

problems at some point and defining these problems accurately is of key
importance in order to take responsibility for the issue and solve it.

Can help people determine which communication skill is the correct one to use, how
to use it and when to use it.
Understanding this helps prevent disciplinary action.
Eliminate the requirement to understand each individuals personality type.

We are familiar with these skills today, but they were not always known. Thanks to
Thomas Gordon these skills are known and used throughout the world!

What Synonyms Or Organizational Terms Are Used For The Gordon Method?

Participative management.
Student-centered teaching.
Democratic leadership.
Group-centered leadership model.

Beyond Discipline
By Alfie Kohn
A few years ago, I received a letter from a woman who was working on a book about a progressive
educator. She said she was considering devoting a chapter of her manuscript to a discussion of a
program called Assertive Discipline, which was at best only indirectly related to her subject. But she
knew my stomach reacted the same way hers did to the sight of marbles in a jar, or a hierarchical list
of punishments on a classroom wall, and she wanted to know whether I thought she should bother
with this digression.
It didnt seem a particularly complicated question, and yet the more I thought about it, the more I
found my response shifting. At first, I was simply going to say Hell, yes! Help the hundreds of
thousands of teachers who have been exposed to this program to reflect on how pernicious it really
is. Assertive Discipline, after all, is essentially a collection of bribes and threats whose purpose is to

enforce rules that the teacher alone devises and imposes. The point is to get the trains to run on
time in the classroom, never mind whom they run over. Everything, including the feelings of
students, must be sacrificed to the imperative of obedience:
Whenever possible, simply ignore the covert hostility of a student. By ignoring the behavior, you will
diffuse [sic] the situation. Remember, what you really want is for the student to comply with your
request. Whether or not the student does it in an angry manner is not the issue. (Lee Canters
Assertive Discipline)
As I prepared to write this to her, however, and as I recalled Lee Canters disclaimer in the Teachers
College Record several years ago that there is nothing new about Assertive Discipline, that it is
simply a systematization of common behavior-management strategies, I realized that it was too
easy to single out one person as the Darth Vader of American education. At least Canter is candid
about the authoritarian (and behaviorist) thrust of his methods. No one could possibly confuse his
program for an attempt to engage students in ethical reflection, or to build caring relationships with
them; teachers are urged simply to tell students exactly what behavior is acceptable. No
questions. No room for confusion.
But the same cannot be said of many other programs on the market that wrap themselves in words
like cooperative and dignity and even love. While rejecting the most blatant forms of coercion,
they, too, are ultimately about getting students to comply, and they, too, rely on carrots and sticks.
These programs unhesitatingly recommend that we dangle rewards in front of students when they
act the way we want: praise and privileges, stickers and stars, and other examples of what has been
called control through seduction.
The groovier programs, following the lead of Rudolf Dreikurs, prefer not to talk about punishing
students. Instead, punishment is repackaged as logical consequences. The student is still forced to
do something undesirable (or prevented from doing something desirable), but the tone of the
interaction is supposed to be more reasonable and friendly, and the consequence itself must have
some conceptual connection to the childs act: The punishment fits the crime. Thus:

If a 2nd grade student is guilty of talking out of turn, squirming, and so on, he might be
ordered not only to leave the room but to spend time back in a kindergarten class. This is a
logical consequence, and therefore appropriate, as long as the teacher strikes the right tone by
saying that she wonders whether the boy is ready to continue in 2nd grade and suggesting that
therefore it might be better for [him] to try and go back to kindergarten for a while. (R. Dreikurs
and L. Grey, Logical Consequences: A New Approach to Discipline)

If a student makes a spitball, the teacher should force him to make 500 more spitballs so that
his throat becomes increasingly parched. If a student tips her chair back, she can be asked to
stand for the rest of the period. (L. Albert, A Teachers Guide to Cooperative Discipline )

Each student who violates a rule [must] write his own name on the blackboardor, in
another approach, must have his name written there by an elected class sheriff who is
responsible for keeping the behavioral records. (R.L. Curwin and A.N. Mendler, Discipline with
Dignity)

Is it more reasonable to make a child stand for the rest of the period than, say, for the rest of the
week? Unquestionably. It is also more reasonable to paddle a child than to shoot him, but this does
not offer much of an argument for paddling. Is there a connection between tipping back a chair and
not being able to sit in it? Yes, but does it really matter to the child? The issue is not the specific
features of the punitive response so much as the punishment itself: You didnt do what I wanted, so
now Im going to make something unpleasant happen to you. We would not expect the child to be
less resentful (or less likely to retaliate) just because the teacher used what amounts to Punishment
Lite.
In trying to answer the woman who was considering a chapter about Lee Canter, I came to conclude
that the problem is not just with his program but with the use of rewards and punishments per se,
regardless of what they are called or how they are embellished. Even when children are
successfully reinforced or consequenced into compliance, they will likely feel no commitment to
what they are doing, no deep understanding of the act and its rationale, no sense of themselves as
the kind of people who would want to act this way in the future. They have been led to concentrate
on the consequences of their actions to themselves, and someone with this frame of reference bears
little resemblance to the kind of person we dream of seeing each of our students become.
Gradually, though, I began to wonder whether even this was the last word. Rewards and
punishments are instruments for controlling people, and the real problem, I began to suspect, was
the belief that the teacher should be in control of the classroom. If all these discipline programs
disappeared tomorrow, a new one would pop up like the next Kleenex in the box if teachers were
determined (or pressured) to remain in control and needed methods for making sure that happened.
This recognition offered a fresh way of looking at my own experiences as a classroom teacher, and
at what I had seen in countless classrooms over the last few years. Students are far less likely to act
aggressively, intrusively, or obnoxiously in places where the teacher is not concerned with being in
chargeand, indeed, is not particularly interested in classroom-management techniques. I realized
that the discipline problems I had experienced with some of my own classes were not a function of
children who were insufficiently controlled but of a curriculum that was insufficiently engaging. (The
students werent trying to make my life miserable; they were trying to make the time pass faster.) It
occurred to me that books on discipline almost never raise the possibility that when a student
doesnt do what he is told, the problem may be with what he has been told to door to learn.
Of course, none of this would make sense to someone who believed the only alternative to control
was chaos. Even if such a teacher found continuing problems in a strictly controlled classroom
especially when she was absentthat might lead her to blame the students and to answer with more
discipline, tougher consequences, tighter regulation. And the worse things got, the more unrealistic
it would seem to her to give up control, the less likely that she would consider bringing the students
in on the process of thinking about the kind of classroom that they would like to have, and how to
make that happen.
No wonder the advice of Rudolf Dreikurs and his followers often seems interchangeable with that of
Lee Canter. For example, if a student argues with anything we say, Dreikurs advises us to do the

following: First, you simply reply, You may have a point. Second, you do whatever you think is
right. (R. Dreikurs and P. Cassel, Discipline Without Tears ) No wonder Canter recommends
Dreikurs work and quotes from it. Dreikurs may have talked about democracy, but what he
apparently meant was the use of meetings and other modern techniques to get students to do what
they are told: It is autocratic to force, but democratic to induce compliance, he and his colleagues
wrote. (R. Dreikurs et al., Maintaining Sanity in the Classroom, 2nd ed.)
Classroom management programs invariably urge teachers to begin the year by taking control and
laying out their expectations for student behavioralong with what will be done to those who disobey.
But no child ever became more likely to think for herself, or to care about others, in such an
environment. To manage students behavior, to make them do what we say, doesnt promote
community or compassion, responsibility or reflection. The only way to reach those goals is to give
up some control, to facilitate the tricky, noisy, maddening, unpredictable process whereby students
work together to decide what respect means or how to be fair.
Of course, you can get a child to recite We should keep our hands and feet to ourselves by
repeating this enough times or posting it on the wall, just as you can get him to recite To divide by a
fraction, turn it upside down and multiply. You can get a child to stop slugging someone else (at
least, in your presence) by threatening to punish him if he continues, just as you can get him to pick
out the topic sentence of a paragraph. But the first examples in each pair dont suggest someone
who is developing socially or morally, any more than the latter examples suggest someone who is
developing intellectually.
To help students become ethical people, as opposed to people who merely do what they are told, we
cannot merely tell them what to do. We have to help them figure outfor themselves and with each
otherhow one ought to act. Thats why dropping the tools of traditional discipline, like rewards and
consequences, is only the beginning. Its even more crucial that we overcome a preoccupation with
getting compliance and instead involve students in devising and justifying ethical principles.
And thats why I suggested to my correspondent that a critique of Assertive Discipline made a lot of
senseas long as it was more than a critique of Assertive Discipline.