Changing Behavior and Mindset

Our campus, a high-poverty Title 1 school, has been implementing Conscious Discipline this year as part of a three year plan to help change the climate and culture of the school.  As we learn about the CD structures, we are implementing them building wide and teachers are putting them to use in their classrooms.  Each day, we have a campus wide morning meeting where we celebrate student and staff achievements, learn new social skills, and sing about positive behaviors.  Slowly, but surely, we're seeing changes in the behaviors of students as they learn new social skills.  I've even begun to change the way I work with students when they visit the office.  We spend lots of time learning and practicing positive choices.

Last week, my principal and I were doing lunch duty when she observed a student pointing across the table and appearing to tell on another student.  "We're not a tattling school," she told the little girl.  The boy beside the girl piped up, "No, we're a caring school."  Another joined in, "We're a safe school."  A third child joined the conversation, "We're a helpful school, too."  My principal commended each of them for their insights.  About that time, the little girl said, "I was just trying to tell you that she spilled something and needed help."  My principal apologized, let her know she was helpful, and, not one to waste a teaching moment, shared the entire conversation with the rest of the kids and adults in the cafeteria.

I later told our staff, "Our kids are getting it.  By our example, use of Conscious Discipline, and love for these kids, we are making Northside Primary a loving, caring, safe, helpful school."  When we deliberately focus on both teaching and modeling positive behaviors and noticing when kids use them, it will stick and we will see changes, not only in the children, but in ourselves as well.