Summary:

 The article has a lot to do with student behavior in the classroom. When making rules the teachers should always make the rules as clear as possible. Rules should not be long and detail but short and sweet. Rules should be stated as come in and be seated. However, some teachers rules are long, such as come in the classroom and find your seat and wait on the teacher to give you instruction. Children that may be better in one subject may be able to tutor those children who may be struggling. This will serve as a reward to those that may be behavior problems as well as those who may not be doing well academically. Punishment can also serve as a form of correcting the inappropriate behavior. Punishment often generalizes and does not offer the correct behavior that needed to be performed as opposed to the inappropriate behavior. There are other forms that inappropriate behaviors can be decreased. They are timeout, extinction, and response cost. Timeout removes the child or children from the situation. Teachers taking away tokens that have been earned by the student can be taken away as an example of response cost. Some general guidelines for managing behavior are: examine the events that maintain the students’ behavior, keep data to determine whether or not the approach is working, consider a variety of techniques, combine approaches to be more effective, and concentrate on teaching new behaviors and deal with inappropriate ones only to the extent that they interfere with the individual’s or groups learning.     

Position:

            I agree with the position that the author took in this article. He displayed different things that the teacher could enforce to decrease the inappropriate behavior. He also made sure that told readers the different forms of punishment and the reactions that they may have on the students. He also explained to the teachers that rules should be short and concise rather than long and boring. Rules and consequences should be displayed in the classroom and went over the beginning weeks of school. Teachers also must make sure that they are strict in following the rules and consequences so that the children respect you and understand that you mean what you say. The author was very informative with the information that he provided to the educational professionals. The information can be useful when determining what methods are appropriate in the classroom.