Teaching with Love and Logic by Jim Fay and David Funk was published in 1995. And by the looks of the two authors’ pictures on the back, they were between 50 and 60 when it was published. So they cut their teeth teaching in the 60s and 70s. This was in the early days of progressive educational theories, and they often speak about how they made mistakes early on in their teaching that they regret because of ethical reasons AND because these mistakes were counterproductive. I am seeing this in my teaching too, and there is a quote in the later part of the book that really gets at this:
“Education is based on a relationship, not a procedure”
So If you can build relationships with students, this is one of the best ways to educate them. This is hard for me, since I don’t love small talk and am impatient. But it’s something I’m working on. And part of building relationships, for me, is letting go of my insecurities that teaching engenders. Here are some tips for myself:
And when I’ve stuck to all these words of wisdom and acted on them, I end up with stronger relationships and higher achieving students. When I succumb to my insecurities, get angry, do most of the talking, ignore students’ pain, assume they aren’t trying hard, assume they don’t know a lot, work much harder than them, rush to do anything, and take students’ resistance or defiance personally, I fail as a teacher. And I’ve done this with dozens of my students over the years.
I feel terrible self-loathing and regret over how I’ve treated some students.........
They’re kids.
They were just reacting appropriately to my own mistakes.
And rather than own my flaws and accept that I did something caustic, I blamed them.
And it was wrong.
I didn’t want to accept blame for my own role in causing their failures.
So as I get deeper into my career, I am trying to work on all this, and the Love and Logic book has opened my eyes. It was written so long ago that I started reading it with a lot of skepticism. But it reveals patterns in student behavior that were as true in 1995 as they are today. Here’s a great quote early in the book that resonated with me from Principal Parley Jacobs:
“I used to work with kids immediately...while they were still upset, angry, emotional. Now I give them time to cool down. I used to stop whatever I was doing to work on the problem. Now they have to wait for me so I can work with them on my terms. I used to do most of the talking, letting them know what they had done wrong and telling them what I was going to do about it. Now I use a lot of questions.”
I do all of the things that Principal Jacobs used to do.
And no wonder my attempts at holding students accountable has been so shitty - I’m doing all the work! I’m taking all the control, ownership, and agency away from the students. So I tried something this year: letting my students develop the consequences for not following my expectations. And these weren’t huge expectations I was asking them to help me with (most schools have detailed consequences for violence, vandalism, property destruction, plagiarism, etc), but behaviors like this:
So here’s what happened: The discussion took 2 full, double periods (3 hours). I gave students a worksheet with a chart that listed each expectation and space to write an appropriate consequence for breaking it. Students took notes before and during the discussion.
First, wee discussed each expectation, it's purpose, and what an appropriate consequence should be. And I didn’t have to jump in at all - a majority of students defended the expectation against counterpoints, and convinced the rest of the students that it was justified.
Second, they suggested very reasonable consequences AND voted on them with unanimous consent. Here’s what they came up with:
I was super impressed by how meticulously they discussed the expectations and came up with solutions, but then, the most insane thing happened, that was beyond my wildest expectations - they actually followed the rules! They didn’t complain about being confused when they missed class time, they didn’t interrupt each other, they came prepared, and they really did adhere to the phone limitation. It was just too perfectly opposite to what I thought would happen; once I gave them control over the consequences, they became more responsible at avoiding those consequences. This was my first foray into seeing how the “love and logic” approach can work.
But they weren't ALWAYS on their A game, and sometimes, I did need to go back to engaging with a student who DID cause a problem. Here's a question that the book poses:
Should we warn students of consequences before they happen?
I think there are different ways of thinking about this, depending on who you teach. With younger kids, who forget things more easily, I think helping them remember causal relationships is important, especially if it's done in a polite, non-threatening, nurturing manner. But as they grow older, what is the best way to help them follow the rules and live up to expectations? Obviously we should be polite and non-threatening, but with older students who have repeatedly calculated that rule-breaking is worth the risk, I rarely find that warnings about consequences actually makes students avoid them.
Love and Logic suggests that giving rules and expectations is fine, but that consequences should be based on principles rather than systems. A systems approach can be summed up by this:
For every action, there is a clear, documented consequence that always ought to occur.
But the authors make two very good points - 1) adults enforce rules and consequences to differing degrees, which undermines the entire system of consequences, and 2) students will find the loopholes.
With the first problem, teachers who are more lax about the rules will agree to them at the beginning of the year, then haphazardly enforce them or not enforce them at all, which actually helps them gain more camaraderie with students and spend less time enforcing rules and arguing about them. Then, there are other teachers who always enforce the rules and are seen as "mean" by the students, which undermines everything else that teacher tries to do. There are still a third group of teachers who enforce the rules mildly for everyone, but then are even more strict with students they don't like, so some feel targeted by the rule-enforcers (like how police tend to patrol black neighborhoods more than white ones). And you end up with situations like students of color being suspended at higher rates than white students. These three outcomes create a new batch of work for administrators, who now need to police teachers in terms of enforcing the rules, rather than focussing all their attention on mentoring them to be better educators. Lose-lose.
With regard to the second problem with a systems approach, preteens and teenagers who are just developing a strong sense of logical reasoning ESPECIALLY love finding loopholes and proving adults wrong. I’ve spent so much time having intricate discussions and arguments with students about whether or not they were doing the thing that I had asked them to do or weren't doing the thing I asked them not to do. Sometimes, the expectation was clearly violated: if an assignment is due by midnight, then at 12:01 it is late. But the next step is the consequence; if I say that I will take off 5 points for each day an assignment is late, but a student argues that 12:01 AM isn’t the same as several hours late, they are correct. In fact, one day late should really mean midnight the next day! So do I divide 5 points by 24 hours? or by 1440 minutes? This is how it works with every rule we try to create - there is definitely a loophole somewhere, in the purpose of the rule, its wording, its exceptions, the context of the violation, the purpose of the consequence, its degree, its wording, and its exceptions. Here’s one example I’ve seen, in 4 different schools in which I’ve worked: school uniform shirts.
Problem: students don’t want to wear the uniform shirt.
They first test their ability to enter school without wearing the shirt, often by keeping it in their bag or just not wearing it to school. They might refuse to wear the shirt they brought OR if they forgot it, be given a replacement one, and then refuse to put it on. They will test every teacher by taking it off in each class just to see who enforces the rules and who doesn’t. They might have the uniform shirt draped over their shoulders. They might have it on UNDERNEATH another article of clothing. They might pretend to have a religious reason for not wearing it. They might simply keep talking to the administrator who is trying to enforce the rule, sucking up their time, because let's face it - the more I'm having fun arguing about a shirt, the less time I'm in class being bored.
And with all these challenges to the rule, there ensues a power struggle where you could conceivably have dozens of students requiring a consequence. And what should the consequence be? Keep them in a separate location and have each teacher give “work” to them which can never adequately replace class instruction? Detention during or after school? How do you FORCE a student to come to detention? Should it be suspension? To which students ALWAYS ask “You’re really gonna suspend me for not wearing a stupid shirt?” and to which I think “Yep, this IS stupid” and to which administrators say “These are the rules”. At a certain point, preventing a student from accessing a public education for not wearing a specific shirt (as opposed to wearing something disruptive to the educational environment) could be unconstitutional. And if I’m doing a good job teaching my students to reason and use evidence, they should be able to argue effectively that this is all bullshit. Which it is.
So what if we, instead of having a systems approach, had a principles approach? Where rules and expectations exist, and consequences exist, but the consequences are tailored to how deeply an infraction violates a given principle? We then open up the consequence to a discussion between the student, teacher, administrator, parent, and even other students. This helps students internalize what they’ve done and see how it goes against the principles of the school. It empowers them as well, but in a way that bends towards virtue (shouldn’t all students be engaged in thought about the principles of productive and positive behavior?).
I’ll talk more about the difference between a systems approach and a principles approach in my next post.
“Education is based on a relationship, not a procedure”
So If you can build relationships with students, this is one of the best ways to educate them. This is hard for me, since I don’t love small talk and am impatient. But it’s something I’m working on. And part of building relationships, for me, is letting go of my insecurities that teaching engenders. Here are some tips for myself:
- Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have
- If you want students to do something, they need to know how
- Talk about people as if they are standing right behind you
- Kids are smarter than you think
- Hurt people hurt people
- Don’t take it personally when they don’t do what you ask
- Anger doesn’t work to motivate people
- Don’t work harder than your students
- Let kids do the talking
- Wait
And when I’ve stuck to all these words of wisdom and acted on them, I end up with stronger relationships and higher achieving students. When I succumb to my insecurities, get angry, do most of the talking, ignore students’ pain, assume they aren’t trying hard, assume they don’t know a lot, work much harder than them, rush to do anything, and take students’ resistance or defiance personally, I fail as a teacher. And I’ve done this with dozens of my students over the years.
I feel terrible self-loathing and regret over how I’ve treated some students.........
They’re kids.
They were just reacting appropriately to my own mistakes.
And rather than own my flaws and accept that I did something caustic, I blamed them.
And it was wrong.
I didn’t want to accept blame for my own role in causing their failures.
So as I get deeper into my career, I am trying to work on all this, and the Love and Logic book has opened my eyes. It was written so long ago that I started reading it with a lot of skepticism. But it reveals patterns in student behavior that were as true in 1995 as they are today. Here’s a great quote early in the book that resonated with me from Principal Parley Jacobs:
“I used to work with kids immediately...while they were still upset, angry, emotional. Now I give them time to cool down. I used to stop whatever I was doing to work on the problem. Now they have to wait for me so I can work with them on my terms. I used to do most of the talking, letting them know what they had done wrong and telling them what I was going to do about it. Now I use a lot of questions.”
I do all of the things that Principal Jacobs used to do.
And no wonder my attempts at holding students accountable has been so shitty - I’m doing all the work! I’m taking all the control, ownership, and agency away from the students. So I tried something this year: letting my students develop the consequences for not following my expectations. And these weren’t huge expectations I was asking them to help me with (most schools have detailed consequences for violence, vandalism, property destruction, plagiarism, etc), but behaviors like this:
- Be on time
- Be prepared with a notebook and your homework
- Do all assignments on time
- Be focused without being on your phone
- Don’t interrupt others
- Don’t sleep in class
- Don’t yell
- Don’t insult others
So here’s what happened: The discussion took 2 full, double periods (3 hours). I gave students a worksheet with a chart that listed each expectation and space to write an appropriate consequence for breaking it. Students took notes before and during the discussion.
First, wee discussed each expectation, it's purpose, and what an appropriate consequence should be. And I didn’t have to jump in at all - a majority of students defended the expectation against counterpoints, and convinced the rest of the students that it was justified.
Second, they suggested very reasonable consequences AND voted on them with unanimous consent. Here’s what they came up with:
- Be on time: if you are late, that’s punishment enough, because you’re missing out on learning.
- Be prepared with a notebook and your homework: if you are unprepared, that’s already a punishment, since you can’t learn as well.
- Do all assignments on time: For each day late, you lose 10% of the total point value
- Be focused without being on your phone: we will have 2 minutes of phone time in between the double periods (the bell would ring to signify the end of one and then, 2 minutes later, the start of another).
- Don’t interrupt others: we will raise our hands to speak, have one student be the facilitator for each discussion, and if someone interrupts you, politely ask them to wait to speak until you are finished.
- Don’t sleep in class: Feinberg will wake you up nicely the first time, then get more annoying each time you fall asleep
- Don’t yell: if we keep the interrupting to a minimum, nobody will need to yell.
- Don’t insult others: Feinberg will decrease your participation grade for the week by 5 points if you insult someone.
I was super impressed by how meticulously they discussed the expectations and came up with solutions, but then, the most insane thing happened, that was beyond my wildest expectations - they actually followed the rules! They didn’t complain about being confused when they missed class time, they didn’t interrupt each other, they came prepared, and they really did adhere to the phone limitation. It was just too perfectly opposite to what I thought would happen; once I gave them control over the consequences, they became more responsible at avoiding those consequences. This was my first foray into seeing how the “love and logic” approach can work.
But they weren't ALWAYS on their A game, and sometimes, I did need to go back to engaging with a student who DID cause a problem. Here's a question that the book poses:
Should we warn students of consequences before they happen?
I think there are different ways of thinking about this, depending on who you teach. With younger kids, who forget things more easily, I think helping them remember causal relationships is important, especially if it's done in a polite, non-threatening, nurturing manner. But as they grow older, what is the best way to help them follow the rules and live up to expectations? Obviously we should be polite and non-threatening, but with older students who have repeatedly calculated that rule-breaking is worth the risk, I rarely find that warnings about consequences actually makes students avoid them.
Love and Logic suggests that giving rules and expectations is fine, but that consequences should be based on principles rather than systems. A systems approach can be summed up by this:
For every action, there is a clear, documented consequence that always ought to occur.
But the authors make two very good points - 1) adults enforce rules and consequences to differing degrees, which undermines the entire system of consequences, and 2) students will find the loopholes.
With the first problem, teachers who are more lax about the rules will agree to them at the beginning of the year, then haphazardly enforce them or not enforce them at all, which actually helps them gain more camaraderie with students and spend less time enforcing rules and arguing about them. Then, there are other teachers who always enforce the rules and are seen as "mean" by the students, which undermines everything else that teacher tries to do. There are still a third group of teachers who enforce the rules mildly for everyone, but then are even more strict with students they don't like, so some feel targeted by the rule-enforcers (like how police tend to patrol black neighborhoods more than white ones). And you end up with situations like students of color being suspended at higher rates than white students. These three outcomes create a new batch of work for administrators, who now need to police teachers in terms of enforcing the rules, rather than focussing all their attention on mentoring them to be better educators. Lose-lose.
With regard to the second problem with a systems approach, preteens and teenagers who are just developing a strong sense of logical reasoning ESPECIALLY love finding loopholes and proving adults wrong. I’ve spent so much time having intricate discussions and arguments with students about whether or not they were doing the thing that I had asked them to do or weren't doing the thing I asked them not to do. Sometimes, the expectation was clearly violated: if an assignment is due by midnight, then at 12:01 it is late. But the next step is the consequence; if I say that I will take off 5 points for each day an assignment is late, but a student argues that 12:01 AM isn’t the same as several hours late, they are correct. In fact, one day late should really mean midnight the next day! So do I divide 5 points by 24 hours? or by 1440 minutes? This is how it works with every rule we try to create - there is definitely a loophole somewhere, in the purpose of the rule, its wording, its exceptions, the context of the violation, the purpose of the consequence, its degree, its wording, and its exceptions. Here’s one example I’ve seen, in 4 different schools in which I’ve worked: school uniform shirts.
Problem: students don’t want to wear the uniform shirt.
They first test their ability to enter school without wearing the shirt, often by keeping it in their bag or just not wearing it to school. They might refuse to wear the shirt they brought OR if they forgot it, be given a replacement one, and then refuse to put it on. They will test every teacher by taking it off in each class just to see who enforces the rules and who doesn’t. They might have the uniform shirt draped over their shoulders. They might have it on UNDERNEATH another article of clothing. They might pretend to have a religious reason for not wearing it. They might simply keep talking to the administrator who is trying to enforce the rule, sucking up their time, because let's face it - the more I'm having fun arguing about a shirt, the less time I'm in class being bored.
And with all these challenges to the rule, there ensues a power struggle where you could conceivably have dozens of students requiring a consequence. And what should the consequence be? Keep them in a separate location and have each teacher give “work” to them which can never adequately replace class instruction? Detention during or after school? How do you FORCE a student to come to detention? Should it be suspension? To which students ALWAYS ask “You’re really gonna suspend me for not wearing a stupid shirt?” and to which I think “Yep, this IS stupid” and to which administrators say “These are the rules”. At a certain point, preventing a student from accessing a public education for not wearing a specific shirt (as opposed to wearing something disruptive to the educational environment) could be unconstitutional. And if I’m doing a good job teaching my students to reason and use evidence, they should be able to argue effectively that this is all bullshit. Which it is.
So what if we, instead of having a systems approach, had a principles approach? Where rules and expectations exist, and consequences exist, but the consequences are tailored to how deeply an infraction violates a given principle? We then open up the consequence to a discussion between the student, teacher, administrator, parent, and even other students. This helps students internalize what they’ve done and see how it goes against the principles of the school. It empowers them as well, but in a way that bends towards virtue (shouldn’t all students be engaged in thought about the principles of productive and positive behavior?).
I’ll talk more about the difference between a systems approach and a principles approach in my next post.