September/October 1999

Abstracts

Rising to the Discipline Challenge
Amidst growing concern about bad student behavior, practitioners and researchers point to some tried and true ways to keep order in the classroom
by David T. Gordon

The topic of discipline cuts a wide swath across today's most important educational debates. Conversatives and liberals (and all those in between) may argue about policies and methods, but everyone seems to agree that better discipline is needed in our schools. This article explores some common themes that have emerged on how best to create more orderly schools.

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Turning Frustration to Fulfillment: New Teachers Need More Help with Discipline
by David T. Gordon

A new survey of 118 schools districts across the country shows that nearly 10 percent of public schoolteachers quit during the first year and 20 percent leave within three years. The biggest barriers to new teachers' success, according to this survey--conducted by Recruiting New Teachers in Belmont, MA-- are poor classroom-management skills (82 percent) and disruptive students (57 percent). This article reports on what's being done to give new teachers support in this area and how new teachers can develop more effective classroom management skills.

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For Discussion: Crisis Response and Prevention: Planning Ahead for Better and for Worse
by Karen Kelly

Should schools have a crisis response plan? Recent tragedies like those in Littleton, Colorado have raised this question, and have highlighted the work of crisis prevention and response teams. This article profiles one such team, and discusses what schools can do to plan ahead in the event of a crisis.

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Though often the butt of jokes and classroom pranks, substitute teachers are an important part of any school system, filling in for teachers who are on leave for professional development or for personal matters such as sickness. Across the country, there's a growing shortage of substitute teachers, requiring many districts to try different ways to recruit and keep such important personnel. This article describes those efforts.

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Subbing With Success
By Karen Kelly

When administrators at an Albany elementary school reformed their curriculum using the program Success for All, which requires special training, they had to rethink their use of substitutes. How could they use subs without disrupting the schoolwide program they had established?

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Using Water to Light Kids' Fires
By Kelly Graves-Desai

At Utah State University, a training program for science teachers about water conservation never got off the ground. So one of its founders decided to get the message out through another group: substitute teachers. Within a year, the water education institute had become the federally funded Substitute Teacher Training Institute.

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