[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] SPEAKER_01:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Larry Thompson. Larry is the creator of Responsibility-Centered Discipline, as well as Responsibility-Centered Leadership and Responsibility-Centered Parenting. Popular speaker, author, and thought leader, he has worked with thousands of educators, leaders, and parents across the U.S. and internationally, and is a former State Principal of the Year. Larry is the author of the new book, Responsibility-Centered Discipline, Keeping Students on the Path of Accountability, which we're here to talk about today.
[00:43] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01:
Larry, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[00:48] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you. Nice to have time with you today and to get to talk about important issues going on in our country.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01:
Absolutely. I'm excited to talk about responsibility-centered discipline because, you know, as a profession, we're trying to figure this out. We're trying lots of things to figure out how to get discipline right, how to keep students on track with their learning, how to keep students from disrupting the learning of others, how to deal with disproportionality. We have all these things that we want to do and all these things that we're trying to do. And frankly, a lot of them are not working, and we are willing to maybe tolerate a degree of that because we know, you know, our traditional practices are limited in their effectiveness. And I'm excited about what you're bringing to the table in responsibility-centered discipline.
[01:31]
So take us into a little bit of the origin story. What did you see happening in the profession that prompted you to pursue this work and to write this book?
[01:38] SPEAKER_00:
Well, I got into a pretty tough school out of the gate. I had taught special education. I had been used to working with kids that may have trouble regulating big emotions and things of that nature, and then was asked to take over an alternative school. And this alternative school was on a residential campus, but it also served kids that were facing expulsions in neighboring communities, so about 125 kids. And when I got to that facility, It, it had just gone through a lot of problems, multiple principals in one school year, staff, you know, scared, being hurt sometimes. And so I walked into a really difficult space, and of course, they had tried many things.
[02:25]
And we just noticed, even in that school, they've swung to very harsh consequences to, that'll get the kids. And then when that didn't get anything but a lot more anger and nobody at school, they tried swinging back to no consequences and doing it all through therapeutic processes. And everybody was trying to figure out what that niche is, where we can have that accountability, but do it in the right way. And I think just by being in that setting, I was there six years and We really turned it around. We became recognized by our governor as one of the best schools of technology. The school couldn't have technology when we started because they broke things.
[03:08]
And we had kids in leadership. We had kids going off campus for things that we used to never be able to trust them to handle. And so, that's kind of where the work began without the intention of becoming training. But through trial and error and a lot of work, we figured out kind of that niche of where that balancing act is in schools and been very fortunate because we now have trained schools in every state in the United States, and we didn't know it would turn into a replicable model. But we work with all types of schools. So that was kind of the beginning of it, of just being caught in a hard situation.
[03:47]
And my heart has always believed kids want to do well. They feel better with themselves when they're pleased and proud and they walk different when they're doing well at school. And so if that's what they want and they don't know how to get there, how do we do that? So that became my mission.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01:
And worth pointing out, as you did, your school was one where students had already been unsuccessful in some way, right, through their behavior in the past and needed kind of a different approach. And the pendulum swings had both been tried, right? Both extremes had already been tried and had not worked. And you were able to identify some approaches that avoid those pendulum swings, but also actually change things for students. And I think so often in our profession, we just try to do the opposite, the extreme opposite of what we've been doing recently, and end up repeating the cycles of history and those pendulum swings. Talk to us a little bit about kind of the core of your Responsibility-Centered Discipline model.
[04:47]
What's the big idea that this is built around?
[04:49] SPEAKER_00:
I would say there's three or four kind of things that are premises we built around. And the first thing is understanding kind of what part of the brain you're getting active. To simplify it down, maybe saying it like, everybody likes to have autonomy. The more you try to show me you're going to control me, the more I push back. So we want our children to have autonomy, to be able to go get a drink on their own, to work with a partner and be trustworthy, to all of those things. But when that brain gets hyper aroused and starts to feel that it has to fight for some control, it gets just about impossible to redirect.
[05:25]
So an example would be, we train teachers. When you say you're going to give a kid a consequence and they say, well, I didn't want to go anyway to the zoo or whatever, or I like being in the hallway, the air conditioning's better. They're subtly telling you, I want to remind you, you don't have control of me. You say to a little one, hurry up, in an angry voice tone, and they start walking slower. And so, one premise we built is, the next phase we need to get the brain into is the feeling that I can do hard things. That's kind of what they call the mastery state of the brain.
[05:56]
Like, come watch me. Come outside and watch me do the jungle gym. Or, did you hear about my game last night? Or, you should hang this one up. Look how good I did. That part of the brain is, And so one of the things we began to learn early on is many of our techniques that we were trained in the past put the brain in an autonomy fight accidentally.
[06:18]
In fact, when you say the word rules, a large percentage of people get into an autonomy space. Who are you to tell me what to do? Yet we teach America's teachers to start the school year by going over all the rules. over and over, which causes a large group of kids in the room to be like, she can't make me not talk. She can't, like, they're already equipping themselves to show you, you're not going to have that authority. So a simple premise that can help everybody is switch from rules, get the rules off the wall and pick the three to five skills that your kids need to be able to be successful.
[06:57]
Look at your demographics of your school, write down all the behavior problems you have. And then build the skills that would take away all those behavior problems. So a sample would be kids don't do their work. They don't try. They copy off their neighbor. They don't bring their work to class.
[07:13]
They... Okay, so we would look at that. That's probably an issue of they don't have much perseverance yet. If it gets hard, they quit.
[07:22]
They turn in half of assignment. And so instead of saying, if you don't do your assignment, you're going to get this, we got to come at it as a skill. I believe when people that are amazing with children that I've watched, there's a common thing that happens somehow in their mind, they've shifted to understanding it's skill development and not rules. And so when you can't do a skill, it looks like a mastery issue. When you can't do a rule, when you don't do a rule, it looks powerful. So a little simple question we train teachers all the time is, what makes this child feel strong in my classroom?
[07:59]
Do they feel strong when they oppose me? Or do they feel strong when they meet the goal? Because if it's the first one, you're going to have a miserable year. Because every time they outmaneuver you, they feel powerful. Listen to an angry kid go to the office. Man, this school sucks.
[08:15]
That teacher's stupid. I don't even listen to her because she's... You hear how they think they're being strong. When you change a school to skills and you train teachers how to do it, that kid walks to the office with a bit of, like, a feeling.
[08:30]
Why didn't I just try? I don't know why I get so mad at myself. I gotta... I hate my temper.
[08:36]
I mean, I've heard him say all this. That's the shifting. So that's one of the nuggets that we really work on. And then we very intensely teach the skill from a framework we call a give them five conversation of how you get that brain out of the one state and into the other. And you gotta be able to do it in high intensity.
[08:54] SPEAKER_01:
Tell us a little bit more about Giving Them Five. What does that mean? Because I know that's your website as well, right? GiveThemFive.com?
[08:58] SPEAKER_00:
Well, we began to look at, when we send teachers in to talk to challenging students, few of them really had that training out of their university experiences. And I don't want to be critical, but most of us heard things like, if your lesson's at the right level, and you've built relationships, and you have engagement, kids just probably won't misbehave. And so, I think what's happened is when kids bring their troubles to school, their traumas and their struggles and their life into your classroom, then when teachers don't feel equipped for it, they, in their subconscious, they go back to their college training and think, I must not be good at teaching because they told me kids wouldn't behave if I was good at these other pieces. And so, in a way, we've defeated our teachers
[09:48]
by not retooling of how we coach kids. And so, Give Them Five is a framework that we can systemically practice. So, it's five pieces, support. And they don't have to be in an order, and they don't sound scripted. You just learn how to weave those into a conversation with the child. One of those is support, which says, I'm for you, I'm not against you, kid.
[10:11]
And that can be as simple as, looks like your day's not off to a good start. Let's see what we can do. It could be, you're one of my leaders. I'm afraid if you go that way, they'll all follow us. It could be, I know you're getting ready to leave, and so it may not seem important to do what I'm asking today. It's getting them.
[10:31]
Another one is the expectation, and we don't say the word expectation, but it helps us get back to the skill. You can put a brain in more of an autonomy space by just starting like this. It seems hard for you today. to give it your very best. See how that made it a skill? Instead of, if you're not gonna work, then here's what's gonna happen to you.
[10:53]
And so, that expectation is always stated from the skill place. That's the second piece of the five. The third is very clearly identifying the problem, so there's no mystery of what we're talking about, because too many times adults think a kid knows, But I make the joke that our honoree kids do a lot of things in a day they never get caught for. So when I say to you, do you know why we need to talk? You're like, which one do you know about? And so we clearly identify, like, I want to talk to you about the words you were using with one of the other students when she walked by you.
[11:27]
I want to talk to you about the assignment that you promised me for two days, and I have not received it yet. Clearly identify what we're working on, and then the next one is sometimes people's hardest. What is the benefit in it for the child to work on that skill? So, too often, we've made the benefit a prize. or a consequence instead of the real benefit. And so this takes our teachers' work to think about what does a 13-year-old gain from learning to be a respectful person?
[11:58]
What do they get from it? So you gotta take yourself back to being the age of your kids. What does a five-year-old get when they're trustworthy? And so our coaching always goes back to what helps you by gaining the skills we work on here. And then the last one is closure, which is, A simple way of saying the two of us have to have some sort of resolve. And it might mean just the kid says, well, I kind of disagree with you, but I can try that today, and maybe it'll help me.
[12:27]
They're not always like, thank you for the feedback, it's been so great. But we're able to get closure, so... In an odd way, what we've been figuring out and has really become more powerful as we've been out doing it for, you know, 20 years, is kids today, because of these cell phones and because of their experiences, they are less equipped for interpersonal relationships. They do them from their phone, they break up with their friend and they ruin a friendship and they tell you how stupid you are through their telephone.
[13:03]
And... What we want to do is continue to rebuild the ability for a kid and a teacher to learn to work through a hard thing together. We believe one of the essential skills we could give a child is we can have hard moments and we can end that closure. Which means we talk in the middle and it's difficult and we...
[13:22]
But we end with a fist bump or a, let's go, let's get it done today. And we're having to remodel that to kids. I feel like as a society, we've kind of drifted away from modeling that people can do that with each other. And so every time they work through a hard thing with a teacher, it's also showing them how healthy people can disagree, can figure something out, and then can leave as teammates again. So a more healthy family has crisis, but after they have crisis, they come back together and try to figure out how it won't happen the next time. Dysfunctional families tend to just let the clock solve it.
[14:01]
Like, just don't talk. And then it'll just be better in a week. So we accidentally built the American school system as a dysfunctional family model. We separate kids and teachers for a timeframe and then say, well, this ought to be healthy. I don't know why they're not all getting along. It's like, because that's not how people function.
[14:19]
So, really, we're, we're really equipping kids with the hard things of... And, you know, once you learn to do these, you advocate for yourself better. I mean, how many kids say, you know, leave me the blank alone and get in trouble in a classroom?
[14:35]
But does the teacher get rattled by that? Or do they hear what the kid's trying to say and say, I can give you space. Let's talk in a few minutes. And then when you come back, you coach that. A lot of teachers, that would fit them. So next time you need to tell me you need space, maybe let's think of a way you could say it that wouldn't violate our concept of being respectful to each other.
[14:58]
And I've seen hard kids, tough kids that have been kicked in and out of schools and corrections and everything else, learn to say things like, I just want to be by myself for a while, please. I'm like... that will never get you in trouble in a classroom. So, we really help our teachers hear what the brain is saying, and get through the filters of, you know, how they might say it today, and then back to the skill of, you can say anything respectfully, though.
[15:27]
You can disagree with me with great passion, but still treat me respectful. And so, the skills of being respectful, what do they do for a kid? You get to be listened to. You get to be heard. You get to advocate for yourself. You know what I mean?
[15:41]
And so, it's really shifting that, but giving the teachers the ability in the moment, and so, this is so systemic for us that we actually put teachers into scenes, and we put up the five signs, support, expectation, breakdown, benefit, closure, and then you're gonna coach me in a hard scene, and those signs are up, and it won't go down until you do that. That's how we can train you, just like a first responder gets trained to check airway, check pulse, We have to retrain our teachers for when those brains go into fight, flight, or freeze. They have enough training to step into their default coaching mode and help a kid through it.
[16:20] SPEAKER_01:
I love it. As you said, so much of that is modeling what healthy relationships look like and modeling what a healthy response looks like. And you talk in the book about how self-control is one of the core skills that, you know, students want to develop. No student wants to be unable to control themselves, but that often is where we need to focus. Tell us a little bit more of your thinking on self-control.
[16:46] SPEAKER_00:
probably a little gambit of what we've taught that sticks with people the most, and I'm a former coach, so I often think in athletic terms, like, you can't just say, they didn't give me any good players, you have to turn them into good players if you succeed. And so, self-control by a lot of the experts, there can be a little disagreement on it, and I share it in the book, the statistics, but most experts of human behavior consider self-control to be kind of like a muscle. The more repetitions it gets, the easier it begins to be able to do it. And so we've all seen that in our lives. Like, you get up at six and you do your walk or your jog. First three weeks, still kind of miserable.
[17:28]
And then after a while, you're like, it's just habit almost. Like, I just do it. So we ask our teachers to begin to see the muscle of self-control is what you have to develop in the young people. So instead of saying, this kid's not motivated, We believe motivation is a derivative of your self-control. So, I didn't want to get up and work out this morning at all. But if I did it, it was I had enough self-control to push through the moment that I wanted to stay in bed.
[17:59]
I didn't want to go to all my night classes in college. But, so you can't say he's motivated. I think we misunderstand motivation as people that can get themselves to do the hard thing, which means they have a stronger muscle of self-control. So what we target is we show a spotting situation, like a lifter being supported while they lift, let's say bench press. So I stand behind you and I'm helping you. If I lift too much and I overspot you, the goal is met and the bar is back on the rack, but you're no stronger.
[18:31]
We call that, in RCD world, overspotting the behavior. But there's also underspotting the behavior where you're struggling today and your behaviors frustrate me as the adult, so I won't spot you at all. I just let you be crushed under the weight of your hard problem today. We call that underspotting the behavior. So we work with the teachers of finding the balance of how much you spot and what spotting looks like so we turn out stronger kids. And I don't say this boastfully.
[19:02]
I just want every school in the nation to get here eventually. We have watched... I have got to be part of schools by retooling the teachers and helping them get there, building new systems of how strengthening the muscle of self-control is the priority. And I've watched schools go from 2,600 in office referrals a year to 200 in a year.
[19:28]
I've watched schools go nine weeks without a kid coming to the office where they used to have eight and ten a day. And what that begins to equal is academic achievement because kids are in class giving good effort. I kind of joke, and I don't mean it to be funny, but we do all these things to raise achievement. And schools have no trouble spending fortunes on technology that is not proven to raise those test scores. But we're trying. And the part we're missing is if you want to raise test scores, you have to strengthen the muscle of self-control.
[20:05]
And so I understand you want great instruction, and so do I, and I'm tough on teachers about solid instruction. But at some point, your brain is going to go, I don't want to do this.
[20:18]
I need to go to the bathroom. I'm gonna get a drink. And what we have to go back to is strengthening the student because that's where the achievement's actually gonna happen. And I had a high school that hit 100% proficient, which just seems impossible. And that day, everybody couldn't believe we did it. I've seen the graduation go up in a boys' prison 53% in one year because the focus quit being...
[20:42]
Teachers need to teach different. Rules need to be posted. Consequences need to be harsher. And everybody knew the techniques of building the muscle of self-control.
[20:52] SPEAKER_01:
Larry, one thing you talk about in the second part of the book is the exits that students try to take to avoid responsibility. Tell us about the six exits.
[21:05] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, if there's something most unique about RCD, it is probably this. After dealing with an alternative school, where I'm the only principal, we have 125 kids, and we're averaging 50 referrals a day. We do not have the personnel to have 50 kids out of the classroom, half of the school building, basically. And I wouldn't want to put myself back in that spot when I was learning all this, because it was hard. But what I gained from listening to kids was very helpful in my journey, uh...
[21:39]
What happened is, I would be interviewing those kids, why are you out of class? What happened? What do you... And few of them ever owned their problem.
[21:50]
And I began to find the pattern that we take, and we do it as adults too, the pattern we take when we don't want to go to the destination of responsibility. So, our book was called The Roadmap to Responsibility, our first book. And the destination is responsibility. But picture a highway, it's winding and tough, and the destination's hard to get to. But if there's exits available that you can exit the road and go somewhere else and not be accountable, that's an easier road to go on. And so, we train the teachers to listen to the child because they'll tell you what exit they're on.
[22:28]
So, let me just paint them out for you. One of the exits is benefit exit. When I don't see a reason for what you're asking me to do, it feels like you're just trying to control me, and that's going to ignite a mass autonomy battle. So, these are what that sounds like in a kid. Why would I do the assignment? I'm moving.
[22:49]
How about this one? That's not even a bad word. Everybody says it. That's...
[22:54]
I don't see a reason to change. I'm not understanding why you care what you're... Another one would be emotional control. If the adult loses some of their emotional control and the finger-pointing starts and the threats start or the anger or even the joy of you getting in trouble shows on their face, then the child's gonna feel mistreated.
[23:17]
And few of us have the ability to own our problem when we feel mistreated by the person in authority over us. So a teacher gets mad and goes too hard at a kid, and then they're supposed to go work on themselves. It doesn't work that way. So some of our teachers, we have to build that skill of that good emotional control in hard situations. Another one is clear expectation. That's where the brain's gonna say, I didn't know.
[23:43]
Nobody told me. Last year, they didn't care. I thought I could listen to music if I was done with my work. Like, I don't understand why I'm in trouble for something. Like, this wasn't clear enough for me. That's why our core beliefs on our wall or our foundational beliefs are always skills.
[23:58]
We always use these skills, but all situations can't be posted. So, if you're arguing with me about the word, I could say, but let's not argue about the word. The thing we have as our goal is everybody feels respected, and that word is offensive to some people in this classroom. So, it couldn't be a school word. Next one is consistency. The brain's going to exit on consistency sometimes.
[24:21]
Somebody else is doing it. So we have a software where you can practice closing the exits against animated characters. So you can practice your skill development. And the first scene, just so this will become clear to you, the first scene that we filmed and we made animated was a young man on his phone. And so the teacher comes over and says, Randy, put your phone away. You can't have that out while I'm teaching.
[24:51]
Now, listen to Randy's exits. Randy says, well, Tina's got her phone out. So, with enough training, after we get to help schools, a teacher hears, I need to close the exit of consistency or his brain will not go with me. But a teacher that doesn't have that skill will say something like this, I'm not talking to Tina, I'm talking to you. Well, when you won't answer the question the brain has, it's going to keep asking it. So if you play this scene out in a majority of our schools, the kid next says, so she gets to do whatever she wants, and I'm getting in trouble.
[25:30]
Teacher still doesn't. He's asked twice. Teacher still doesn't hear it. Then the teacher says this. I'm not going to argue with you, but you signed the handbook. You know the thumb policy.
[25:41]
That's clear expectation. That's the wrong exit. So now he's going to say, Tina signed the handbook, too.
[25:50]
And now the teacher's getting frustrated. But he's frustrated because he's asking a question that nobody will answer. So he, when you don't feel listened to it, it really agitates you and usually ramps you up to be a little more angry. And so, finally, she says something. If you're going to be disrespectful, you can go to the office with your phone. He says, I'm not even being disrespectful.
[26:11]
Just look over there. She's got hers out. So this is the fourth time he's tried to get it answered. Nobody will answer it. So then she sends him to the office. And then in the office, in the scene, it goes again.
[26:23]
And the principal's like, why are you down here? Now, this is his fifth time, he says, because some people do whatever they want, and I get in trouble for everything. Principal doesn't hear it and says, you can only control one person. Here comes the speech. He gets sent home because he's so disrespectful in the office. At home, what are you doing?
[26:44]
Dad, I don't want to go to that school. Some kids get to do what they want, and some kids like me get in trouble for everything. You know they don't like me. They didn't like me there last year. Here comes his...
[26:54]
Where his brain's processing, and we send him back to school, and the next, when he walks in, the kid says, where were you yesterday? He says, I got home, sat home, and they said, why? He says, because that dang Tina does everything she wants, I get in trouble. Okay, tent teacher talked to him, principal talked to him, parent talked to him, and we tried consequence. He is still on the exact same exit he was on. When you have proper training, you will hear the exit they're on, and you will know how to close it.
[27:21]
Right then, 99 out of 100 times, you could redirect that kid by closing the exit like this. Randy, I don't want to look at Tina right now, but I believe you. And that wouldn't feel right to you.
[27:35]
I will give you my word that I will talk to Tina before this hour is up, because she has to meet the standard with us. But before I walk away from you, I want to have an agreement on your phone because it is getting in the way of your learning and we have a test Thursday. So, what can we agree on to your phone? I don't want to make the decision of doing an action that causes me to get involved if you can control it yourself. But I need to know the way you're going to do it before I feel good with class ending today. If you can't think of it now, stop on your way out and share your idea to have that phone never come out while I'm teaching.
[28:11]
I can't imagine kids not hearing that. You and I get frustrated when we're asking a question, too, and the person keeps answering. So hearing the exits becomes the secondary training we do. I just did that with a school yesterday of putting them in the scene, and now the kids are gonna take the exits. And can you hear it, and can you bring the brain back? The last two exits are leading the moment when we don't give our teachers enough training.
[28:36]
And I'm an advocate for teachers. I'm defending them that we didn't help them with hard stuff. But when we don't give them enough training, it's natural to look for other ways to fix it. Like, I'm gonna call your dad. Go to the hallway. I'm gonna have so-and-so come talk to you, instead of you and I gotta do this hard thing together.
[28:53]
And then the last one is, uh, responsibility. And we will not let anything solve a problem for the child except the child's brain.
[29:05]
So, there's where we can talk about consequences. How many times does the consequence do the work and the brain doesn't have to do it? So if I say to you, you're out of school for three days, what do you have to do? Screw around for three days? If I say to a little one, no recess this afternoon, what does their brain have to do? So we're not against a consequence, but what we say is we will only support a consequence that has their brain doing the solving.
[29:34]
So we remove time off of in-school suspension, And the pers... We change it to in-school solutions. You gotta have a solution. And I don't wanna go in the weeds too deep there, but when your brain has a skill, it's an algorithm.
[29:50]
When your brain doesn't have the algorithmic skill, then it has to be a heuristic, and that's trial and error and novel ways you coach yourself. So we're putting... We have the skills of putting that kid's brain into a novel, creative way they can remember to do their task. And it's not your way.
[30:05]
We've gotta quit coaching kids from our algorithms. So it's just been a joy to watch kids all over the country from juvenile corrections to, you know, whatever kind of school you want to go into. When you get them in the heuristic space and they novelly creatively figure out a way to keep their phone put away or to not use disrespectful words. I have a kid that by way that he held his hands and he didn't make fists when he got mad, he made it more of a, I don't know how to describe it without seeing it, but like his knuckles didn't curl under, but they just went flat against his palms. And that keeps him from fighting because he would break his hand if he hit you with his hand. Like, that's a novel, creative way he's figured out how to get himself out of hard situations.
[30:46]
So we're pretty deep on, you don't return to class till you're in that heuristic space. So our people in solutions quit being in-school suspension monitors, and they really become little miniature life coaches. So when you're struggling, it's a skill issue. You got to go see one of your coaches. figure out how to get yourself back on track today because we need you in school and we need you doing well. But you need help today and we all, we all need to see our coach some days.
[31:12]
You know, even adults have days where it's going bad.
[31:16] SPEAKER_01:
Larry, the, the word that comes up for me listening to you to describe your approach is legitimacy. That when we listen to students, you know, and you gave the example of the student who points out rightly that another student is also on their cell phone and we're not being consistent or not being fair.
[31:33] SPEAKER_00:
Like,
[31:34] SPEAKER_01:
what you're doing by approaching it in the way you described is we're restoring the legitimacy that we have lost, at least in that student's eyes. And, you know, I see lots of schools that have lost legitimacy with the way they approach discipline overall. Like, it's a widespread problem. Everybody recognizes the school does not have that legitimacy. And I just really appreciate the ways you've found to build that legitimacy step by step in the book.
[32:00] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, I think there's so many good things that we've done But they kind of all have danced around the self-control muscle. And I think our teachers are now at a place where, like, we have to do something. You know, our kids are, they're not having the grit to stick with the task for very long. They're not challenging themselves academically anymore. You know, teachers are feeling that I have to push everybody along to do their work, and I used to only have to nudge a couple kids. And so, it's kind of time to retool and rebuild a A functional system.
[32:34]
And ours is very doable. It doesn't overwhelm teachers. It's hard because you're building a new pattern in your brain that you can coach high intensity. But it's not overwhelming to understand. And so it's fun for us to watch teachers by the second day of a training. They're like, you know, I'm kind of getting pretty good at it.
[32:50]
Like, I think I'm getting it, you know? And that's pretty neat when... What we want is they're so skilled that even if a student had to leave their room, they could still have a mastery moment. Because I ask you, how did it go?
[33:03]
And you're like, I did really good coaching him. See, right now, if you look at, like, two chain links, teachers are linked to the student, behaviorally. So when the kid has a bad day, the teacher has a bad day. What we want to do is, the only way to uncouple them from the kid is to drive that skill up so high that when a kid struggles, they never saw it as them. They don't even see it as disrespectful as the kid lacks a skill. And they coach the skill, and if it needs intensive coaching, they refer it to the next level after they do great coaching.
[33:35]
And so teachers can actually go home happy after a hard day, like, hard day today, but, man, I really coached a couple kids well. So they'll be in solutions. They'll be working on it. I'll see them tomorrow. We'll see if we can get things back on track. I don't go home angry.
[33:48]
I begin to trust the system at school. I don't feel the principal's not supporting me. All the broken models. So it's a joy to watch when it comes together.
[33:58] SPEAKER_01:
So the book is Responsibility-Centered Discipline, Keeping Students on the Path of Accountability. And Larry, if people want to get in touch with you and learn more about maybe working with you, where's the best place for them to go online?
[34:10] SPEAKER_00:
Our approach is called Responsibility-Centered Discipline. The book is available through Corwin. There's another book that I did that was written more kind of to the classroom teacher called The Roadmap to Responsibility. You can find it lots of places. And if you go to Responsibility-Centered Discipline or GiveEmFive.com, which is a kind of a phrase we use a lot, you can find our website and get resources and videos and ways of doing some trainings and things of that nature.
[34:38] SPEAKER_01:
Larry, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
[34:43] Announcer:
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