New teachers often struggle with classroom management skills. Thomas Gordon has developed a classroom management model that focuses on character training rather than rewards and punishments. The focus of this method of managing student behavior is mutual respect and lack of dictatorship in the leadership role. Instead, the teacher is an equal with the students and manages behavior through mutual agreements and problem-solving.
Understanding the Gordon Method of Classroom Management
There are several aspects to Thomas Gordon’s classroom management method that are quite different from other management techniques. Here are a few main points:
- Teachers are to change student behavior without using rewards or punishments.
- The person who has a problem uses an I-Message to explain to the other person how he feels about the problem. For example, if a teacher has a problem with a student’s behavior, she should use an I-message to tell that student how his behavior makes her feel.
- Teachers should use active listening skills to communicate understanding to students. Active listening skills require a teacher to listen carefully and repeat the student’s concerns back in her own words.
- Teach students problem-solving skills for dealing with an issue between peers.
- Teachers are not to impose rules upon the class. Instead, the entire class should come up with an agreement that dictates how they act and interact throughout the school day.
How to Use the Thomas Gordon Method in the Classroom
On the first day of school, the teacher should spend some time telling the student what she hopes the school year will hold for them. Together they should write down several statements about how they will act and interact during the school year as a behavioral agreement. This agreement is in place of a list of class rules and should be hung where all students can see it.
Demonstrate the use of I-messages when there is a problem in the classroom. First, students need to learn how to take ownership of the problem. The owner of the problem is the person who is affected by the behavior. When two students are fighting, the owner of the problem is usually one of the students. When student behavior interferes with class, the teacher owns the problem.
Whoever owns the problem needs to then use an I-message to tell the other person how his or her behavior makes him feel. For example, if a student is upset because another student took his lunch, he might say “When you take my lunch, I have nothing left to eat so I will be hungry later. I won’t like that very much.”
- Teach students how to solve problems by modeling the problem-solving method.
- Identify the problem. The I-message helps identify the problem.
- Present solutions. (All students involved in the problem should present solutions)
- Allow students to choose a solution they all agree upon.
- Implement the solution.
- Determine if the solution worked.
Thomas Gordon’s classroom management method focuses on helping students take control of their own behavior. The tools used are meant to become automatic for students and are life-skills that can serve them as they grow up in all situations they find themselves.
Additional Classroom Management Information:
Tips for Student Discipline – Find classroom management strategies, creative discipline ideas and more.
Tips and Tricks for New Teachers – New to the classroom? Find out what strategies work.
A Critique of the Thomas Gordon Method – A look at some of the benefits and drawbacks of Thomas Gordon's classroom management method.
Jennifer Wagaman - Jennifer is a mother of 2 and has both public, private and administrative experience in the education field.
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