Barbara Coloroso

        Barbara Coloroso is the author of Kids are Worth It! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline, and Parenting with Wisdom in Times of Chaos and Confusion.  She is also the co-author to publications on topics about troubled students.  Her model of classroom management focuses on what she calls Inner Discipline.  Inner discipline involves treating all students with respect, and letting them make decisions.  With inner discipline, teachers serve as guides, helping students manage themselves in the classroom.

• Backbone teachers provide support and structure necessary for children to act responsibly by reasoning through problems.
• Brickwall teachers are rigid, use power and coercion to control.
• Jellyfish teachers have little or no recognizable structure, consistency, or guidelines.
• Punishment is treatment that is psychologically hurtful and unjust to students and likely to provoke anger, resentment and additional conflict.
• Discipline shows students what they have done wrong and gives them ownership of the problem; it provides options and opportunities to solve the problems and in so doing leaves the students' dignity intact.
• Inner discipline is the ability to behave creatively, constructively, cooperatively, and responsibly.
• Natural consequences are consequences that occur naturally after a decision the student makes.
• Reasonable consequences are consequences that have been jointly agreed upon by the teacher and students.  They are invoked for transgressions of rules.
• The RSVP test reminds teachers that consequences must be Reasonable, Simple, Valuable, and Practical.
• The three cons are ploys students typically use in hopes of escaping consequences.  The ploys may be: (1)begging, bribing, weeping and wailing, (2)anger and agression, and/or (3)sulking.

• Teachers allow students to make decisions and grow from the results of those decisions.
• Teachers bring students to situations that call for decisions, ask them to make the decision (while the teacher provides the guidance without judgment), and let them experience the results of their decision.
• Teachers provide a safe and nurturing environment in which to learn and deal with consequences.
• Teachers must make an unconditional commitment to their students.
• Teachers abide by the Golden Rule: "I will not treat a student in a way I myself would not want to be treated."
• Teachers should never rescue their students by solving thorny problems for them.
• Teachers should say, "You have a problem... What is your plan?"
• Teachers offer advice and support - options but not solutions.
• Teachers should not give in to the three cons.

• Teachers function as guides and support students in order to help them manage their own discipline.
• Teachers treat students with respect and give them power and responsibility to make their own decisions.
• Teachers should not use punishment, only discipline when it is needed.
• Students have a great deal of control in the classroom.
• Teachers must teach students to think for themselves in order for them to learn to discipline themselves.
• Teachers believe and treat students like they have the right to be in school, but students also have the responsibility to respect the rights of those around them.
• Disputes in the classroom need to be solved with win-win situations.
• Natural and reasonable consequences are associated with rules and are to be allowed or invoked by the teacher consistently when rules are violated.
• RSVP tests should be administered to check consequences.
• Teachers must remain firm when consequences are administered (they cannot change their mind once discipline plans are made).
• Teachers must work to preserve their dignity, as well as the dignity of students when dealing with discipline.

• The model places emphasis on the dignity of students.
• If used correctly, the model teaches inner discipline.
• The model asserts that every child is "worth it."
• The model stresses that teachers are facilitators.
• Students learn to to solve problems on their own without always relying on a teacher.
• Students learn problem solving skills.
• Students are left to make their own choices and experience the consequences.
• The model emphasizes discipline, not punishment.

• The model does not give suggestions about how to deal with specific or major discipline problems.
• A great deal of time is required to complete the steps of identifying, defining, solving, and re-evaluating.
• The model provides little practical application information.
• The model assumes that students will learn from incorrect decisions and be deterred by consequences.
• The model asks the teacher to give up control and let students make incorrect decisions.
• The model requires students to have higher-order thinking skills to complete the decision-making process.
• There is the question of whether the model is developmentally appropriate for early elementary grades.
• The model seemingly focuses more on parenting than teaching.

• Coloroso, Barbara.  (1995). Kids Are Worth It!: Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline.  Avon Books.
• Coloroso, Barbara.  (1997).  Kids Are Worth It! An Interview with Barbara Coloroso. Offspring, 39 (1-2).
• Hipwell, Deana, Denise Stamey, Jennifer Warwick, and Jane Forbes Watson.  Presentation entitled, "Barbara Coloroso and Inner Discipline," October 2001.
• Charles, C.M.  (1999).  Building Classroom Discipline.  New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

• http://www.kidsareworthit.com
• http://archives.theglobeandmail.com/series/familymatters/bcoloroso.html
• http://www.kidsareworthit.com/images/handout.pdf

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