Fredric H. Jones's Blog

Last week, Fred and his wife Jo Lynne flew into Manila and drove 2 hours north to speak with teachers in Bataan Province – one group in the morning and the other in the afternoon.  

The next day’s big convention in Manila had 3,000 teachers.  It was the most comfortable large venue Fred has experienced.  Three big screens made it up close and personal even with that size crowd!

Fred spoke with over 4500 teachers during his three days in the Philippines.

Signing hundreds of books and posing for an equal number of pictures, Fred and fellow presenter Hal Urban were made to feel like rock stars by the teachers of the Philippines!

The crowd was energizing and enthusiastic listening to Fred speak on Tools for Teaching.

 

Fred poses with Mayor Joet Garcia of Batanga City and Teacher Forum organizer Mann Rentroy of Manila.
Mayor Garcia has made great strides in education by nurturing teacher education and developing a world class university in his provincial city. 

Tools for Teaching PARENT EDITION DVDs

Train parents to use the same skills at home that teachers use at school.











Learning Magazine’s 2008

Teacher’s Choice Award for Families Winner!






 Mom’s Choice Award Winner!

Also available in Spanish

 

 

Tools for Teaching is a proven set of skills and strategies to successfully manage your classroom with a positive, practical, low stress approach.Wouldn’t it be great if you could teach the parents of your class these same skills to use at home?Dr. Jones new 3 DVD set for parents does just that. Each disc centers on a theme that will help parents develop positive relationships with their kids, while better understanding what you are doing in the classroom. Parents and teachers can work together with a common language and set of skills to create the best environment possible for their kids.




Disc 1: Meaning Business

How to get your kids to stop doing what you don’t want them to do.Training Sessions:

Calm is Strength, Upset is Weakness
The Body Language of Meaning Business
Backtalk and Consistency
Rules and Consequences





Disc 2: Teaching Responsibility

How to get your kids to do what you want them to do when you want them to do it.Training Sessions:

“I Was Not Put On This Earth To Be Your Servant.”
Teaching Your Children To Do It Right
“Why Should I?” – Building Motivation





Disc 3: Building Values

How to teach your kids right from wrong.Training Sessions:

Teaching Right from Wrong
Building Relationships
Protecting Relationships

“I believe that Fred Jones has created a special program for parents. They get to know their children better, and they’re able to see them grow and excel academically, personally, and within their family. I think it brings families closer together.”

Derrick Rainey, high school senior

Little Rock, AR

“Dr. Jones makes people feel good about being parents. Parenting is not easy, and nobody is perfect. But, we are all in this for the same things – to educate our children and give them skills to succeed in life. To do that, we have to work together. Dr. Jones helped me develop a partnership with my children, their school and other parents. Now, I feel like part of a community that I never felt I was a part of before.”

Kaye Rainey, parent

Little Rock, AR

“I want to tell you how useful your Limit Setting techniques have been with my oldest daughter. Sometimes I didn’t even realize I was using Limit Setting until after I did it. It diffuses a lot of potential screaming and stress at home, just like it did in the classroom.”

Jennifer Blaske, parent and teacher

Marietta, GA

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For orders outside U.S. and Canada, please contact our office.

Tools for Teaching - Video Toolbox - Toolbox Overview Disc - Parent Edition DVDs

Positive Classroom Discipline - Positive Classroom Instruction

 

Dear Fred and Jo Lynne, 

It has been 16 years since my son Chandler was in my wife’s womb and I was
taking your course in Greenwood IN.  At each break I would find the nearest
phone and call my wife to make sure that she was OK and not going into
labor.

I have been using your material and teaching it to others since.  I have
also been using Dr. Wong’s material.  There is not a teacher that I
hire that does not go through your training.  It has been a requirement of
mine as an administrator for 16 years.

I went to the Wong’s training recently as a refresher.  I knew that you all
were friends but I did not know how close you were.  Harry (We are on a
first name basis now : )  told me to send this photo to you!

My wife Brenda and my sister Sherri took the course a couple years later
than I did.

Thank you for your continued work in education,

Douglas E. Ballinger, Ph.D.
Lakeview Christian School
Marion IN

Hard-working teachers at a Tools for Teaching workshop

Dr. Jones sits down for an interview with Education World News Editor Diane Weaver Dunne.

Education World:  Is it ever too late to initiate a new classroom management strategy?

Jones:  No, it’s never too late.  I’ve conducted workshops in schools as late as February and early May.  Within two weeks, the teachers have doubled the time on task and have an average of 80 percent fewer disruptions.  Some are even able to reduce disruptions by 90 to 95 percent.

EW:  If you had only enough time in a seminar to share one remedy, what would that remedy be?

Jones:  There is no one thing.  It is unrealistic, and if one thing worked, everybody would probably do it.  People can’t blame children for fooling around.  Kids migrate to the least effective form of management.

EW:  In some urban and rural school districts, a majority of students are labeled “at risk.”  What remedies do you highlight for teachers in school districts that historically have more student behavior problems?

Jones:  First, stories of unmanageable kids (in poorer districts) are totally overrated.  If you were listening to monologues on this and that, it would be difficult for you to stay focused.  I went to a school where most of the kids went on to college, and we would have given that teacher (instructing through a monologue) a hard time.  I’ve visited schools (in poorer districts), and many teachers run pretty boring classes.

Students hate being bored, and they hate to sit passively.  They want to do something. (Some kids) haven’t been read to as much (as students from more affluent, educated households have), so urban teachers have to have a more kinetic approach to running a classroom.  They need to give students more breaks.  Children can’t sit for five hours!

EW:  What makes teachers’ jobs so tough?

Jones:  Almost everything has made the teachers’ job tougher.  Legislators have mandated Band-Aids for years and haven’t helped.  They don’t understand how complex it is.  For example, when they mandate so many minutes of instruction, they know only how to make it work on paper.

What happens when students have only three minutes to pass in the hallways between classes because of the mandates for instruction?  It’s impossible to walk from one class to another in that amount of time, so teachers blow off tardiness and then no one has hall passes.  If you mandate punishment for kids who swear, they’ll do it to get out of class.

Legislators are in fantasyland and offer no solutions on how to run schools.  Legislators have the notion that we can produce excellence in the classroom through testing.  There is no substitute for experience in the classroom.  That is the bottom line.

to read the full interview, go to http://www.educationworld.com/a_issue...

How do we set the stage for success in the classroom?  Let me make a strong suggestion that you stand in the doorway at the beginning of the class period.

In the hall, students laugh and joke and flirt as they pass from class to class.  This is normal behavior for the hallway.  The classroom, in contrast, is a work environment.

Students would love to bring their social environment from the hall into the classroom.  They would love to spend the first part of the class period finishing their conversations.  And they will, unless you clearly structure a change in behavior.

Do everything you can to define the doorway into your classroom as a threshold between two different worlds.  Clearly separate the social world from the world of school-work.

You can only define a work environment through work.  Stand in the doorway, greet the students warmly, and above all else, give them a job.

excerpted from Fred Jones Tools for Teaching, Second Edition

http://toolsforteachingblog.wordpress...

Let’s focus on the fine points of body language. Remember that if you do it right and pay your dues up front by taking enough time with disruptions early on, you will rarely have to repeat the process. The cost effectiveness of limit-setting or any other successful discipline technique does not come from its being cheap the first time out but, rather from the fact that, when done properly, it self-eliminates over time.

Throughout limit-setting, the teacher is constantly communicating with the student in a dialogue of body language along three primary channels.  These channels and the messages communicated by each are:

1.  Confidence:  calm

2.  Commitment:  time

3.  Intensity:  proximity

Once we understand the main channels of communication and the messages being sent, the irony of communicating interpersonal power with body language becomes more apparent.  Any time you want to increase your power (1) shut up, (2) slow down, (3) relax, (4) get close, and (5) kill time.

Limit-setting, then, is little more than calmly killing time from a series of predetermined positions.  As the students bet, you move in.  When they fold, you stop, prompt them back to task if necessary, thank them politely, and slowly move out.  The students can bet as much as they want, but if you know how to play the game, you cannot lose.  Power is control, and control begins with self-control.  Stay in control of yourself long enough and you will eventually control the situation.  Yet, in a sense, the students are in control because they can get rid of you any time they want – by getting back to work.

excerpted from chapter 5 of Positive Classroom Discipline, by Dr. Fredric H. Jones

The classroom is a behavioral ecosystem just as nature is a biological ecosystem.  In nature animals evolve to become specialists so that they can effectively compete for space and food.  A species must successfully occupy a “niche” in the ecology in order to survive.  In a classroom, students also specialize to occupy niches in the behavioral ecosystem.  There is always a “goody two-shoes,” a prankster, a super jock, a neatest, a best and a first-finished.  There are students who distinguish themselves in a variety of predictable ways so that the same cast of characters emerges every year in almost every class.

In the ecosystem of the classroom, however, most of the niches which are defined by deviant behavior are occupied by the immature students.  They will make a place for themselves and get what they want (your body) by being babyish or obnoxious.  The one thing the immature student will always want from the teacher is mama’s or dada’s undivided time and attention. All the different gambits that force the teacher to give time and attention to the immature child to the exclusion of the rest of the children represent the “immaturity games” that children play in school. A cursory look at some of the more common forms of immaturity will clarify the pattern.  Remember, of course, that it doesn’t change in secondary school.

The Clinger  How many clingers will a typical kindergarten teacher have?  Hint:  How many legs does a kindergarten teacher have?  If teachers stand stationary for any length of time, they will accumulate a third clinger- the one who had to settle for the hindquarter.

Not Following Rules  How about the student who never carries out instructions properly?  Imagine that a kindergarten teacher lines the students up to come in from recess, but Sally and Billy are out by the chain-link fence at the edge of the playground goofing off.  Now the teacher is compelled by their sense of responsibility to gather them up.  What do Sally and Billy get for messing up?  The teacher-by the hand even.  What do all the other little kids get for doing it right?  Nothing.  It makes you wonder why they keep lining up.

Falling out of the Chair  How about the student who leans back in his chair while the teacher is reading a story?  He finally loses his balance and falls.  Can the teacher continue a story while the child is screaming on the floor?  More than likely the teacher goes to the child and examines him to see that he is not hurt, reminds him that if he would only sit properly in his chair such things wouldn’t happen.  What does the child get?  The teacher, complete with touching and soothing.  What did all the other kids get for doing it right?  Nothing!

Making Messes  As the students are getting their materials ready for art class, the mess maker drops his cans of paint.  Who is standing closest to the mess?  The kid who dropped the paint, of course.  Who is mommy or daddy’s little helper?  You guessed it.  And what do all the other kids get for doing it right?

Tying Shoelaces to the Chair Leg  What about the child who, while the teacher is giving directions, whiles away her time in a semicomatose state by tying one knot on another so that her shoelace is hopelessly attached to the chair leg.  Can the teacher ignore the problem?

Does the game change with time?  Does helplessness look any different in the fourth grade than it does in the sixth grade or the twelfth grade?  It is identical!  It was sadly hilarious to walk into a twelfth grade classroom and see the same gambits being played over and over in the afternoon that I spent all morning watching in the third grade.  They’ll never outgrow anything that the social system of the classroom continues to actively support.

Helplessness and dependency is the most pervasive learning disability in American education today.  It cannot be cured by special education.  It can only be cured by good regular education.  In order to replace helplessness with independent work habits during the guided practice portion of a structured lesson we must learn to give corrective feedback properly.

excerpted from Positive Classroom Instruction, by Dr. Fredric H. Jones.  To read more about classroom management, please go to http://www.fredjones.com

No Budget, No Problem

With every budget crunch the school board must choose between cutting personnel or cutting programs. Since cutting personnel is disruptive and highly visible, programs get the ax with staff development first in line.

Fortunately for you, Tools for Teaching is designed to survive in a harsh environment.  Your investment is minimal – a book for each teacher.  After that, it is all free.

Download the free Study Group Activity Guide and you will have the structure you need to keep a Professional Learning Community learning and growing indefinitely.  Get started with the basic 12-week course which includes Dr. Jones’ training procedures prompt by prompt with explanations and embellishments just like the workshop.  Continue training with Guided Practice simulations that permit skill development to be ongoing and open-ended.  And, when necessary, use the Group Problem Solving Process to enable teachers to solve weird management problems when they occur.

In addition to the Study Group Activity Guide, our website (www.fredjones.com) contains additional resources such as a Preferred Activity Bank, suggestions for Bell Work, tips for substitutes, and a message board.  No budget?  No problem!  You have all the resources you need to maintain a vibrant staff development program.

for more information please visit http://www.fredjones.com

How do you motivate a student who simply does not care? Gaining leverage over student motivation is one of the most vexing issues of classroom management that any teacher faces. The question underlying the topic of motivation in the student’s mind is, “Why should I?”

Answers to the question, “Why should I?” have a collective and generic name: incentives. A successful teacher must be a skillful manager of classroom incentives. An incentive is a reinforcer; by definition, it generates work. Incentive is not to be confused with “reward.” Depending on a given student’s willingness to work for it, a reward might or might not function as a reinforcer in the classroom. During the past three decades, education has been guilty of the profligate use of rewards in the classroom — to the point that they have gotten a bad name. But, you cannot turn your back on incentives. One way or another, you must deal with the question, “Why should I?”

Incentives Are Everywhere

Almost any social interaction has incentive properties. If, for example, you have students work until the bell rings, you have created a dawdling incentive. Why should students knock themselves out doing the assignment? If no other goal than endless work is in sight, many students will slow down and expand the work to fill the time. The only students who will work hard are the ones with an internalized work ethic that is impervious to your classroom management practices.

If, on the other hand, you provide as a goal a reinforcing activity that students receive upon completion of the assignment — but before the work is checked — you have created a speed incentive. Many students will say to themselves, “the quicker I finish this stuff, the sooner I can have some fun.” Once again, the only students who will work conscientiously are the ones with an internalized work ethic that is impervious to your classroom management practices.

If you want to train students to work hard while being conscientious, you must check the work as it is being done, so students only receive the incentive when they work to your standards. For that reason, the technology of incentive management for classroom assignments hinges upon contemporaneous work check.

Now, imagine yourself working the crowd with an answer key in hand, checking work as it is being done. You are, in effect, moving paper grading forward in time from this evening to now.  The larger benefit, however, is your ability to employ a Criterion of Mastery.

Criterion of Mastery

A lesson is simply a learning experiment with teaching as the independent variable and learning as the dependent variable. Every learning experiment must have a Criterion of Mastery — an operational definition of success at learning. When you reach the Criterion of Mastery, you can terminate the learning experiment.

A Criterion of Mastery is stated in terms of consecutive correct performances, it is not stated as a percentage. Keep in mind that an 80 percent success rate is, in fact, a 20 percent error rate — a level of performance that is incompatible with any meaningful definition of excellence or mastery. A Criterion of Mastery should be a sensible and practical number of consecutive correct performances. Most criteria of mastery for classroom assignments fall between four and ten. The number of repetitions of a skill that are useful before you start “beating it to death” is a judgment call on your part.

My teachers were big on projects. We always had an art project or a science project to work on if we finished early. In addition to being “sponge activities,” they functioned as incentives. My sixth grade teacher, Miss Bakey, had us bring from home shoeboxes with our names printed on them. We spent one whole class period choosing a science project and collecting the supplies and materials we needed for it. We placed the materials in our “project boxes” and lined them up on the shelf that ran above the radiators by the window. I knew that, as soon as I knocked off those five problems in a row, it was project time! I also knew that if I became sloppy by trying to work too fast, I would have to work longer to get five in a row correct.

No Joy, No Work

Let’s add to the question “Why should I?,” the adage “No work, no joy.” If you want kids who have no great internalized work ethic to get on the ball and work, you must give them a reason. Since those kids do not work well for delayed reinforcers, you must provide reinforcers soon – immediately upon completion of the task, if possible. Attempting to answer the question, “Why should I?” in a meaningful fashion will push you toward structuring enjoyment as the counterpoint to work in every lesson. Chances are, you will have your students doing more than a few projects. You might even use Miss Bakey’s project box.

For more information about Dr. Fred Jones and his book Tools for Teaching, please visit http://www.fredjones.com