Dear Educator,
Public and private schools everywhere are struggling to meet the increasing demands that are placed on them by families, communities, and legislators. The expectations for academic achievement and accountability are extremely high, with a great deal of emphasis placed on national testing standards and end-of-grade competency exams. In addition, the demand for schools to create “good citizens” is also high, with schools being the primary venue in which to deliver programs to prevent a wide array of social maladies such as substance abuse, bullying, delinquency, and risky sexual activity to name just a few issues.
In response to the demands for higher levels of academic achievement and lower levels of problem behavior, many schools have adopted compartmentalized approaches to solve their problems. Principals and teachers try to “fix” the academic achievement problems; social workers and counselors try to “fix” the behavioral problems. Rarely are the approaches for academic success and good citizenry integrated. Moreover, these efforts are often aimed at changing only the behaviors of high-risk individuals. Seldom are there attempts to influence the entire school climate or environment to address the multifaceted needs of students in a holistic manner. As a result, the benefits of such efforts are often limited and of short duration or they affect single issues and have little impact on others.
In our book, A Connected School, we describe how to create a school climate that fosters achievement, caring, and safety for students, school staff, and the broader community. Also, in our “A Connected School” workshops participants learn how to apply control theory throughout the school community to facilitate students’ internal motivations. Applied control theory rejects the traditional notion that people learn simply by receiving rewards for good behavior and punishments for bad behavior. Instead, we teach ‘the science’ that explains human motivation and behavior, i.e. how we all have basic needs for growth, and that the fundamental motive for all individual behavior is to perceive that our developmental needs are being met. We are motivated to resist efforts that we perceive restrict our freedom, and embrace those that we perceive increase our self-efficacy. The role of the ACS educator, therefore, is to help students understand how their needs can be met in a manner that is within their means and non-disruptive to others, and to facilitate opportunities to meet these needs in a non-coercive manner.
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Jeff Grumley
