upnorthkyosa said:
I hear what you are saying. However, I'm just trying to point out that hitting my students in any way, shape, or form is not going to work. Its nothing new. They don't fear it. In fact, most likely, since these kids are seasoned fighters, one is going to be rolling in the dirt with them.
Teaching difficult children is all about building relationships. The teacher has to get to know the kid and his parents. The teacher has to be patient and model correct behavior. The teacher MUST have a thick skin. Words like **** **** or **** might get some teacher's panties in a bunch, but it just another behavior for me. Correcting these behaviors takes a long time. If I can reduce the amount of swearwords that come out of a kids mouth in a mouth, I'm succeeding.
Let me give you an analogy that comes for animal training. I've trained police K9's for several years. When we select K9's, we select the extreme dogs. Dogs that would make excellent pets, i.e. they are malliable, friendly, and well-behaved, aren't the dogs we pick. We like the sometimes stubborn, aggressive, slightly belligerent dog. They are difficult to handle, however, without a firm handler.
To simply "model" good behavior with this dog would simply resulted in the handler being unable to live with it (the dog would simply believe it is stronger than the handler, and would do what it wanted to do).
Now, there is, in dog training, there is a division of thought similar to the division in human discipline. Many dog trainers (pet level dog trainers) believe that only positive training methods should be used to train a dog (i.e. pet treats, clicker training, halties, etc). They believe physical corrections are abusive, and "ruin" the relationship with the dog, and should never be used.
Now, that's fine for the little Yorkie you bought and you want to teach him to sit, roll over and pee outside. The problem is, it doesn't account for the truly hard dogs. If you try that clicker training crap with truly rank working K9's, they'll probably bite you and eat the clicker. Why? Because dog behavior, in some ways like human behavior, is about respect.
The way you earn respect from a truly rank K9, is to give 100% correction when the dog is wrong, consistent everytime without fail, and give praise and reward when the dog does the right thing. The dog can never be allowed to fail, and must never thing it can avoid correction for bad behavior and will be rewarded in a timely manner for good behavior.
Further, with a K9, the correction must be contemporaneous with the bad behavior, it must happen as soon after as possible, and it must be suitably severe so as to overcome the K9's desire to perform that behavior. Conversely, reward must occurr as closely after good behavior as possibly.
The problem? It takes a strong handler and skilled handler to suitably apply correction and praise in appropriate amounts at appropriate times.
Now, some might say "Kids aren't dogs". That's true, human behavior is more complex than dog behavior, but the principles are the same. Correction works, when applied intelligently.
Now, lets look at what psychology tells us about human behavior, and what must be present to make correction effective.
Correction must be Contemporaneous with the event
Correction must be reasonably certain
Correction must be severe enough to make further behavior undesirable
Now, I don't look at difficult, strongwilled or aggressive children as necessarily bad. They simply must be directed with a more firm hand. They can be molded to extremly well functioning adults when molded by a firm hand that can apply praise and punishment in judicious quantities. Many is the drill instructor who has turned spoiled, abnoxious teenage boys in to grown men in mere weeks. They do it by placing them in situations where they are forced to mature and develop responsibility.
And yes, they do it partially by providing an example of what is considered good, and modelling that behavior. They do NOT do it by appearing weak. Simply tolerating their behavior, backing down from them, does not cause children to admire you, they ultimately resent what they see as weakness. Young boys admire, fear and respect power. They spend most of their teenage years trying to acquire it.
The goal is to get them to see the responsibility present with that power, and to emulate that as well. That's what a drill instructor does, he models power, authority and competence. Good drill instructors never show weakness, they show the kind of human being many young men aspire to become, and they who that the path to that power is paved with responsibility.
) The physical interventions are controlled, they are non-injurious, and I believe they are humane. The point of the physical intervention is to sap the students will to fight and to show the student that we are in absolute control of the situation.
