Lee Cantor's Assertive Discipline Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Lee Cantor's Assertive Discipline - Essay Example behavioral modification plans and offers a systematic approach to the reinforcement of appropriate student behavior, encouraging teachers to â€Å"catch the student being good† and implement a detailed systematic plan for the use of mild punishers for wrong behaviors (Canter 1989). The system was designed in response to the widespread need for greater classroom management skills. By 1991 about 750,000 teachers had been trained to use Assertive Discipline. However, the popularity of the discipline was mostly built on good marketing rather than on profound research. This fact has been repeatedly underlined by the scholars, who argued that Assertive Discipline and its impact on students should be examined on a wider territory and a variety of settings in a longitudinal study. Though the discipline has received many appraise, it has also met much critical argumentation about the appropriateness of the operant procedures in the modern humanistic education system. However, as Evans et al. suggested, strong criticism was mostly the result of a long-lasting argument between humanism and behaviorism and this argumentation can go forever (p.13). This paper examines researches having been done on Assertive Discipline. We will see where the program has been implemented and whether it has been effective in a variety of settings. Assertive discipline got much praise. Lee Canter (1989) enumerates the dissertations, master’s theses and research projects dealing with Assertive Discipline. The results revealed that teachers dramatically improved student behavior when they used Assertive Discipline approach. Assertive Discipline helps to reduce the frequency of disruptive behavior in the classroom, greatly reduce the number of students referred to administrators, increase students’ time-on task. The teachers implementing Assertive Discipline were evaluated as more effective in classroom management. Research carried out in school districts in Oregon, California, Ohio and Arizona