The survey you are about to read was administered to a group of adolescent leaders attending a music\/arts leadership seminar this past summer sponsored by The University School at Indiana State University. Although the adolescents in attendance featured few, if any, \u201cproblem\u201d students, they did project a cross-section of adolescent opinion representative of the junior highs and high schools that the student leaders attended during the academic school year.<\/p>\n
The baseline exercise examined by the student leaders was the identification of ineffective approaches in leadership to problem-solving. Reflecting their individual situations, the result was the identification of approaches or methods that they personally resented, hated, or caused rebellion. The approaches to discipline rated most ineffective by this group are listed below. (Music Educators: Do you use any of these?)<\/p>\n
Leadership students felt that the application of the word attitude was entirely overused. Not only was it overused, but it had become a blanket tag for condemnation. Leadership students believe that everyone uses the word attitude. Parents, teachers, counselors, boyfriends, girlfriends, television shows, you-name-it are all mouthpieces for some application of the word attitude! Attitude, with or without a sentence, signaled a general stamp of disapproval without guidelines for possible redemption. Statements such as, \u201cI don\u2019t like your attitude,\u201d or, \u201cYou have a poor attitude,\u201d(according to students responding) did nothing to specify the exact problem or to create avenues for positive behavior growth. What is attitude, anyway? Is it something we have too little or too much of? Is it poor or rich? Is it in an expression or a nod? Is attitude a tone of voice? Is it a combination of responses, such as a question and a tone of voice or an answer and a certain look? Perhaps it is a yawn or a grimace. Maybe attitude is like happiness \u2013 different things to different people. It could be a type of identification by the teacher saying, \u201cI don\u2019t really know why I don\u2019t like what you are doing, but I don\u2019t!\u201d The utilization of the word attitude was ranked as the most ineffective approach to discipline a teacher could apply.<\/p>\n
Leadership students felt that it was hard enough to be a teenager in today\u2019s society without constantly hearing how perfect their teachers and parents had been. The teacher who states, \u201cI would never have thought of doing a thing like that when I was your age,\u201d ultimately has much less control over the situation than the one who says, \u201cI can understand why you would want to do that, however. . .\u201d The student leaders felt that teachers who exhibited hints of actually being human were both more trustworthy and more believable than those who professed to be perfect, always above reproach, or (in their words) holier-than-thou.<\/p>\n
No matter how good the plan is or the advice may be, the approach, \u201cYou will do this, and you won\u2019t do that,\u201d stifles productive responses from adolescents. In fact, students admitted that when approached like this, they seldom heard past the \u201cyou will\u201d and \u201cyou won\u2019t\u201d part! Students who regarded themselves as relatively conscientious reported that instead of listening to the content of the \u201cLittle Hitler\u201d approach, they actually wasted valuable time searching for loopholes in the exact direction and\/or indication of the \u201cyou will\u201d and the \u201cyou won\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n
It cannot be denied that adolescents are certainly more sophisticated today. They know more about the world, daily life, sex, opportunities or the lack of them for the future. The students attending the Musical Leadership Seminar wanted good leaders, but leaders who would work with them. They liked the leaders who talked about \u201cour\u201d band and \u201cour\u201d team, not \u201cmy\u201d band or \u201cmy\u201d choir. Students were motivated by instructions that began with, \u201cWe really need to take care of,\u201d or, \u201cLet\u2019s master this technique today.\u201d The adolescents in the discussion group believed that they could instantly tell the difference between the teacher who taught to benefit the student and the teacher who taught to benefit the teacher. They could also identify the teacher who considered the student as an equal human associate and important teacher\/learner partner from the teacher who viewed the student as a lesser subject and younger unimportant subordinate.<\/p>\n
Oddly enough, several students reported teachers who whine. When explored further, students indicated that the whiner appeared in two basic forms. The first whiner simply whined and the second whiner utilized the guilt trip. Students believed that it was not beneficial to hear how ungrateful they were and how they didn’t appreciate either their parents or their teachers. The reminder of how hard the parents or teachers worked or how much they cared was not an impressive factor. Students were also unsympathetic to the exasperated sigh their teachers often expressed when asked a seemingly dense or redundant question. Certainly, teachers have elected this occupation and the frustration of the teacher was not a responsibility of the student and they resented the suggestion.<\/p>\n
The student leaders reflected that they were often insensitive with phrases such as, \u201cI\u2019m bored,\u201d \u201cWhy do we have to do this?\u201d or, \u201cThis is the longest class I\u2019ve ever sat through.\u201d Even though the students admitted that they might be a bit difficult at times (to say the\u00a0 least), they still could readily tell the difference between the teacher who was patient and took the time to explain or comment on their concerns and the teacher who defensively answered to support or avenge his\/her own ego. A defensive response from the teacher did little to reestablish a positive learning environment.<\/p>\n
In summary, after completing the survey and tabulating the most ineffective approaches to discipline as rated by the group of adolescents attending the seminar, I personally asked my own children if I was guilty of any of the dreaded responses. Although not a frequent violator (my opinion, not theirs), these college-age children indicated that as a parent I had been guilty of at least three of the above approaches and perhaps each of the three even more than once! I\u2019m almost afraid to administer this to my students. How about you?<\/p>\n
Vol 8, #3, p.16 (Jan-Feb 1993)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The survey you are about to read was administered to a group of adolescent leaders attending a music\/arts leadership seminar this past summer sponsored by The University School at Indiana State University. Although the adolescents in attendance featured few, if any, \u201cproblem\u201d students, they did project a cross-section of adolescent opinion representative of the junior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[206,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bandworld-archives","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4650,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/4650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandworld.org\/magazine\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}