Topic > Rightmyer's Democratic Classroom Guidance Strategy

In Democratic Discipline in Your Classroom, Rightmyer explains through his personal example how children can be brought to play and learn together peacefully in a classroom. In his example, the classroom becomes a democracy and children take an active role in solving their own problems within the classroom. The central idea of ​​Rightmyer's problem-solving system for children revolves around the class meeting, or a daily group meeting of all the children in the classroom. Rightmyer provides a list of materials needed for this democratic system of guidance, including an agenda and a solution book, and suggests that each be kept in certain places within reach of children. Each instrument should be attractive to children. For example, the solution book should be made of brightly colored paper. Before the orientation strategy is implemented, the purpose of each of these tools should be clearly explained to the children. It is important to the process that each child understands what the tools are for. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Rightmyer goes on to tell us the step-by-step, day-by-day process of his Democratic leadership strategy. We start by explaining the process to the children during their first class meeting. Children should be given an example of a problem to put on the agenda, they should be allowed to brainstorm solutions to the problem together and the final agreed solution should be recorded in the solution book. The following day during the class meeting we will have to address the new points that have been written on the agenda and evaluate together the effectiveness of yesterday's solution. By the third day, children should begin to describe the problems they have written down on the agenda and develop solutions to their problem, working with the class to form and agree on these solutions. This process should continue every day until it becomes a routine. Rightmyer tells us that although the amount of problems on the agenda may be long at first, they will eventually fade away as children begin to solve problems on their own without the help of group time. The practice should be used consistently on a daily basis for maximum effectiveness. Personally, I would use Rightmyer's strategy in my classroom. Although I have no intention of working with children old enough to use such a system during my career (this is a huge disappointment: as much as I love this idea, I will probably never get around to using it because it can only be used with older children who have the ability to write), if I am ever given the opportunity, I will use this orientation practice. Children can benefit from its self-direction factor and it is an easy way to get a group of children to work together without conflict. The whole process of identifying the problem (using the agenda), working together providing input to each other to solve the problem and reaching a solution to the problem is a very important process for children to go through and which can help them solve problems in a the future. It would be worth finding a way to adapt this democratic problem-solving method to work with younger children. Perhaps instead of providing pen and paper, some sort of chart could be used to record the issues on the agenda, and the solution book could use pictures rather than words. As long as the class works together to solve.