Discipline with Dignity: How to Build Responsibility, Relationships, and Respect in Your Classroom

In this revised and updated 4th edition, Discipline with Dignity provides in-depth guidance for implementing a proven approach to classroom management that can help students make better choices and teachers be more effective. Emphasizing the importance of mutual respect and self-control, the authors offer specific strategies and techniques for building strong relationships with disruptive students and countering the toxic social circumstances that affect many of them, including dysfunctional families, gangs, and poverty. Educators at all levels can learn

• The difference between formal and informal discipline systems and when to use each.
• The role of values, rules, and consequences.
• How to address the underlying causes of discipline problems that occur both in and out of school.
• What teachers can do to defuse or prevent classroom disruptions and disrespectful behavior without removing students from the classroom.
• Why traditional approaches such as threats, punishments, and rewards are ineffective—and what to do instead.
• How to use relevance, teacher enthusiasm, choice, and other elements of curriculum and instruction to motivate students.
• How to reduce both teacher and student stress that can trigger power struggles.

With dozens of specific examples of student-teacher interactions, Discipline with Dignity illustrates what you can do—and not do—to make the classroom a place where students learn and teachers maintain control in a nonconfrontational way. The goal is success for all, in schools that thrive.

Dr. Richard L. Curwin is an author, speaker, and experienced practitioner who explores issues of student discipline, behavioral management, and motivation. During his 45 years in the classroom, he served as a 7th grade educator, teacher of emotionally disturbed children, college professor, and director of the graduate program for disabled youth at David Yellin College in Jerusalem. With his colleague Dr. Allen N. Mendler, Dr. Curwin founded Discipline Associates, created the Discipline with Dignity program, and coauthored Discipline with Dignity for Challenging Youth and As Tough as Necessary: Countering Violence, Aggression, and Hostility in Our Schools.

Dr. Allen N. Mendler is an educator and school psychologist with extensive experience working with children of all ages in regular education and special education settings. As a motivational speaker and trainer on topics pertaining to challenging students, he has given workshops and seminars around the world. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and publications, including The Resilient Teacher, When Teaching Gets Tough, Connecting with Students, Motivating Students Who Don't Care, and the What Do I Do When series. He blogs frequently for Edutopia and other online organizations and has presented numerous webinars on such topics as power struggles, bullying, motivating and managing difficult students, and teaching self-control.

Brian D. Mendler has extensive experience working with challenging students in general education, self-contained, and inclusion settings. He provides staff development training for K–12 educators throughout the world, drawing upon his own experiences as a student who struggled with a learning disability and severe ADHD, and focusing on how to be successful with even the most difficult students. Mr. Mendler is the author of That One Kid, providing educators with strategies for preventing and responding to difficult, disruptive, defiant, and unmotivated behavior; and The Taming of the Crew.