A 'No-Nonsense' Classroom Where Teachers Don't Say 'Please'
Any classroom can get out of control from time to time. But one unique teaching method empowers teachers to stop behavior problems before they begin.
You can see No-Nonsense Nurturing, as it's called, first-hand at Druid Hills Academy Charlotte, NC.
"Your pencil is in your hand. Your voice is on zero. If you got the problem correct, you're following along and checking off the answer. If you got the problem incorrect, you are erasing it and correcting it on your paper."
Math teacher Jonnecia Alford has it down pat. She then describes to her sixth graders what their peers are doing.
"Vonetia's looking at me. Denario put her pencil down, good indicator. Monica put hers down and she's looking at me."
In No-Nonsense Nurturing, directions are often scripted in advance and praise is kept to a minimum. The method is, in part, the brainchild of former school principal Kristyn Klei Borrero. She's now CEO of the Center for Transformative Teacher Training, an education consulting company based in San Francisco.
Klei Borrero says the foundation of the program isn't new. It just puts into practice what she's observed from high-performing teachers. That is, keeping expectations high by only praising outstanding effort.
"It notices students who are doing the right thing. It creates this positive momentum, but also gives the students who might have missed the directions another way of hearing it without being nagging, and also seeing it in action," says Klei Borrero.
The center has worked with more than 250 schools across the country since 2009. Many of those are charter schools, but some are traditional public schools in places like Denver and Cleveland. All of them have similar populations: students from low-income families, many of them black and Hispanic. Nine of those schools are in Charlotte.
No-Nonsense Nurturing makes some education specialists uncomfortable, though. "Maybe we are doing them a favor by teaching them codes of power, but maybe we're also participating in some kind of, I don't know, colonization," says Barb Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University. "We're simply teaching kids to look like me."
She worries there's too much emphasis on compliance, not engagement.
School leaders in Charlotte say No-Nonsense Nurturing gives their students structure A 'No-Nonsense' Classroom Where Teachers Don't Say 'Please' : NPR Ed : NPR: