Lee Canter’s Behavioral Management Cycle

1515 Words4 Pages

Behavioral Management can be accomplished in several ways. Which of the many different theories and methods is right for you, will depend on your own philosophy regarding student behavior in your classroom. Different teachers will chose different methods, but all will agree with the importance of some type of a behavioral management plan. The best way for a teacher to develop their own management plan is to look at several of them and either chooses the one that is best for them, or use bits and pieces from several and merge them into one cohesive plan. In this paper I will introduce Lee Canter’s Behavior Management Cycle method of behavioral management, show you how it is applied, and relate my own personal thoughts as to the good and bad points of it.

Lee Canter in describing the importance of a behavioral management system states, “Developing a behavioral curriculum you introduce at the beginning of the school year may be the single most important thing you can do to ensure student success throughout the year.” (Cantor, 2006, p. 37) He goes on to say, “If the students do not learn how to behave in a responsible, nondisruptive manner throughout the day or period, you will be unable to teach them any academic subject.” (Cantor, 2006, p. 37) Every person in the education field will agree with these statements.

The Behavior Management Cycle is a systematic approach that will help you motivate your students to quickly follow your directions, thus maximizing instruction time. (Cantor, 2006, p. 50) The easiest way to follow Canter’s behavior management cycle would be to follow it though a hypothetical situation.

The hypothetical situation will be a student named Nolan, who is pulled out of the general classroom once every o...

... middle of paper ...

...classroom teacher. These ideas are especially helpful to those teachers in the early elementary grades. I have discussed a few of the things that I personally do not like about this method, and some of the things that I do like. As stated in the introduction, the best way for a teacher to develop a discipline or behavioral plan is to look at several of them and either chose one in its entirety or take parts of several of them. Lee Canter offers some unique ideas to the handling of behavior, and it is always beneficial for a teacher to get different viewpoints.

Works Cited

Cantor, L. (2006). Classroom Management for Acedemic Success. Bloomington: Solution Tree.

Stage, S. A., & Quiroz, D. R. (1997). A meta-analysis of interventions to decrease disruptive

classroom behavior in public education settings. School Psychology Review, 26(3),

333–368.

Open Document