Safe and Caring Schools Project

Walking the talk: The influence of modeling

Irene MacDonald

As families and communities struggle to define a set of common societal values, adult behaviors continue to play a dominant role in shaping the social well-being of children.

Studies have increasingly shown that children learn and often adopt social skills on the basis of what they observe in the interactions or modeling of others. In Educational Psychology for Canadian Teachers (1994), authors Bowd, McDougall and Yewchuk define modeling as "the acquisition of relatively permanent behaviors as the result of observing other people."

Schools, in particular, offer children many opportunities to witness the behaviors of others. For this reason, teachers play a pivotal role in the socialization of their students. In his best-seller, Emotional Intelligence (1995), Daniel Golemen suggests that how a teacher teaches a lesson may be more important than the subject matter. "Whenever a teacher responds to one student, twenty or thirty others learn a lesson," he says. Researchers (O'Connor 1969, 1972) have found that by ex-posing students to films whose actors portrayed behaviors such as kindness, selfishness, honesty or cheating, modeling was demonstrated to be a useful tool for social learning. If movies can have such an influence on children's behaviors, one can easily recognize how influential a teacher can be in modeling positive social skills to students.

Good and Brophy, known for their work in effective classroom management, have indicated that successful student socialization depends not only on teaching positive social skills but also on reinforcing these skills through the teacher's ability to model them. Socialization, or social competence, as defined by Katz and McClellan (1991), is "the ability to initiate and maintain satisfying, reciprocal relationships." These skills are acquired through social interactions that provide opportunities for communicating, problem solving, cooperating and resolving differences or conflict.

Studies conducted by the Scottish Council for Research in Education ("Supporting schools against bullying: A second SCRE anti-bullying pack," 1993) concluded that positive preventative strategies, as well as encouraging students to resolve differences constructively, are only part of an effective strategy. As important is a concerted effort on the part of staff to examine the influence that the behavior of adults has on the behavior of children. In this regard, Curwin and Mendler (1988), the architects of the Discipline with Dignity model, have promoted a focus on teaching and modeling self-discipline so as to empower students to make responsible choices, rather than focusing on obedience and externally imposed rules. They challenge teachers to question whether their own strategies for managing anger, conflict or disappointment reflect their behavioral expectations of students.

Based on students' comments from a 1996 study involving junior high schools in Alberta, staff should be committed to an ethic of caring and model behaviors expected of their students. In the view of these students, conflict and anger cannot always be attributed to peer relations amongst students. Sometimes, staff behavior can play as great a role in influencing behaviors. A Grade 8 student reports: "I feel really badly about this one boy who is always picked on by the teacher; always put down. It's not always the kids who are bullies. . . . it just makes him act worse."

Students need teachers who are prepared to take the time to understand the struggles that they are facing, in a world that often tolerates less from its children than it is prepared to demand from its adults. Discipline, when necessary, should be regarded as an opportunity to teach students interpersonal skills, rather than a way of punishing social illiteracy. Discipline is in itself a response and, as such, should not model intolerance, intimidation or a lack of reconciliation. As Curwin and Mendler suggested, one of the most effective messages that teachers can convey is that of caring; a message that says: "I want you here. I am not giving up on you even if I get frustrated with your irresponsible, disruptive, or unmotivated behavior." School staff can present that frustration as impatience, intolerance and rejection or as compassion, understanding and a genuine interest in the best interests of children.

Goleman concludes his book, Emotional Intelligence, by stating that social skills, based on moral and civic values, must not be left to chance. Children need to practice these skills and, more importantly, they need to validate the importance of such skills by witnessing daily behavioral examples from the adults in their lives; examples that model empathy, caring, forgiveness and reconciliation, respect, trust, dignity and service to others.

The ATA's Toward a Safe and Caring Community Program has been designed with these principles in mind. As part of its overall Safe and Caring Schools (SAC) Project, the adult component delivers the same positive social skill development to the larger community as the children are receiving in the classroom. As SAC Project Coordinator Vicki Mather says, "Integral to our entire project is the need for all adults in the community to be responsible for the community's children and to consistently model safe and caring strategies and skills in their relationships with children." Behavioral change is an arduous and often long process, but at least the ATA is determined to not leave the social development of students to chance.

MacDonald is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Calgary. She has focused her master's and doctoral research on the area of school violence. MacDonald is a contributing author to Systemic Violence: How Schools Hurt Children. She is involved with the Alberta Ministry of Education's and the ATA's Safe and Caring Schools Project.