Do not favor one leg over the other. Do not cross your legs. Body language must be in no way casual.
These are just a few of the dicta of No Nonsense Nurturing, a behavior modification package from the Center for Transformative Teacher Training. Endorsed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, No Nonsense Nurturing has been adopted by Teach for America, Success Academy Charter Schools, Kipp Charter Schools, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Denver Public Schools, District of Columbia Public Schools, and SFUSD, among others.
According to the training web site, participants will be able to:
• Build the strong relationships with students needed to motivate them to excel academically
• Utilize proven strategies that they can start using the very next day to begin transforming
their classroom culture
• Overcome cultural roadblocks that may hinder their effectiveness with their students
• Gain the vital support they need from family members
These sound like laudable goals. However, as with all educational packages, whether dealing with academic achievement or classroom management, the devil is in the implementation. For one teacher it did not go so well. Amy Berard, a Lawrence, MA middle school teacher, writes about her experience being trained in NNN on the EduShyster blog.
During the training the teacher wears a wireless earpiece while the trainers sit in a corner of the room and give her instructions and feedback via walkie talkies. These instructions include injunctions against speaking in complete sentences, conveying too much appreciation for student accomplishments, or appearing too happy.
I struggled to adopt the emotionless monotone that NNN required. I was told that my tone was wrong, my voice was too high, and that I came across as too happy—I smile a lot; I celebrate a lot, including every two weeks when the flowers on my cactus bloom, again. When I asked the NNN trainer to elaborate on what she meant by my tone being off, a critique she delivered just hours after meeting me for the first time, her response included a full blown, and exaggerated, impersonation of me delivered in front of my behavior intervention coach and assistant principal. When her performance was done, the NNN trainer winked at me. "But don’t lose your joy," she said.
Not surprisingly, this instructional technique did not make such a good impression on her students.
"Give him a warning," said the voice through the earpiece I was wearing. I did as instructed, speaking in the emotionless monotone I’d been coached to use. But the student, a sixth grader with some impulsivity issues and whose trust I’d spent months working to gain, was excited and spoke out of turn again. "Tell him he has a detention," my earpiece commanded. At which point the boy stood up and pointed to the back of the room, where the three classroom "coaches" huddled around a walkie talkie. Miss: don’t listen to them! You be you. Talk to me! I’m a person! Be a person, Miss. Be you!
[emphasis added]
I don't know what to say about this. While some of the individual techniques may have some value in classroom management (A wide stance is good. Narration can be effective) and while it is true that if order can't be maintained, learning can't take place, the overall creep factor is so high, the potential for grotesque implementation so great, I think this will not end well.