Teacher Education: Punishment in the Classroom

Jay Rotberg discusses the critical incident technique which was employed to define the task of teachers of educable mentally retarded children. One aspect of the study indicated that punishment was the primary method used for managing both individual and group behavior and that more acceptable techniques were implemented infrequently. Punishment was used for nearly half of the incidents reported although it was ineffective over 75 percent of the time. These findings imply that educators must evaluate the educable mentally retarded teacher training programs in order to determine their weaknesses and to find methods of remedying these deficiencies.

Wietse de Hoop describes a model for the preparation of special education personnel. The model allows for preparation at different levels of performance by utilizing a systems approach. The utilization of instructional categories which subsume administrative categories enables the preparation within traditional college organizations.