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The Interconnection Between Formal
Inclusion and Internal Exclusion:
How the `Training Room´ Program in German Schools
Seeks to Improve Classroom Discipline, but in Doing so
Inhibits the Development of a Participative and
Empowering Learning Culture
Joachim Broecher
Studies in Social, Emotional and
Behavioral Education, Vol. 3
Studies in Social, Emotional and
Behavioral Education
Vol. 3
The Interconnection
Between Formal
Inclusion and Internal
Exclusion:
How the `Training Room´ Program in
German Schools Seeks to Improve
Classroom Discipline, but in Doing so
Inhibits the Development of a
Participative and Empowering
Learning Culture
Joachim Broecher
Manufactured and published by
BoD - Books on Demand
Norderstedt, Germany 2014
ISBN: 978-3-7357-7954-0
Photographs:
Joachim Broecher
Content
Preface … 9
1. Introduction … 11
2. Aim and method … 17
3. Theoretical framework … 20
4. Results … 23
4.1. Impact on students with emotional
and social needs … 23
4.2. Impact across the teaching and learning
processes in a class … 31
4.3. Impact on the teachers … 35
4.4. Impact across the broad culture of a school … 38
5. Conclusions … 48
6. Recommendations and future perspectives … 52
7. References … 55
Notes on the author … 67
7
8
Preface
Since 2003, the `Training Room´ Program (TRP), a
time-out model that is based on the American `Re-
sponsible Thinking Process´ (RTP), has become es-
tablished in German schools in response to students’
increasingly challenging learning and social behavior.
School administrators and academics alike recom-
mend the implementation of the TRP as part of their
efforts to conform to the UN convention in order to en-
sure the success of inclusive schooling for students
with emotional and social needs. But in doing so, for-
mal inclusion and temporary exclusion within the
school become interconnected.
The results yielded by this program evaluation show
that there is to date no convincing empirical evidence
as to the effectiveness of the TRP. On the contrary,
9
the data indicate that the TRP actually has a negative
impact on teaching and learning processes and on the
culture of the school as a whole. While the TRP aims
to enhance levels of classroom discipline and relieve
pressure on the teacher, the program simultaneously
impedes the development of a participative and em-
powering learning culture, even though it is precisely
this factor which is indispensable for the successful
inclusion of learners with emotional and social needs.
The TRP’s educational ideals and its conception of
human beings are also a serious cause for concern.
The conclusion outlines alternative concepts which are
more suitable for the provision of inclusive schooling
for students with emotional and social needs.
10
1. Introduction
In Germany, the Trainingsraum-Programm, or `Train-
ing Room Program´ (TRP), first emerged shortly after
the turn of the century. It was Balke (2003), Bruendel
and Simon (2003, 2007, 2013) and Claßen and
Nießen (2006) whose publications and internet pages
(Balke 2014; Bruendel and Simon 2014) first intro-
duced the program into the practice of school teach-
ing, together with the teacher training programs for
which it provided a base.
The theoretical roots of the TRP are embedded in
the `Responsible Thinking Process´ (RTP) developed
in the USA by Ford (2004), a program which in turn
was based on control theory (Powers 1998; Marken
2002).
11
It is difficult to accurately estimate the number of
German schools which are working with the program.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, 142 secondary schools
were working with the TRP when Balz (2004) conduct-
ed his survey.
If we extrapolate this number to the total number of
schools in this Bundesland (N=2.740) (see School
Ministry North Rhine-Westphalia 2013, p. 14), then the
result is 5.2%. Recent statistics are not available from
the other 15 Bundesländer.
Interviews with local education authorities together
with research undertaken on the internet would appear
to support the estimate that approximately 5-10% of all
German schools, according to region, are working with
the TRP.
Other schools work with the TRP, but do not make
this information externally available. The TRP is also
used to some degree in modified forms and under dif-
ferent names (e.g. Insel-Raum or `Island Room´).
12
The stated aim of the TRP is to instill discipline in
the classroom, thereby enabling lessons to take place
without interruption. The TRP is based on the following
principles:
`Every teacher has the right to teach without inter-
ruption whilst at the same time bearing the responsibil-
ity for providing high-quality classes. Every student is
entitled to high-quality classes whilst at the same time
ensuring that classes can proceed without interruption.
Teachers and students must show respect for their
mutual rights and shoulder their respective responsibil-
ities´ (Bruendel and Simon 2003, p. 38).
If a student fails to abide by these rules, the teacher
can ask the student to leave the classroom and go to
the training room. The teacher decides when the stu-
dent should leave. Before this happens, the teacher
will ask the student if he is prepared to cease his dis-
ruptive behavior. Depending on his answer, the stu-
dent will be allowed to remain in the classroom or will
decide to go to the training room.
13
In the training room, a teacher or social worker will
be waiting for the student and will call upon him/her to
reflect self-critically upon his/her disruptive behavior.
During this process he must acknowledge the follow-
ing:
What did I do? I annoyed my teacher. I ran around
the classroom. I was being noisy. I was quarrelling
with the person sitting next to me. I called out in class
without putting my hand up first. I was rocking back
and forth on my chair.
Students who are not in possession of the neces-
sary reading and writing skills at this stage are permit-
ted to put a cross next to a series of pictograms.
The next step requires the student to make sugges-
tions for improving his learning and social behavior
and to record these considerations in a plan laying out
how he/she will return to class. Only by doing this will
he/she be given permission to return to his/her class.
When he/she does, he/she must present his/her com-
14
pleted plan to the teacher who has excluded him/her
from the class. After considering what the student has
written in his plan, the teacher will then decide whether
the student is allowed to rejoin the lesson.
If the student goes on to disrupt the class again,
then the entire process is repeated. If the student is
sent to the training room three times in all, then his
parents or guardians are summoned to the school for
a training room meeting. This discussion will only take
place during the training room’s opening times.
If a student refuses to enter the training room, he
will be suspended from the school with immediate ef-
fect. He will only be allowed to return to the school
once a training room meeting has taken place. If a
student refuses to leave the school after he has been
informed of his suspension, Balke recommends the
police be called: they will then remove the student
from the premises (Balke 2003, pp. 41-42).
15
Numerous ministries and education authorities (i.e.
Educational Server Hesse 2013; German National Ed-
ucational Server 2013; School Ministry North Rhine-
Westphalia 2013) together with academics in their
roles as political advisers (e.g., Klemm and Preuß-
Lausitz, 2011, p. 105; Preuß-Lausitz 2011, p. 108)
recommend the implementation of the TRP or compa-
rable programs in inclusive schools in order to effec-
tively implement the UN convention particularly in re-
spect to students with emotional and social needs.
16
2. Aim and Method
The purpose of this summative or outcome evaluation
is to look at the results of the TRP, at the degree to
which it accomplishes its specific goals, at the educa-
tional value and impact of the TRP, and what might
point to changes that should be made in order to im-
prove the program in subsequent implementations or
when planning new programs and interventions. The
objectives of this evaluation lie in the answers to the
following questions:
• What is the impact on students with emotional and
social needs?
• What is the overarching impact across the teaching
and learning processes in a class?
• What is the impact on the teachers?
• What is the overarching impact across the broad
culture of the school?
17
For methodological considerations, the author
draws on the literature which evaluates education pro-
grams (see Patton 2002; Wall 2014; Yarbrough et al.
2011). From these sources, the author has selected a
`status design´ to determine the current state of affairs
regarding the TRP in German schools.
The procedure used to collect data to answer the
evaluation questions listed above included the follow-
ing: A review and examination of all available material
including the program descriptions and instructions
which are currently in use, critical discussion papers
by other authors (Goeppel 2002; Jornitz 2004;
Pongratz 2010), radio broadcasts (e.g. WDR 2010)
and television reports (e.g. SWR 2011) which have
examined the program critically, and quantitative stud-
ies looking into the effectiveness of the TRP (Balz
2004; Wollenweber 2013).
Additionally, the author drew on qualitative data
which he collected over several years at two schools
which use TRP by systematically observing the `train-
18
ing rooms´ as well as the classes being taught at these
schools, together with the participative observation of
staff meetings.
Furthermore, the author evaluated focus groups
(Patton 2002, pp. 385-390) with teachers in the con-
text of in-service training courses which the author ran
at various schools and across the various school
types. Primary importance here was given to the `de-
cision-making model´.
Additionally, the author made use of the transac-
tional model (e.g., Patton 2002, pp. 171-172), by in-
volving people who had been directly affected by the
TRP and by exploring their different perspectives.
19
3. Theoretical framework
The TRP evalution undertaken here has its theoretical
basis in the disciplines of critical-constructivist educa-
tion and teaching methodology, especially where Klafki
(2007), in the German context, sourced and developed
the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment, the edu-
cational concepts of Classicism and the socio-critical
currents of educational philosophy in the 20th century.
Here, the educational ideal is aligned with the principle
of responsible freedom in the Kantian sense.
Against this background, education signifies the
ability of the students to act autonomously, to partici-
pate actively and to promote solidarity with others. In
cases where children and adolescents come from un-
stable social environments, as is often the case with
students with emotional and social needs, efforts to
20
educate them must have an emancipatory character in
order to increase their chances of social integration.
A comparable approach has been developed in the
United States under the heading `Teaching for Social
Justice´ (e.g., Michie 2004, 2009). It involves the crea-
tion of an enabling, empowering pedagogy which can
address students’ life situations, their cultural contexts,
their social and economic upheavals, their life experi-
ences and problems.
All this takes place on the basis of good educational
relations and on the basis of a project-orientated and
participative teaching methodology in the course of
which students are actively involved in cooperative
learning whilst participating in the design and devel-
opment of the whole teaching and learning process.
Klafki’s work also includes these kinds of practical,
educational approaches, as does the literature on in-
clusive education (e.g., Ainscow et al., 2006; Mastrop-
ieri and Scruggs, 2009).
21
A further theoretical point of reference in evaluating
the TRP is provided by evidence-based knowledge in
the field of education and teaching methodology for
students with emotional, social and behavioral needs
(e.g., Cole, Daniels and Visser, 2013; Garner, Kauff-
mann and Elliot, 2014; Sailor, Dunlap, Sugai and
Horner, 2009; Visser, Daniels and Cole, 2012; Walker
and Gresham 2014).
Any intervention which seeks to control a student’s
behavior must always be carefully considered to en-
sure that it is actually in keeping with the educational
ideal described above.
Foucault’s (1995) critical discourse addressing the
operational structures which are built into social institu-
tions therefore represents an absolutely essential the-
oretical point of reference in this discussion paper (cf.
also Pongratz 2010).
22
4. Results
4.1. Impact on students with
emotional and social needs
Bruendel and Simon do not specify what they under-
stand by a good lesson. Balke (2003), in contrast, de-
fines a good lesson in reference to Csikszentmihalyi
(2008) as being one that `flows´, in which the students
are completely and enthusiastically involved, and
where they are immersed in the subject matter.
Now, to safeguard the learning flow for the majority
of the class, the one student who is obviously unable
to find a point of access to this learning flow and so
does something else, something unexpected and
therefore disruptive, must leave the classroom. Having
been separated from his/her class and sent to the
training room, the student must think of reasons why
23
he/she has been unable to find a way into the learning
flow in which his/her classmates now find themselves.
But was it actually even possible for this supposedly
disruptive student to find a point of access to the gen-
eral learning flow of this class? Were the exercises
and the material provided explained in a way that was
appropriate for this student? Did the teacher provide
the necessary educational support? Was the educa-
tional relationship between the teacher and the student
sufficient to make the student feel that the teacher was
being encouraging and supportive? Did the teacher
really invest the necessary care in adapting the mate-
rial to the abilities of the student? Did the teacher
make available active approaches to dealing with the
material, as well as forms of cooperative learning and
interaction with other students? Would it not have
been more appropriate from the start to develop a
learning flow which would have included all the stu-
dents in the class? Did the teacher make every effort
to identify what a learning flow might look like for this
particular student?
24
In actual fact, the TRP seems to make the one stu-
dent who is apparently not functioning in the class re-
sponsible for the failure of the lesson. It is this one
student who must undergo a process of change and
adapt to the prevailing conditions within which the
teaching and learning process is taking place. The
mechanisms of the TRP force the student to discipline
himself (cf. Jornitz 2004, p. 109).
The world of the TRP simply does not take into ac-
count the complexity and interplay between the mani-
fold conditions and factors existent in a teaching and
learning context of this kind, where the conduct of the
teacher is also of crucial importance. The following
statement made by one of the teachers in the focus
groups reflects this attitude:
`Since we introduced the TRP I am very pleased to
say that the students who used to be consistently dis-
ruptive in class have been forced to give up their dis-
ruptive behavior´.
25
If the student wishes to leave the training room
again, he is forced into a state of `documented con-
formity´ (Jornitz 2004, pp. 109-110). He is forced to
acknowledge his disruptive behavior and then to put
down his good intentions in writing in order to be
granted permission to return to his class. Only by do-
ing this can he escape the stigma of being the outsid-
er.
Even if the literature dealing with the TRP makes
reference to a `negotiated return´, in reality the student
has nothing to negotiate. Goeppel (2002, p. 52) sees
the student’s position as being downgraded to that of a
`supplicant´. How honest and sustainable are the
promises the student makes to improve his/her behav-
ior when they are written down under duress in the
training room?
Furthermore, the process of clarification takes place
at one remove from the classroom, in an entirely dif-
ferent place. This approach will not provide any long-
term solutions. Jornitz (p. 117) states that there will be
26
a boomerang effect and the problem will come back
again. This is because the teacher who excluded the
student from the class in the first place should be in-
volved in finding the solution.
A 14-year-old Roma boy with emotional and social
needs was sent to the training room on dozens of oc-
casions. The boy was aware of the fact that his par-
ents had not previously attended a training room meet-
ing and that they were unlikely to do so in the future.
The reason given by the boy’s Roma parents was that
they did not have access to a vehicle which they would
need to travel to the rather remote, rural school. To-
wards the end of the series of training room exclu-
sions, the boy was suspended from his school for a
six-week period because the parents continued their
refusal to attend a training room meeting at the school.
When the schools inspector responsible heard of
the situation, he found himself in a dilemma. On the
one hand he had approved the introduction of the TRP
at that school, but on the other hand the long period of
27
suspension to which the boy was to be subjected as a
result of the TRP was not in accordance with the statu-
tory regulations at schools which were in force at the
time. The committee which was normally required to
meet to discuss long periods of suspension had not
done so, neither had it debated the case, neither had
this statutory committee taken an official decision. The
positions between the family and the school became
increasingly entrenched. When the situation became
deadlocked, the schools inspector decreed that the
boy move to a school in the adjacent school district.
A school that acts in such a manner is exhibiting a
disregard for the human right to education (see Ken-
worthy and Whittaker 2000). A `culture of silence´
comes into being (see Gibson 2006). Voices, like that
of the Roma boy, fall silent.
The TRP claims it encourages students to take re-
sponsibility for themselves and freely take their own
decisions. Any student whose behavior continues to
be at variance with the rest of the class even following
28
a warning by the teacher has, as far as the TRP model
sees the situation, decided of his own free will to leave
the classroom and go to the training room. It was his
own decision to go (Bruendel and Simon 2003, p. 44).
But are children with extremely problematic family
backgrounds, where abuse is taking place and where
the children are traumatised etc., truly able to behave
with such a high degree of responsibility and freely
take decisions for themselves?
Claßen and Nießen (2006, p. 92), as well as Bruen-
del and Simon (2007, p. 144) all recommend using the
TRP in contexts where children with attention prob-
lems and hyperactivity are present. Claßen and
Nießen in particular argue that the straightforward
structure of the TRP and the way in which it imposes
order lowers the level of excitability among children
suffering from ADHD. But can teachers really hold
these children fully responsible for their behavior, con-
sidering the specific complexities of their conditions?
29
Claßen and Nießen (2006) are stigmatizing children
and adolescents with emotional and social needs
when they write on the back of their book: `Nobody
should suffer as a consequence of antisocial behav-
ior´. In order to provide this group of young people with
genuine opportunities for learning and personal devel-
opment, this kind of deficit thinking must be dismantled
(see Garcia and Guerra 2004).
In this context, highly critical statements were
voiced in the focus group containing teachers:
`I don’t get the impression that the students have
very much respect for the idea of the TRP. But they
know they have to adhere to its rules. Of course the
TRP has meant that we have some quieter classroom
sessions than we did in the past. But quite a bit of the
communicative spontaneity and authenticity has been
lost in our interactions with the students. Their rela-
tionship with us teachers is now more strategic and
less open than it used to be. In the eyes of the stu-
dents we have turned into technicians who are operat-
30
ing a machinery of power. Students who come from
seriously problematic backgrounds simply do not un-
derstand what we are doing and why we are doing it.´
4.2. Impact across the teaching and
learning processes in a class
Let us examine several statements voiced by teachers
in one of the focus groups. One point of view that was
aired on more than one occasion was the following:
`Now that we have the TRP, the students have a
clearer point of reference telling them what constitutes
good classroom behavior´.
But there was also a degree of concern, as we can
see in the following statement which was made by an-
other teacher:
`The TRP directs the perceptions and thought pro-
cesses of all students towards a model of conformity.
31
The omnipresence of these rules and the constant
feeling in the room that a disruptive classmate might
be excluded from the class dominates the attentive-
ness of the students. If a child is rocking back and
forth on their chair then other students immediately
start looking demonstratively at the poster on the wall
listing the rules, reminding me by doing so of my re-
sponsibility to finally begin the questioning ritual which
will get the errant student back on track. My old ideas
about teaching are of no use to me any more as a
specialist teacher. I have the feeling as though the
whole student body has become conditioned since we
introduced the TRP.´
The TRP has an impact across the entire teaching
and learning process in a class because all of the stu-
dents in a school with the TRP have one specific edu-
cational experience. They learn that those students
who are not sufficiently in a position to adapt to the
prevailing conditions in the teaching and learning pro-
cess must leave the class in order to then subject
32
themselves, outside the classroom, to a process of
self-discipline.
The students also observe that there is no deeper,
fundamental educational consideration given to the
processes at work in the classroom and the students’
social experiences underlying them. The learning be-
havior expected from the students within the parame-
ters of the TRP can be characterized as follows:
`I am quiet and pay attention. I sit at my desk. I look
to the front of the class and follow the lesson. When I
wish to say something, I raise my hand´ (Bruendel and
Simon 2007, p. 99).
In the referential world of the TRP, the concept of
movement which is integral to many educational
games and cooperative, interactive forms of learning,
no longer seems to exist. Bruendel and Simon (2003,
p. 29) portray a situation in which the necessary pro-
cesses of clarification and consideration which arise in
a more pedagogically orientated classroom actually
33
run contrary to their conception of teaching in the
sense of academic instruction.
The achievements of German educational theory
since the 1970s have been displaced, including inde-
pendent, process-orientated, cooperative student-
orientated and real-world-orientated learning in which
students could be active in discovering new knowledge
for themselves.
There is no place here for student participation, stu-
dent voice and empowerment projects (see Scanlon
2012, Sellman 2009, Robinson and Taylor 2012), just
as there is no space in classroom teaching to address
the children’s particular social and cultural back-
grounds from which their specific social, emotional and
behavioral needs emerge in the first place (see Michie
2004, 2009). Instead, the concepts of uniformity, con-
formity and discipline prevalent in the 1950s are being
revived once again.
34
4.3. Impact on the teachers
In summarizing the main result of his empirical study,
a survey of teachers, Balz (2004, p. 2) states that
teachers find the TRP helpful. Bruendel and Simon
use the results of Balz’s study to underscore the posi-
tive effects of the TRP:
`Teacher satisfaction with the program: 89%, reduc-
tion in classroom disruption: 82%, improvement in the
quality of lessons: 72%, improvement in the classroom
atmosphere: 73%´ (Bruendel and Simon 2007, p. 151).
These results are of limited validity. Simply asking
the teachers in schools with the TRP about the pro-
gram after a relatively short time-span certainly does
not provide a comprehensive and conclusive picture.
In his empirical study on the effectiveness of the
TRP, Wollenweber (2013) found neither positive ef-
fects on the behavior of the children nor any significant
35
improvement for teachers. There was no reduction in
the numbers of sick days taken by teachers, some-
thing which Bruendel and Simon used in their argu-
mentation to indicate teachers’ exposure to high levels
of stress. But there is no solid empirical evidence for
the effectiveness of the TRP with regard to improve-
ments in the work-related and social behavior of the
students in the classroom.
Statements made by teachers in the focus groups
suggest that the TRP can result in a hardening of
teachers’ attitudes:
`I like being able to get rid of very disruptive stu-
dents simply and easily. Unfortunately, our school runs
an internal policy stating that only one student from
any given class can be sent to the training room at any
one time. But if things get a bit out of hand in the fifth
or sixth lesson I just wait until the one child has re-
turned from the training room with his plan before
sending the next one there. Lots of working hours
have been invested in the training room that are no
36
longer available for creating small, differentiated study
groups, and the colleagues just sitting there in the
training room can also do something for their money.´
Another teacher said: `Relations with my students
have become more superficial and distant since we
introduced the TRP. I am starting to see the students
as objects. They mean less to me emotionally than
before. My attitudes have hardened. That’s the only
way I can serve the system. That is a loss.´
The TRP cannot result in long-term, durable im-
provements because it is based on a negative, defi-
cient image of young people. Bruendel and Simon
(2003, p. 14) write that nowadays, in general, students
lack expertise and a sense of responsibility and that
young people have become used to blaming others for
their own failures.
The two authors use euphemistic phrases such as
`the students do not know…´, `the students are una-
ware of…´, `the students have not learned to…´. The
37
TRP channels the teachers’ awareness in the direction
of these deficits and the resulting breaches of school
rules. In the end, the questioning ritual envisaged by
the TRP ends up governing the teacher’s perceptions,
thoughts and actions:
`What are you doing? What does the rule state?
How are you going to decide? If you disrupt the class
again, what’s going to happen then?´ (Bruendel and
Simon 2007, p. 42)
4.4. Impact across the broad culture
of a school
Are the designers of the TRP really interested in free-
dom? This seems highly questionable when reading
the profoundly self-contradictory Eisenhower quotation
which they use to elucidate the management principles
which form the basis of the TRP:
38
`Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do
something you want done because he wants to do it´
(Bruendel and Simon 2013, p. 15).
Surprisingly, Bruendel and Simon (2003, p. 134)
claim that the TRP is `thoroughly steeped in humanist
thinking´ even though freedom and humanism are very
strongly related. Let us read a statement on this sub-
ject by a teacher in one of the focus groups:
`I am pleased we adopted the TRP. Now we can
take really decisive action. Now we’ve finally got rid of
that damned freedom-orientated education. I always
hated having to negotiate with the students. Now the
focus has returned to the class subject and it was
about time after the `PISA-shock´!´
It seems to be rather more the case that the con-
ception of the human being in the TRP literature is that
of someone who needs to be externally controlled and
moulded into shape by the mechanisms within social
institutions. It is the very same, pessimistic image of
39
human beings being driven by their desires and in-
stincts that we find in the works of Machiavelli and
Hobbes, where only strong state institutions are in a
position to control people of this kind and keep them in
check.
But are we entitled to limit freedom in the name of
freedom? Pongratz (2010, p. 63) therefore sees the
TRP as the practice of `governmental´ punishment.
For Jornitz (2004, p. 106), the TRP’s attitude to the
subject of freedom seems like the `overdoor to a re-
education camp´. Hence, when the TRP was intro-
duced into the school where another of our focus-
group teachers was working, his reactions to the
changes in his school culture were correspondingly
negative:
`The change in the culture of my school was a really
difficult time for me. A large group of teachers who up
to that point had really been instrumental in the for-
mation of the school’s climate of learning thanks to
their project-orientated, attachment pedagogy, were
40
pensioned off. Then a new, younger generation arrived
and immediately began installing the TRP. They man-
aged to establish a majority and get the principal on
board too. Many of the middle generation teachers
who had always found it hard to engage pedagogically
with challenging students seemed to get a new lease
on life. They suddenly started striding down the corri-
dors with an entirely new sense of self-confidence.´
The bureaucratisation and archiving of personal
data which goes hand in hand with running the TRP
must also be critically examined. The program produc-
es a pot-pourri of referral forms, self-evaluation ques-
tionnaires, children’s plans for returning to their clas-
ses, and minutes taken during the discussions docu-
menting the allegedly disruptive behavior of the stu-
dents and how they intend to improve it.
All of these documents are archived and serve as
the basis for whatever actions are taken subsequently
(see Balke 2003, p. 87; Bruendel and Simon 2003, pp.
109 and 189). If we take recourse to Foucault’s (1995)
41
critical discourse, it is possible use the TRP to verify
that the generation of knowledge for individuals in the
context of social institutions, and the generation of
power, are very closely interconnected.
The TRP requires all teachers in a school to be in-
volved in the program in equal measure and to colla-
borate in its implementation (Bruendel and Simon
2003, p. 193). The program does not envisage individ-
ual approaches by single teachers. Of course, any one
teacher can decide not to send his students to the
training room, but if the duty roster determines that it is
that teacher’s turn to supervise the training room, then
he has to carry out this duty whether he wants to or
not.
In a school which the author studied at close quar-
ters over a period of two years, one teacher refused to
carry out the task of supervising the training room be-
cause the program did not correspond with his peda-
gogical values. This resulted in him being forcibly
transferred to another school district. At another spe-
42
cialized school which the author studied, again over
two years, one teacher reported the following:
`A seven-year-old boy was brought to me crying
and shouting in the training room by his class teacher.
He crawled under the desk and cowered there. It
seemed to me to be neither possible nor sensible to
talk to the student about him writing out a plan detail-
ing how he wanted to return to the class. Instead, I
asked the boy about his interests. I waited. The boy
stopped sobbing, stuck his head out and looked at me
inquisitively. Then he told me about his interest in air-
ports and of matters aeronautical. I suggested he draw
an airport on the board in chalk. As he was drawing,
the seven-year-old commented on his picture and I
was impressed by his enormous expertise on the sub-
ject. I asked him questions about what he was draw-
ing, whereupon he went into even greater detail on the
subject. When the class teacher collected the boy at
the end of the lesson, I presented him to her without
any written self-evaluation and with no plan for his re-
turn to the classroom. She reported this to the school
43
principal who then issued me with an official warning
for undermining the school rules.´
In cases where teachers refuse to implement the
TRP, Claßen and Nießen (2006, p. 32) seek to return
them to the general path adopted by their colleagues
by removing their recourse to the disciplinary
measures which were previously enshrined in the stat-
utory regulations for such situations. In particular, it is
no longer possible to convene a meeting of the class
committee consisting of the allegedly problematic
child, his parents, the elected representative of the
parents in the class, the elected representative of the
school, the teachers concerned and often the school
principal as well.
The aim of this committee is to discuss the alleged
problematic behavior of the student and to explore po-
tential solutions. This committee can order a student’s
temporary suspension from the school or decide upon
other disciplinary measures as laid down in the statu-
tory regulations. It is important to note here that the
44
participation of the school’s and the parents’ elected
representatives provides a safeguard against any arbi-
trary decision-making by the school staff. In contrast,
the TRP operates outside the statutory regulations.
Many schools in Germany have stopped working
with attachment pedagogy. At the same time, these
schools are making no effort to apply the knowledge
base which currently exists internationally in the field
with regard to the promotion of children’s emotional
and social development at school and in the class-
room. Instead, they are reverting back to the principle
of confrontation. They are practicing a rigid, punitive
and paramilitary form of education (see Herz 2012).
These schools also readily adopt the TRP into their
program. The `friendliness´ which Bruendel and Simon
(2003, p. 50) continue to recommend no longer has a
part to play in this process. On the contrary, the direc-
tion that education is now taking is being dictated by
Ferrainola’s principle of intervention which was prac-
45
ticed at the Glen Mills Schools for adolescents and
which was predicated on breaking their will.
The author has evaluated extensive qualitative data
from a similar school. `Here, everybody is free to do
what I want´ is printed on a card on the door to the
principal’s office. The (female) principal stated asser-
tively, `here, everybody is helped, if necessary against
their will´. A teacher at the school reported the follow-
ing:
`I already told you about my colleague, Mrs Brandl1,
who sent one of her students, Nico, to me in the train-
ing room where he was supposed to stand on a piece
of pink blotting paper for 40 minutes. As the teacher on
duty, I was supposed to supervise this. After Mrs
Brandl had gone, I asked the student to sit down. I
talked to him about the reasons that lay behind his
being here and how he came to be in Schwarzegg. We
also talked about his life situation at home. In the end
1 All names of persons and places have been changed
46
he said to me: `Nobody has ever talked to me like this
at this school. When I came here to this school, my
parents and I thought that they’d be able to help me.
But you don’t get help here. For most people it just
makes things worse´.´
In the context of a school culture like this one, the
TRP becomes an instrument of dehumanisation. Blun-
ders of this kind reveal that something fundamental is
missing from the program, namely a positive concep-
tion of human beings, a code of ethics, a pedagogical
philosophy into which it is clearly written that the young
people who attend a school might expect to receive
truly respectable and seriously well-intentioned educa-
tional support, and not this kind of chicanery. Because
the TRP itself circumvents the values of freedom and
veracity, it is itself highly susceptible to corruption.
47
5. Conclusions
Apparently, the inclusion of students with emotional
and social needs is to be furthered by schools revert-
ing back to the old methods of exclusion, albeit tempo-
rary. Following the closure of ever more specialist
special-needs schools, a new location must be found,
away from the classroom, where disruptive students
can be sent and where they will be subjected to some
kind of special treatment. This place is called the
`training room´. An idea is being revived from the time
of segregated special education (see Mousley, Rice,
and Tregenza, 1993) which was thought to have be-
come obsolete long ago.
The `cycle of exclusion´ (Razer et al. 2013) which
encompasses teachers and students alike therefore
continues to exist. Old patterns of thinking are sus-
tained. Those students who are unable to achieve the
48
degree of conformity expected in the classroom are
required to leave in order to practice their conformity
outside the classroom. This interconnection between
formal inclusion and interior exclusion (see Hodkinson
2012) must be called into question.
Bruendel and Simon (2007, p. 9) are convinced that
the TRP arrived on the scene in German schools just
at the right moment:
`… at a time when a paradigm shift was taking
place in education and psychology, away from the illu-
sion that a teacher had to endure everything and that a
school was a place where everyone should feel at
ease´ (Bruendel and Simon, 2007, p. 9).
Nevertheless, questions remain as to whether the
TRP is an appropriate mechanism for fostering re-
sponsible, self-regulated behavior, because autonomy,
self-determination and co-determination by the stu-
dents is simply omitted. The conceptual world of the
TRP sees the students as objects, not as subjects with
49
their own experiences and viewpoints. Any school
which installs the TRP runs the risk of becoming a
`disabling school´ (see Jauhiainen and Kivirauma
1997) in which the processes of dehumanization (see
Malacrida 2005) can easily gain the upper hand.
Why has the TRP become so widespread in Ger-
many in particular, and not in other European coun-
tries, or in the United States? The reason might lie in
the two parallel historical strands which have driven
German pedagogical thinking and actions in the past.
By making reference to Merseburger’s (2005) Weimar
studies, we can trace these two developmental strands
back to the polar opposites of `mind´ and `power´.
In the `mind´ category we would find Anna Amalia,
Goethe and Schiller. In contrast, the concentration
camp situated on the Ettersberg in direct proximity to
Weimar would, based on Weimar studies, represent
the `power´ category: the mechanised, organised, bu-
reaucratised, insensate subjugation and elimination of
any deviations from the norm.
50
Education as shaped by the humanities has ceased
to exist wherever the TRP has been implemented in
schools. Gone are the educational traditions which
were rooted in Classicism and the Enlightenment on
the one hand, and in the socio-critical discourse of
Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse through to Haber-
mas and Honneth on the other. Instead of entering into
a process of self-reflection with students in the class-
room, the new school environment, under the inauspi-
cious influence of the TRP, produces conformity and a
`pathology of normality´ (Fromm 2011).
The `mechanics of power´ (Foucault), as construct-
ed and implemented by the TRP, forces all those
teachers who still abide by their deeper pedagogical
beliefs which are based on the principle of freedom,
into a position of protest (to the point of being forcibly
transferred!) or silence. Control and subjugation, in-
cluding that of the teachers themselves, have become
the dominant principles.
51
6. Recommendations and future
perspectives
Perceived disruptions in the educational practice of
teaching and learning in school can also serve as the
wellspring for deeper cognitive processes when teach-
ers understand how to address and work through the
events that take place in their classrooms, together
with the social and cultural processes which underlie
them.
After all, all students have much to learn from this
kind of approach to teaching and education and, guid-
ed by a spirit of cognitive curiosity in the classroom,
there is good reason to believe that students’ destruc-
tive behavior will decline and their constructive behav-
ior will increase, together with the inclusive energy of
the entire school community.
52
In cases in which children’s and adolescents’ emo-
tional and social development is particularly vulnera-
ble, it is imperative to create a good, stable education-
al bond; to give careful consideration to engaging with
their emotional and social needs; to arrange an appro-
priate learning environment and to develop an appro-
priate teaching methodology (cf. Boorn et al. 2010;
Cooper 2011; Doyle 2003; Popp, Grant and Stronge,
2011).
All of these points can be supported by teachers’
interventions to direct and stabilize student behavior
which already exist in the form of School-wide Positive
Behavior Support and Interventions (see Hill and
Brown 2013; Sailor et al., 2009), interprofessional work
(wraparound) (e.g., O´Connor 2013), family participa-
tion (e.g., Lewis 2009; Sheldon and Epstein 2002) and
community work (e.g., Klein 2000).
It is upon this basis that concepts need to be ex-
plored for the professional development of teachers
who have been in the school system for a longer peri-
53
od and who now find themselves confronted with the
inclusion of students with emotional and social needs
(e.g. Lane et al., 2014; Naraian, Ferguson and Thom-
as, 2012) so that they no longer see the need to reach
for a time-out model of such questionable efficacy as
the TRP.
54
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Notes on the author
Joachim Broecher is Professor and Director of the
Department for the Education of Learners with
Emotional, Social and Behavioral Difficulties, at
University of Flensburg, Germany.
Prior to moving into higher education he worked in
schools, for 19 years, as teacher in specialized
settings, as support teacher in regular schools and
later as school principal.
For more information: www.broecher-research.de
Studies in Social, Emotional and
Behavioral Education
Joachim Broecher
Vol. 1
`Incident on a train´: How storytelling in higher
education can foster a critical discourse on the
inclusive and exclusive forces of society (2014)
Vol. 2
Shaping pedagogical and didactic strategies for SEBD
students inside and outside the classroom through
textual analysis of a teacher´s journal (2014)
Vol. 3
The interconnection between formal inclusion and
internal exclusion: How the `Training Room´ Program
in German schools seeks to improve classroom
discipline, but in doing so inhibits the development of a
participative and empowering learning culture (2014)
