Fritz Redl & William W.

Wattenberg
BY CINDY CASTRO

Wilitz Team
Their first theory is group dynamics or group life in the

classroom. Educators need to understand that an

individual behavior affects group behavior, and vice versa.
Within a group, they found that individuals assume
roles, including leader, clown or entertainer, fall guy or
blame taker, and instigator.

Wilitz Team
These two also identified that the members in the groups

behavior is contagious such as making fun of the weak

member. Another example would be reactions to strangers,
which usually cause tensions throughout the group; teasing
the teachers pet or showing a negative reaction to a
student.

Wilitz Team
One other theory is reality appraisal. They

maintained that students need to appraise reality

in an effort to understand whether their actions are
guided by intelligence and conscience or by fear or
prejudice.

Wilitz Team
To guide students, educators should appeal to

the students sense of fairness and also

strengthen to see their abilities of the
consequences of their actions.

Wilitz Team
They theorized that students want to behave but

they lose control sometimes because

sometimes they forget or feel strange about the
rules, are bored, or are tired of sitting.

Wilitz Team
An influence technique of supporting self-

control is and based on the belief that individuals

control their own conduct and that much
misbehavior results from a temporary lapse of an
individuals control system rather than from a
motivation to be disagreeable.

Wilitz Team
One other is the pleasure-pain principle. If a

student as lost his or her self-control, a teacher steps

in with situational assistance to help the student
regain control.

Wilitz Team
When using the principle, the teacher deliberately

provides experiences to produce pleasant to

unpleasant feelings in hopes that the child will
choose the pleasant feeling always.

Wilitz Team
Redl and Wattenberg make it clear that this

pleasure-pain principle does not mean that a

teacher, in a heat of anger, can lash out at a student.

Wilitz Team
Redl and Wattenberg contributed to our

understanding of the ways students function in as a

member of groups within a classroom and the effect
that group expectations have on individual group
members.
Teachers should observe the groups within the
classroom, as well as within the total classroom
groups, in order to maintain functioning between the
groups.

References
Manning, M. Lee., and Katherine Toth Bucher.

"Applications of Redl's and Wattenberg's

Theories." Classroom Management: Models,
Applications, and Cases. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Merrill, 2003. N. pag. Print.