The Responsible Thinking Process, Inc. is a non-profit organization committed to propagating information to educators and others about the RTP school discipline process as an alternative to classroom management programs.

We are dedicated to giving out information via this web site concerning the various aspects of the Responsible Thinking Process ® and the RTC ® Classroom.

Training

Ed Ford, president of RTP, works daily to update the web site and responds to the many calls and emails enquiring about this discipline program.

Ed also conducts training sessions and seminars for teachers, administrators and other people interested in the process.

All time given by Ed and others to the RTP organization is donated. RTP has no paid employees.

For those schools interested in RTP training, please call him at the RTP office at 480 991-4860. 

Or Email Ed at edford@responsiblethinking.com or

Ed can provide information on setting up dates and the specific fees and expenses for the training courses and seminars.

Click here for currently scheduled Seminars

There are two kinds of training:

The first is offered to individual schools or school districts.

Ed and his associate, George Venetis, long-time Accredited RTP Administrator, Trainer, and Evaluator, travel throughout the world, offering one-day training.

It is highly recommended that the staff be furnished with books and DVD'ss in preparation for the training. The books should, at the very least, be purchased following the training and used not only as teaching tool but also be frequently referred to as instructional guides when using the process.

The first book recommended is Discipline For Home And School, Fundamentals, and is written to help you decide if this process is for you and yourschool. It is available from Brandt Publishing.

Discipline For Home And School Books One and Two should be read and used especially when dealing with the details of the process.

The second type of training is a two-day training.

Much more material is covered and there is obviously more time for learning the use of the RTP questioning process plus role play demonstrations.

This two-day training conference is especially helpful to those school districts or individual schools wishing to save money by inviting surrounding districts and charging a nominal fee to attend.

Many schools have offset their own costs for the training by inviting other school districts to pay for the training of their own district teachers.

How I've organized RTP ®
by Ed Ford

Since I'm the person who created the process and who is president of the RTP, Inc., I'm the one who has to make the final decisions concerning the various aspects of RTP.

There is always an ongoing revamping of the process by which people become trainers. We keep learning new ways and new ideas. Where we are now can be found on this web site under "Becoming An RTP Trainer."

George Venetis, a recently retired principal and an RTP Trainer/Evaluator, gave me the chance to try my ideas out initially in 1994. He had heard me express my ideas about school discipline at a conference sponsored by John Champlin, a national educator.

George asked me to try my ideas out at the two schools where he worked as an assistant principal at the time. The last six years of his career, he was principal at Solano Elementary School, Osborn School District, in Phoenix. He now works with me training and consulting in schools throughout the U. S. and in foreign countries. 

I believe it is my responsibility to see that there is a proper avenue by which educators can become trainers and for those who are already trainers to continue to upgrade their skills. Obviously, if the present trainers don't take advantage of the continuing education, they will no longer be trainers. Also, I believe it is my responsibility to designate certain geographical areas in which specific trainers should work. I'm well aware that at my tender age (78) I'll not be able to keep up the schedule I've kept for many more years. That is something I'll have to deal with in the future.

At the present time, I cover all areas. If and when I can't meet all the requests, then at that time, I'll designate someone to fill in for me. That is what I've done on several occasions in Michigan with Al Kullman and Scott Bogner from Evart School District, and with Steve Smith from Boyne City Middle School.

Unfortunately, some educators both in the U.S. and elsewhere have gone out on their own. I had to seek legal help to deal with these people. All RTP material has been copyrighted, and the Responsible Thinking Process (RTP) ® has received Trade Mark status from the U.S. Trademark Office. All this had to be done for the sake of those educators who wanted the assurance that what they are learning is RTP, thus the importance of maintaining the integrity of the process.

Educators who wish training for their schools or an information session at their schools should go through the RTP, Inc. by contacting Ed Ford at RTP, Inc., 10209 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85253, phone 480 991-4860 or email me at:
edford@responsiblethinking.com

Birth Of RTP

In 1993, John Champlin, national authority on school restructuring, was given a copy of my book, Freedom From Stress.

He afforded me the opportunity to travel to several school districts, and from that experience, I realized several things: First, the family would be the wrong place to structure any kind of effective process, and second, the discipline programs in schools seemed not to be working.

At one of Champlin's Phoenix conferences, I gave several presentations on my then ideas about an effective discipline process for schools. In the audience, among others, were two educators from Clarendon Elementary School in the Osborn School district: George Venetis, then assistant principal, and LeEdna Custer-Knight, school psychologist.

Later that same year, George called me and asked if I would be interested in presenting my ideas on school discipline to the faculty and parents of his school.

The Responsible Thinking Process became operational on January 24th of 1994. I continued to meet and work with both George and LeEdna on a two or three times a week basis, held faculty meetings once a week to insure the proper use of my ideas and to answer any questions, and I worked often in the Responsible Thinking Classroom with Darleen Martin, the first teacher to work in that room. She is still an RTC teacher and now trainer, and is working as an RTC teacher at Villa De Paz Elementary School in the Pendergast Elementary School District in Phoenix.

George is now retired after 20 years as an elementary school teacher, and nine years as an administrator, and travels with me throughout the United States and around the world, working with me as a team to train other schools in the use of this process.

Brief summary of Ed Ford's background

After serving in the U. S. Navy from 1944 to 1946, Ed went to Youngstown College (now Youngstown State University) and then became a newspaper reporter at the Youngstown Vindicator in 1950. In 1953.

Ed joined the Industrial Relations department of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube (a large steel factory) until 1964, when he became a high school teacher.

Six years later, he left to get an MSW at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Applied Social Sciences.

In 1972, Ed  began a private counseling practice.

Shortly thereafter, he joined the faculty of the Institute For Reality Therapy and began working as a social services consultant with various schools as well as with the Ohio Youth Commission and  the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Lima, Ohio.

Ed taught and demonstrated Reality Therapy throughout the United States and Canada.

He taught and consulted in over 150 human resource facilities including drug and alcohol centers, corrections, mental health, residential and out patient treatment facilities, as well as over 70 school districts primarily in the Midwest and Southwest. He also served for many years as a part-time faculty member at Arizona State University’s School of Social Work.

Ed consulted for two years with Laidlaw Transit Inc, which provides school busing services for school districts throughout the United States and Canada, creating a discipline program for use on their school buses.

Ed consulted for five years with the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections, teaching them how implement the responsible thinking process.
Ed was formerly business consultant throughout the United States and Canada, working for such companies as Intel Inc., Apple Computer, Smitty's Inc., InnSuites Inc., The Keg (in Canada), and various other organizations.

He served eight years as a part-time teacher at Ottawa University in Phoenix Arizona, teaching upper division courses for Professional Education Program.

Ed also consulted with Bright Oaks, a residential treatment center for sexually abused girls, ages 7 to 12.

Ed has worked as a volunteer doing group work with probationers for Maricopa County Probation Department and with women inmates at the Santa Maria Unit of the Arizona State Prison. He is presently working with inmates in the work release program at the Maricopa County jail.

Ed Ford is a founding member and Past President of the Control Systems Group, an organization that researches and promotes perceptual control theory.

This group is made up mostly of scientists with some practical applications people, such as research psychologists, physicists, sociologists, economists, engineers, educational psychologists, social workers, etc.
 

Ed has authored and published the following books:

Why Marriage? - 1974, Argus Communications
Why Be Lonely? - 1975, Argus Communications
For The Love Of Children - 1977, Doubleday
Permanent Love - 1979, Winston Press
Choosing To Love - 1983, Winston Press
Money Isn't Enough - Self published in 1984
Love Guaranteed - 1987, Harper and Row
Freedom From Stress - 1989, Brandt Publishing.
Discipline For Home And School, Book One - 1994, Brandt Publishing.
Discipline For Home And School, Book Two - 1996, Brandt Publishing.
All but the first two books are now available through Brandt Publishing.

Ed was also featured in Love Guaranteed With Ed Ford, a special 46-minute production by KAET-TV, the PBS station in Phoenix. Filmed in early 1992, this show has been aired three times in the Phoenix market and was offered to other PBS stations nation wide.

Ed contributed Chapters to the following books:

What Are You Doing ?

How People Are Helped Through Reality Therapy.
Naomi Glasser, editor. Harper & Row, 1980; Family Counseling and Therapy. Arthur M. Horne and Merle M. Ohlsen, editors. F. E. Peacock, 1982;
 

Volitional Action

Wayne Hershberger, editor. North-Holand, 1989.

The Control Theory Approach

Richard S. Marken, editor. Sage Publications; American Behavioral Scientist, Vol 34/No.1, Sept/Oct 1990, An issue devoted to: Purposeful Behavior: