The STOP Abusive Behavior Syndrome (STOP ABS) Project attempts to implement a community-based discipline model for inner-city elementary schools that avoids both physical and emotional abuse by teachers and students, while contributing to the students' overall development. Prevailing disciplinary models either relate to children as objects to be changed (coercive), or allow children to do as they want (liberal). Based on the work of psychiatrists Franz Fanon and Wilhelm Reich, STOP ABS believes that the optimal learning environment empowers children with the tools they need to collectively change oppressive and limiting social conditions, and in the process radically refashion their own constraining social roles. A pilot program was implemented in grades 3 through 8 of the Barbara Taylor School, an independent multiracial, daycare and elementary school in Harlem, New York City (New York) that appears to have lessened incidents of abuse. A second year-long pilot project was also implemented with a class of 4- and 5-year olds. Preliminary outcomes indicate that children can articulate creative possibilities for non-abusive behavior. Goals for the 1988-89 school year include the following: (1) research into how children are socialized into an abuser-abused world view; (2) refinement of the discipline model; (3) integration of the discipline model with the curriculum; and (4) involvement of parents and community. A brief list of references is included. (FMW)