On Classroom Discipline

A friend sends along an article from the LA Times about the difficulties teachers face. The subhead reads: “Among the top reasons why teachers are deemed unsuccessful or leave the profession is their inability to effectively manage student behavior, experts say.”

Nicely put, that: "deemed unsuccessful."

Of course, everyone today is worried about maintaining order in the schools; this is the stuff the newspapers love. Kids today have no discipline, and schools have become free-fire zones.

And, indeed, "classroom management," or running a disciplined class, seems always to be the number one thing that school administrators value in teachers. Probably many parents agree. It also seems to be the one thing teachers currently most value in themselves. It is, as the article implies, just about the essence of the teaching profession these days. But should it be? Does it have any relation to actual learning?

There is no question that an orderly, compliant class is much more comfortable for the teacher. It is also easy to observe and evaluate. Indeed, it is about the only thing it is possible to evaluate reliably in a one-hour "classroom observation." This may be one secret of its current prominence, since good teaching is, by comparison, difficult to define, difficult to evaluate, and impossible to evaluate in any one-hour classroom observation. Given that it can be evaluated, this would at least require a lot more work on the part of administrators.

But what about the kids? Is it good for their education? At best, it seems tangential—a question of babysitting, not teaching. Even if it is really important, the simple and less expensive thing, surely, would be to hire a security guard to handle it, a bouncer, and leave teachers to teach.

The studies just have not been done showing that a more orderly classroom results in better student achievement. And consider: for comparison, are the adult societies that can put up the best show of public order the most productive societies? Outstanding in this regard would be countries like North Korea, Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union... By comparison, public events in a country like the US, Britain, France, or Hong Kong, tend to look relatively chaotic. But which type of society has proven, over the long term, more productive, in either practical or intellectual terms?

Why wouldn't it be the same with classrooms?

Of course, there is a necessary minimum, with students not strangling one another and vandalizing the property. Countries that descend into true chaos, like Somalia or Afghanistan, tend to be least successful of all. But they equate, precisely, to a classroom of children without an adult present—that is not a likely scenario in our schools.

Short of that, it is hard to believe that the presence of an adult in a room of twenty or thirty children—not to mention an adult with the power to evaluate you, send you to the Vice Principal, or give you a detention--is not in itself sufficient to accomplish that much.

Beyond that, in the middle range, some may argue that relatively more orderly societies like Germany and Japan are preferable to relatively less orderly societies like Italy and Korea. But at best, that is a point on which reasonable people can differ, more a matter of personal preference than anything objective. Historically, both have been about equally successful economically and intellectually.

So, on the whole, the current emphasis on “class management” seems to be beside the point. Except that excessive order is almost certainly harmful; yet this is what the present system favours. How natural, or healthy, is it really for a young child to sit still and quiet at a desk for hours at time? How educational is it? In fact, we have definite evidence that we learn better while we are physically engaged, and moving. Aristotle insisted on it, which is why we have the word “pedant.” It means “walker.”

The model of the orderly class at its desks was surely designed for the convenience of the teacher, and the system, not for the best education. Some have argued that it is based on the model of the factory, and sees children as products rolling off an assembly line.

Some will probably point out, and with justice, that students do not sit still at their desks nearly so much as they used to any more—nowadays, they are moved around into different configurations for “pair work,” “group work,” and so on. This is true; but it is still pretty sedentary, and it maintains and even accentuates the teacher's total control over the students. Now it is not enough that they sit silently where they've been planted; they must also get up and march about efficiently at the teacher's command.

Besides not being conducive to learning, all this teaches one particular lesson above all others: conformity. This is, I submit, not a good lesson for a future citizen of a democracy, or of a pluralistic, tolerant society, to learn. Nor is it good for creativity, human progress, or for any serious later intellectual inquiry.

This need for discipline also prompts teachers, I think, to deliberately select boring material. They cannot afford to get the children too excited: excited children tend to make noises or run about. Unfortunately, we also know that maintaining interest is the one great essential for learning. Plato insisted on it as the teacher's chief duty.

It also does two more things that we probably do not want to happen. First, it weeds out of the teaching profession anyone who does not themselves highly value conformity—which would also mean, probably, that it weeds out the brighest teachers, the best scholars, the most creative teachers, those least inclined toward prejudice, those most sympathetic to children and their special needs, and those most likely to make a special effort for a student who needs it. Second, it not only gives free rein to, but positively encourages, teachers who are inclined to be bullies. The profession, by its nature, is probably already a magnet for any born bully: it's the fastest route there is to significant power over a large number of others. We badly need to set up barriers to prevent this. Instead, currently, we are virtually requiring it.

I think it is a very bad sign if, when you stroll into the teacher's lounge, the students are spoken of as adversaries.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/classroom_discipline/8217

Yet that seems to be the common case in teachers' lounges everywhere.

It seems to me that anyone who does not feel a positive affection for all their students should not be teaching. This is what Don Bosco, the great Catholic educator, considered the key to all good teaching: you must love all your students, and be a friend and advocate for them at all times. Nor did he have the luxury of instructing only the well-behaved and well-bred. Just the reverse: his schools were strictly for the urban poor, abandoned street kids, the boys in the 'hood. Boys' Town, in the US, based on his principles, repeated the experiment with the same striking success. Any discipline was handled by the children themselves. St. Philip Neri, another great Catholic educator, said of his rowdy students, "I don't care if they chop wood on my back, so long as they don't sin."

Something is very wrong with teaching, if “class discipline” or “classroom management” has become or remains the linchpin of the profession. And I'm not at all sure it is the students' fault.