We are currently living in the age of “the hamstrung teacher’. Never has it been so hard for teachers to gain control, receive respect and maintain some semblance of authority.
Blogs and staff rooms are replete with dispirited and powerless teachers struggling with unruly and defiant students. It wasn’t long ago that teachers were able to meter out tough and effective consequences for bad behaviour. Unfortunately, it is so much harder now than it ever was to find the right penalty for inappropriate and insubordinate behaviour.
Why not send them to the Principal?
The Principal used to be an imposing figure. – someone you didn’t want to meet, even to get a certificate or compliment. Students used to avoid the Principal like a plague. Principal’s used to concern themselves with discipline issues and take charge when students overstepped the mark. But nowadays a visit to the Principal’s office is not all that dissimilar to a trip to the fun park. A Principal’s job now is to keep parents and students happy and leave the real disciplining to the teachers.
“Next time try not calling the teacher those names.”
What about suspending them?
Nine hundred students are suspended every day in England. In Australia it is 100 per day. Being suspended used to be a humiliation. It would involve notifying the students’ parents, who would be none too happy to receive the phone call. Now suspensions presents just another opportunity to get back to the Playstation or X-Box. Parents often reassure their kids and allow them to go home and vegetate. Hardly a real punishment!
What about taking away their recess?
Don’t tell the civil libertarians about this mode of punishment! According to law, students can only be kept in for some of recess, not the entire playtime. And anyway, why should the teacher be punished? Teachers rely on their lunch breaks to recharge and re-energize. Monitoring detention just isn’t fair.
What about ringing the parents?
Parents used to be on the side of the teacher. When a teacher called a parent, that parent would take stock of what the teacher was saying and become partners in helping manage the problem. Nowadays, parents are likely to become defensive, make excuses and become unwitting enablers for their children’s poor behaviour.
Please note, that I am not tainting all parents. On the contrary, the parents I work with have been incredibly open and supportive. I am merely pointing out that trends are changing and punishments that used to make students squirm and think twice before acting, are now no longer a deterrent.
It is also important to note that most teachers are not trigger happy when it comes to punishments. We don’t like punishing students. We try to command respect rather than demand it. But there are times when all semblance of control is lost and students are purposely trying to sabotage the class and undermine their teacher.
In those cases, the teacher is often left to raise their arms skyward and ponder what it is they can do to remedy the situation.
Tags: Classroom Management, Consequences, Control, Detentions, Education, Education Policy, life, Parenting, Principals, Psychology, Punishments, Suspensions, Teacher Welfare, Teachers
Topical Teaching 
November 12, 2011 at 12:53 am |
900 suspended a day in England? We exceed that just in the Miami Dade County schools here in Florida.
November 12, 2011 at 9:23 pm |
Your insights from Miami Dade are just frightening Carl!
November 13, 2011 at 7:33 am |
Once upon a time I ran a happy class for students with “intellectual impairment”. These were actually normal, healthy children, who were unable to keep up with the pace of “education” in the “normal” stream. Each one of these children was unique, as indeed all individual children are. The qualifications for entry to this class used to be a) falling behind in the mainstream, b) an IQ between 50 and 80, c) aged between 8 and 12 years and d) the parents wanted this kind of placement for their child.
One day, the principal asked if I would take a student who was below the qualifying age. Why was that? He had become such a nuisance in his grade 2 class that the teacher was almost driven to despair. I agreed (reluctantly) to have him in my class.
None of my other students displayed behaviour problems. They performed their learning tasks without complaint and worked harder than many students in the “normal” stream. I know this was because the learning tasks they were given accounted for each child’s ability, prior learning and level of confidence.
On entering my class, my new student was seated in a group, where the task was quite simple and well within his capability. He began to leave his seat and wander around the room. I directed him back to his seat. Then he not only left his seat but began to leave the room. I was responsible for him. When he refused to come back in the room I took him by the hand (gently) and led him back to his seat. This wandering behaviour continued until I physically and gently redirected him to his seat and told him firmly that he was to stay there until he had completed his task.
He put his head on the table and bawled for half an hour during which time the other students completely ignored him as they had been trained to do. After an hour of bawling my new student completed his task and was suitably praised and rewarded.
The next day I was hauled over the coals by the principal for “manhandling” this student. However, I knew that by continuing using the strategies I had adopted this child’s behaviour could be changed. In future, when he left his seat, I notified the principal, thus transferring responsibility for this child’s behaviour to him. In time the child was transferred to a special school, which may well have been the appropriate place for him.
I am convinced that children fail to learn the difference between right and wrong because our society as a whole has lost all standards by which right and wrong are measured. The problem of school behaviour is not a psychological problem but a moral problem. Indeed there are psychological aspects to this issue but it is fundamentally a battle between right and wrong. Because there are not absolute standards to follow each instance of misbehaviour subject to a raft of paperwork which ultimately goes nowhere and punishes the teacher for having the temerity to try to do his/her job.
November 16, 2011 at 7:59 am |
“The problem of school behaviour is not a psychological problem but a moral problem.” Spot on!