MORE CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE STUFF
MORE CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE STUFF
(Dated 11 February 2017)
Establishing a rapport with his or her students is one of the crucial jobs that any teacher does because it influences not just the positive stuff that occurs within a classroom but also, just as importantly, the proportion of time spent on that positive stuff.
It’s not surprising that classroom discipline and
management can be sources of angst among teachers, as highlighted in the
attached article, when the ‘positive’ makes way for the ‘reactive’. Whether the
incidence of disruptive student behaviour is increasing or not depends on who
your source is but the challenges that face the humble classroom/ subject
teacher regarding discipline and management are many…..and they always have
been.
As with much of the stuff related to the art of
teaching and the educational wrangling of a herd of scholars, the ‘experts’
usually lack current classroom experience themselves and many have NONE
whatsoever.
But ‘The system’ itself is not helping the troops
in a few key ways at present. I must stress that the info below is not
universal in NSW public and high schools nor is it mandated. But it is
happening and with an increasing regularity and a lot of it is related to the
hallowed ‘Local schools, local decisions’ autonomous tabernacle.
Various school-wide behaviour systems (like PBL)
have been introduced to schools over the last decade or so and all endeavour to
stress and teach the ‘proactive’ behaviours that should be exhibited by all
members of each school in the various settings within that school. As well,
data should be collected of both the positive/ negative stuff so that trends
can be identified and encouraged/ remedied etc. Sounds good……….. and it is. But
some schools are presently stacking up the number of administrative steps that
a teacher has to climb prior to making a referral regarding one of his/ her
student’s negative behaviour. Managers and executives are camouflaging
themselves so that they don’t have to deal with the often dirty work of
negative referrals and leaving the issues for the teacher to sort out. And this
is being done under the strategy of the teacher ‘owning’ the problem. Tough
love.
Many primary schools in Sin City have established
gifted and talented/ enrichment classes in recent years. This is a marketing
ploy as much as it is an educational decision and is designed to attract extra
students and families to the school. Now it probably works in a lot of cases
but the strategy begins to unravel when you consider the other classes in the
joint which, by default, carry students who are much more likely to exhibit
‘reactive’ attitudes to any teacher. I’m not shitting on the scholars but when
you have ten or twelve of them bouncing around your classroom walls, the
planned daybook teaching and learning experiences are regularly not completed.
Put it another way……… the intended outcomes may just take a little longer to
reach than in the neighbouring enrichment class. ‘Sweat hog’ or ‘cooler’
classes are fast becoming a reality again, especially in the upper primary
years of our public schools. Back to the future.
I’ve mentioned this in a previous post some months
ago but schools are now decreasing the recess and lunch break times for
students and teachers. Basically, if a school can keep the scholars in their
seats for five hours each day, they can then much more economically employ
teachers for RFF and associated programs. As you’d expect, kids being cooped up
in classrooms for longer periods certainly doesn’t assist with a teacher’s
discipline nor encourage optimum learning conditions.
School counsellors play a vital role in all schools
and the recent downgrading of qualifications needed for new counsellors is
insane. Counsellors now don’t require teaching credentials or experience to
secure employment in schools. A student’s misbehaviour is often an excellent
indicator of things being adrift in other areas of his/ her life and the
counsellor, in the past, had the advantage of both assisting the student as
well as providing advice and back-up to the referring teacher. An improved
outcome for all parties was much more likely when the counsellor had the
ability to wear two hats. Not now….and I mean no disrespect to new counsellors.
Perhaps my harshest comment is reserved for the
NSW Department of Education’s complete cock-up of the learning and support
teacher (LAST) program. A total lack of direction particularly with regard to
what the role and duties of these teachers actually are has led to some schools
utilising such teachers in areas that don’t include ANY contact with students.
Given the high correlation between learning difficulties and misbehaviour,
you’d think that a learning and support teacher’s home base would lie in a
classroom……in fact, any classroom.
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