Effective Methods of Student Discipline in Schools
Introduction
Maintaining a positive and productive learning environment is crucial for student success. Effective student discipline is not solely about punishment, but rather about fostering socially responsible behavior, promoting student engagement, and ensuring equitable outcomes. This article explores various methods of student discipline, ranging from traditional punitive approaches to more progressive and restorative strategies, with a focus on creating a supportive and respectful school climate.
The Importance of School Discipline
School discipline refers to the set of rules, policies, and practices implemented to manage student behavior and maintain order within the school environment. This encompasses everything from classroom etiquette and dress code to the consequences enforced when rules are broken. The primary aim of school discipline is to create a safe, enjoyable, and conducive learning environment. When teachers can effectively manage order and discipline, students are more likely to achieve academic success and experience overall well-being.
Aligning Schoolwide Discipline with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
Research has consistently demonstrated that social and emotional learning (SEL) promotes prosocial and responsible behaviors while reducing risky behaviors and conduct problems. When discipline policies and practices are centered around student learning, are developmentally appropriate, and are culturally responsive, they can reinforce SEL and support stronger relationships, student engagement, and equitable outcomes. It’s important to clarify, though, that schoolwide SEL is not a “quick fix” for misbehaviors. While the strategies for SEL can immediately help all students reflect on their emotions and talk through conflicts, some behaviors may take time and repeated guidance and practice. As you consider your schoolwide strategies for promoting SEL for students, you’ll want to reflect on how well your current approach to discipline aligns with your SEL vision and supports students’ in practicing social and emotional competencies. Reflect on your school’s discipline policies, procedures, practices, and mindsets. Punitive, subjective, and exclusionary approaches to discipline can often be damaging to students and undermine schoolwide SEL implementation. Compounding these issues are disciplinary policies that are open to interpretation (e.g., policies in which students can be cited for things like disrespect, insubordination, etc.).
Traditional vs. Progressive Approaches to Discipline
Traditionally, many disciplinary approaches have focused on establishing control and order to prevent or correct behavior problems. For example, this might mean setting clear rules to limit talking during instruction, with staff reinforcing these rules by rewarding students who are quiet and issuing a consequence to students who break the rule. When students break the rules, schools may discipline students. Some schools use punishment. But others use more progressive measures. Some types of discipline - like restraint and seclusion - are very controversial.
The Responsive Classroom Approach: Discipline with Dignity
The Responsive Classroom approach is based on building a positive community of engaged learners. In order to do so, it is essential to uphold the dignity of all students. It is hardest, but most necessary, to do this when a student misbehaves. An authoritative leadership style is rooted in the belief that students want to do what is right. Rather than rely on punishment or rewards, which can cause students anxiety and stress, an authoritative leadership style supports students in learning socially responsible behavior. Authoritative leaders aim to support a positive learning community for all students. Teacher empathy results in students feeling seen, heard, and validated while still taking responsibility for their own actions. Building connections with, and being empathetic toward, students creates the foundation for discipline with dignity. The words, phrases, tone, and pace that teachers use in speaking with students can build a strong, positive learning community. When a student misbehaves, giving the student a logical consequence allows them to fix and learn from their mistakes while maintaining dignity. Our reactions to misbehavior and discipline tap into our previous experiences and biases. Overall, approaching discipline with care, respect, and a desire to see the good in students allows every member of your learning community to participate in discipline with dignity. You can set students up for success by making it clear that “mistakes are a natural part of the learning process, and that we all sometimes make mistakes, no matter how hard we try to follow the rules”. Students often communicate their needs through their behavior (Jones et al., 2018), and even in schools with optimal systemic SEL supports, misbehaviors will occur.
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Instructive and Restorative Approaches
These types of instructive and restorative approaches to discipline lead to better behavioral outcomes while helping maintain positive school climate and student-teacher relationships and reducing exclusionary discipline and discipline disparities. In 2014 Chicago Public Schools updated their Student Code of Conduct to reflect a less punitive, more restorative approach to discipline. These efforts resulted in a dramatic reduction in suspensions and expulsions.
Practical Strategies for Teachers
Helping students to govern their own behavior in ways that help them learn is a longstanding goal of all teachers. Be fair, positive and consistent. Be the kind of person young people can like and trust-firm, fair, friendly, courteous, enthusiastic and confident. Provide a list of standards and consequences to parents and students. Make sure they are consistent with district and building policy. Keep your classroom orderly. Get to know your students. Learn their names quickly and use them in and out of class. Let the students know you care. Determine jointly with the class what is acceptable in terms of behavior and achievement and what is not. Make learning fun. Make education interesting and relevant to the students’ lives. Don’t threaten or use sarcasm. Never use threats to enforce discipline. Avoid arguing with students. Keep your voice at a normal level. Give reasonable assignments. Don’t use schoolwork as punishment. Keep rules simple. Try to keep the student seated. In many instances, this is impossible. Be reassuring to the student as well as the rest of the class. Explain the importance of protecting every student’s right to learn. Send another student for help. After the incident is over, immediately document everything that happened. This documentation should include time, name(s) of student(s) involved, a brief description of the events that occurred, and any information that pertains to the student(s) or the incident. This report should be submitted to the administration. If you “blow” the first week, don’t worry. Schedules will be changed without warning and unanticipated events will occur. Don’t refuse to let a student tell you his or her side of the situation. Don’t talk about the misdeeds of students except to those who have a right to know. There are several good methods of classroom discipline. One of the best is the LEAST Approach, developed by NEA, which helps you determine the appropriate level of involvement. Leave it alone. End the action indirectly. Attend more fully. Secure more information from the student on who, what, when, where and why. Spell out directions. Treat student progress. No single method of discipline will work for every student in every situation. Each student is different and may need a different approach. And the student who always does what they’re supposed to but is having a bad day will require a different approach than a student who never does what they’re supposed to. It’s important that you get to know your students as individuals. It’s important that you have a lot of grace and forgiveness. Consequences? Yes, but they can be delivered with grace.
Practical examples of discipline
Keep it simple - This form of discipline has been used by me for relatively minor infractions. Make it short - I usually issue these for 5 minutes. Students can eat their lunch during this time but there is absolutely no talking. Talking or being on a device starts the time over. This was the most effective with a middle school class I had that was immediately followed by lunch. I simply held them in. In other situations, students often “forgot” they had detention. I kept meticulous notes to myself. Make sure you follow the law - Many states have a law that requires a minimum amount of time for lunch. Is it effective? I almost never had to give a second lunch detention for the same offense. In only 1-2 instances did the incident escalate to require an office referral. I think this technique was VERY effective for me. Concert Week: I used to constantly remind students how they’re supposed to behave in concerts. Most behaved, but some wouldn’t - But some of them wouldn’t behave at the concerts, they’d be talking or texting. I remind the students, “You are smart! I’m sure you understand how it works with just 5 minutes of practice. In 20 years of using this approach, there was only one group of 5 students who did not follow the procedures. I spent 5 minutes of my lunch time having them practice being quiet in the auditorium. Move around the room - See the section on class set-up. I spend less than half my time on the podium. I create aisles in my classroom. I am constantly moving throughout the ensemble.
Historical Context: Corporal Punishment
Perhaps the most widespread and longest held method for enforcing and maintaining school discipline is corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is the use of physical harm in order to punish or correct behavior. Contemporarily, corporal punishment is widely rejected as a method for correcting discipline in the school setting, and is even illegal in 15 countries worldwide. In the not so distant times when teachers were seen as substitute parents, and were given liberties as such, punishments of children's bad behavior most frequently took the form of smacks with a paddle or cane. There were several problems with the use of corporal punishment. Unless there were strict methods of monitoring and regulating its use, the practice was susceptible to overuse and abuse. In addition to this, beginning in the late 18th century, attitudes against the use of corporal punishment on anyone were growing. With the installation of compulsory education, parents faced the possibility of being forced into sending a child to an institution whose stance regarding school discipline and punishment was in opposition to their own. As a result, corporal punishment was abolished in many areas and replaced with more positive forms of behavior enforcement.
Positive Reinforcement and Alternative Punishments
In North America and Europe, most forms of school discipline revolve around positive reinforcement utilizing praise, marks of merit, and increased opportunities to maintain a flourishing learning environment. When such reinforcement does not successfully maintain school discipline, a variety of punishments are utilized such as detentions, suspensions, and eventually expulsions. In some cases, schools will decide to take a very hard line against any type of infractions against specific rules (especially those in relation to drugs, weapons, trespassing, etc.). This policy of very little tolerance for transgression is called a zero tolerance policy.
Read also: Corporal Punishment in Schools
Current Theories and Practices
There are numerous current theories and practices that outline the actions and policies for most effectively controlling the environment in a positive way. William Glasser's Reality Therapy utilizes class meetings, clearly communicated rules, plans, and contracts in order to facilitate a teacher-student relationship that allows students to make positive choices through an understanding of the connection between their actions and consequences. In research studies, reality therapy has proven to result in modest improvements of behavior. Positive Approach, based upon reality therapy, stipulates that a teacher demonstrate their respect for students and instills in them a sense of responsibility through a use of a development and sharing of clear rules, daily opportunities for success and in school suspension for non-compliant students. Assertive Discipline, developed by Lee Canter in 1976, emphasizes a teacher's right to create and enforce standards for student behavior. This program, which is well-respected and widely known, revolves around clear expectations and rules as well as a penalty system with increasingly serious consequences. Adlerian approaches to school discipline, named after physicist Alfred Adler, place an emphasis on the understanding of why a student exhibits negative behavior and aims to help a student amend that behavior and get their needs met. Despite their differences, the theories and practices for enforcing school discipline all rely on open lines of communication between educators, administrators and their students. As a result, more and more educational systems are being created with requirements for relationship building.
William Glasser's Reality Therapy
Reality Therapy focuses on encouraging positive student-teacher relationships that support student knowledge of the correlation between their actions and the decided consequences. Reality Therapy was developed by William Glasser as an approach to psychotherapy and counseling, and has been widely applied in education. The therapy underscores the importance of making your own decisions, taking control of your own life, deciding what is most important (goals) and evaluating current actions in order to determine if a person's goal is attainable or not. Placed into the educational setting, it is necessary that teachers provide the correct assistance to students to enable them to decide what their goal is (whether it be a gold star on their chart or entrance into an undergraduate institution) and aid their students in the correct actions needed to meet that goal. This system also entails an outline of negative consequences that could occur if a student does not make the right decisions. Reality Therapy is not about dictating to the student the proper actions to be taken, but is about guiding the student to take the proper actions on their own.
Assertive Discipline
Assertive discipline is another, slightly different approach to enforcing school discipline. Assertive discipline requires that a teacher maintain a high level of control and respect in the classroom. Also called the "take-control" approach, a teacher must control their classroom in a very firm but positive way. It is necessary that teachers constitute rules and directions that denote acceptable and unacceptable student behavior, instruct these rules and directions, and ask for assistance from parents and/or administrators when support is needed in handling the behavior of students. A teacher needs to create a discipline plan that students must follow at all times, rewards for positive student behavior, and consequences for negative student behavior. Within the plan of assertive discipline, there needs to be an escalating scale of consequences for continued disruptive or negative behavior.
Challenges in Enforcing School Discipline
Despite the multitude of discussions and viewpoints focused on how to successfully approach school discipline, problems in its enforcement remain a long endured part of the educational system. The misbehavior of children is common in all schools but is usually kept in manageable doses by teachers and administrators. However, in cases of poor administration and execution of school discipline, there looms the opportunity for a more widespread and potentially harmful breakdown of order. In recent years, there seems to have been an eruption of breakdowns within the educational system as illustrated by acts of violence against teachers and other students. Despite the frequency of such horrible occurrences in the contemporary world, such acts are not limited to this century and were happening as early as the 18th and 19th centuries. Effective discipline requires that parents, children and teachers consent to it. It is necessary that each party has a respect for school discipline and agrees with the set parameters of expectations and potential consequences. While students are not expected to enjoy punishment, if they have a clear understanding of the school rules and view them as equitable and reasonable, there will most likely be little resistance if they are accordingly followed. Along this line, it is imperative that punishment never appear to be arbitrary in nature as it can cause hostility and resentment. As a result of problems with school discipline, there has been a sizeable reduction in the amount of people who want to be teachers. In addition, teacher resignations are most usually a result of problems with student behavior and attitudes. This situation has created a cyclic problem because the lack of teachers has led to teacher shortages which in turn have led to the elimination of certain classes or the instruction of classes by people who are unqualified. This situation creates even more problems with school discipline as students are left in an unsteady environment with little or no consistency. In many countries and areas, there have been incentives made as enticements for people to become teachers, to vary degrees of success.
Boarding Schools and Discipline
Boarding school discipline takes a very different form with, more often than not, an arbitrary system of rule enforcement and discipline. Since the 19th century, boarding schools in Europe have utilized a "captain" system of discipline which requires that elder students play a very active role in the disciplining of students their junior. In this way, the elders would administer punishments that often constitute the harshest forms of school discipline. The punishments administered for transgressions in this "captain" system can include, even in modern times, forced exercise to the point of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and even severe abuse. The arbitrary and severe nature of such a system enforces an unquestioning adherence and respect for rules, and an environment of absolute compliance that is often deemed necessary in such institutions. Merchant Marine Academy all use similar forms of the "captain" system to create the necessary environment of strict discipline and adherence.
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Teacher Incentives
When a school's plan for instituting discipline does not prove successful, it can not only create a negative environment for students, but a negative environment for teachers as well. As bad student behavior continues to get more and more press, it has become more difficult for schools to meet their needs for teachers. There are fewer people who are willing to enter the profession, as well as fewer teachers who stay in the field for long periods of time. As a result, there has been an uprising of teacher incentives that aim at luring more teachers, and making it easier for teachers once they are active in the educational system. As a part of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government has created a Teacher Incentive Fund. The Teacher Incentive Fund was created in an attempt to meet the needs of schools for high quality educators, especially in areas where there are high-poverty and crime rates. The fund ensures that a teacher's compensation aligns with the quality of teaching, student achievement, and the need of schools. The majority of the Teacher Incentive Fund is used to reward teachers who have proven successful and to offer enticements for highly qualified teachers to teach in high poverty schools. The rest of the fund is allocated towards grants to State Educational Agencies, Local Educational Agencies, and non-profit organizations for the design and implementation performance-based compensation systems in order to successfully improve teacher compensation systems.
The Debate on School Uniforms
The subject of school uniforms is one that is often discussed and debated. On one hand, the enforcement of policies regarding uniformed dress codes in schools has been credited with improved discipline and classroom behavior, more respect for teachers, better academic performance, higher student self-esteem and confidence, lower clothing costs, increased feelings of group spirit, reduction in social divisions, and lower rates of violence and crime. On the other hand, the creation of mandatory uniforms in schools has also been said to be a violation of students' rights, unrelated to decreased violence and increased academic performance, hampering to students' individuality, and a source of negative feelings for students and, at times, parents. In a 1998 decision concerning the case of Canady v. Bossier Parish School Board, the Supreme Court concluded that a school has the right to enforce a uniform policy as long as the following parameters are met: the school board yields the power to create such a policy, the policy is of interest to the majority of the board, the policy does not aim to censor student expression, the policy does not censor student expression more than necessary. Despite the Supreme Court Ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken a stance against school uniforms, and suggests that schools hold on to opt-out provisions that allow for a student, with parental permission, to opt-out of wearing the school's uniform. The American Civil Liberties Union has stated, "Every child in this country has the right to a public school education, and that right cannot be conditioned upon compliance with a uniform policy. Some parents and children will have religious objections to uniforms.
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