Since the late 1960s, the public has consistently ranked discipline as one of the top problems in public schools, according to an annual Gallup Poll on the public`s attitude toward education.
The topic has become important to educators as well. They believe discipline can be the key to solving many problems.
”Discipline is critical,” said Siegfried Mueller, principal of Amundsen High School on Chicago`s North Side. ”Without discipline, education cannot progress. If the teacher has to spend her time disciplining the unruly students, she can`t be teaching the other 20-some students who are ready to learn.”
”If you can`t manage kids and get them to sit down, how the heck are you going to teach them anything?” asked Judy Cooper, a former Minnesota school administrator who conducts workshops in the Midwest on assertive discipline techniques. ”Without discipline, how are you going to teach them math-or respect?”
Discipline has become a more urgent issue because of social change, especially in inner-city schools, educators said.
”As communities get more pathological and poorer and there is more social disorganization, discipline becomes a greater problem,” said Julius Menacker, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Menacker and associates have been working on a study of discipline practices called ”Using the Law to Improve School Order and Safety.” His research is concentrated on four Chicago public elementary schools that have severe discipline problems.
”To get and keep the attention of the kids in the inner city is much more difficult than 25 years ago,” said Barney Berlin, an associate professor of curriculum and human resource development at Loyola University`s Water Tower Campus.
”Part of that is because of the drug culture and part of that is because of television,” he said. ”Students expect things in five-minute bursts.”
Some inner-city children are easily frustrated and will stop work when they meet an obstacle, whereas other children may see obstacles as challenges, he said.
Educators have turned to a number of methods to address the issue of discipline. Menacker`s study is finding that the single best solution for dealing with discipline and school order has been the creation of an in-school suspension program. That approach has been adopted by the Chicago Board of Education for use in all public schools.
”Rather than throwing the kids out of school-which in some cases is a reward instead of punishment-schools are placing students in a room where they have supervision and teachers give assigned work,” Menacker said. ”The key to the success of this program is the excellence of the teacher who runs it.” Some educators say they believe keeping a student interested and involved in schoolwork can minimize discipline problems.
”The big thing now is cooperative groups of students working together,” said Berlin, who teaches discipline practices to Loyola elementary education students. ”Each group is assigned a task, each student is assigned a role and they get a community grade. The emphasis is on working together, which is likely to reflect the real world. This tends to be an effective teaching tool, particularly for students having difficulty.”
Discipline problems also can be kept to a minimum by prevention.
”Sometimes it`s not so much a discipline problem as a noise problem,”
Berlin said. ”But not all noise is bad. We (at Loyola) come from a Catholic school tradition, and you can still find people who were brought up in schools where you could have heard a pin drop. But a pin dropping isn`t necessarily a sign of learning.”
Berlin has four general guidelines to help teachers avoid discipline problems:
– Provide enough interesting work and keep students busy so they don`t get into trouble.
– Avoid a confrontation.
– Don`t overreact before punishing a child.
– Don`t use schoolwork as a punishment.
Teachers and administrators also realize that they need to be continually educated in discipline practices. They can take workshops such as those led by Cooper, who instructs educators through her own firm and the California-based Lee Canter & Associates, a firm that conducts educational seminars nationwide. Cooper said she emphasizes a positive approach in which teachers support appropriate behavior. ”If I want to stop a certain type of behavior, I can punish,” she said. ”But if I want to change behavior, I`ve got to support the behavior I want when I see it.”
Cooper said teachers at her seminars learn to believe that children can behave well.
”Assertive discipline is like an equilateral triangle,” she said.
”It`s got rules, consequences and positive support. For teachers to implement that triangle, they have to have an assertive attitude that says:
`All kids can behave, and I can be in charge in an appropriate way in the classroom.` ”
The first level of Cooper`s seminars is a six-hour, one-day session. The workshops are attended mostly by teachers, but bus drivers and school aides attend as well.
Cooper, who gives seminars in the Chicago area three to five times a month, has given them at the Pierce Elementary and Disney Magnet Schools in Chicago and schools in Maywood and Midlothian.
The result of her training can be a major reduction in classroom disruptions, Cooper said. ”After the seminar, teachers feel empowered,” she said. She has taught more than 5,000 U.S. teachers since she began giving the seminars in 1980.
Many school districts have established strict discipline codes. The Chicago public schools, for example, rely on a uniform discipline code that is updated annually to keep it firm, fair and consistent, Mueller said.
The code ”is to be used by teachers across the board,” said Mueller, who was the discipline code administrator for the Chicago public schools from May 1984 to September 1989.
Mueller said the code has made progress. ”In terms of equity, we have seen some definite improvements,” he said. Discipline ”is more even-handed. Summary judgments are not issued, and children have due process rights.”
Strong discipline practices aren`t found only in inner-city schools. Guidelines have been established in just about every school system, educators said.
Orland Elementary School District 135 in the south suburbs has created a precise discipline policy for its staff that covers everything including use of alcoholic beverages and narcotics and gambling. The substance abuse and gambling parts of the policy are rarely employed, but it is important nonetheless, district officials said.
Discipline ”has to be consistent,” said Bonnie Wilson, principal of Orland Park`s Liberty School, which includes grades 4 and 5 and classes for gifted 2nd and 3rd graders. ”You don`t want discipline to come as a surprise.”
The typical discipline problem at Liberty School is caused by children who become too ”rambunctious on the school playground,” Wilson said. ”For some reason, someone throws the football the wrong way, and because they`re kids . . . one kid is pushing another, etc.
”What happens then is a teacher or supervisor goes over and tells the kids to stop it, brings the kids into my office, and I talk to the kids and find out what`s involved. I try to show them why tempers were lost and what caused (the problem) in the first place. Then I try to show them what they could have done differently to prevent a fight. I try to make them realize there are alternatives.”
Children with first-time infractions receive a warning, Wilson said. ”I let their parents know that if they get in a physical fight again, it will result in a school detention.”
Suspensions are issued only if a child continually disrupts a classroom until he has to be separated from other students, Wilson said.
Putting discipline guidelines in place alone doesn`t ensure controlled schools, educators said. A lot has to do with how those rules are enforced.
”It depends on the (teachers),” Berlin said. ”Most successful
(teachers) don`t have problems with kids if they are able to challenge the kids and get them involved in schoolwork.”
Fairness is an important factor, Berlin said. ”Kids will rebel if one kid gets treated differently from another for the same offense,” he said.
