This is part III of Fight Against School Fights series.
The article is about identifying and dealing with students’ bad
behaviour in schools. Many school administrators do fear students’ reprisal
when dealing with students.
Fear lingers mainly because admins and school boards tend to fight students instead of their behaviours. Students' way of doing things against guided principles - negative students culture - when not monitored and corrected can lead to other chronic bad behaviours. The key word is chronic as such is contagious and spreads among students.
But, how does a one-off bad act becomes chronic?
I will discuss how to correct one bad act and contain it before it established tentacles among students.
Below are five ambiguous
areas where school administrators can exploit to contain bad students’ habits effectively.
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| Adapted: EMTV |
I am going to use the words act, habit and character. To
make readers understand them, I am putting them into context below.
Plant a thought, reap an act
Plant the act, reap a habit
Plant the habit, reap a character
The character determines a destination
1.
Discipline Vs Behaviour
Discipline is about moulding students’ behaviour.
It is not the end, it is always the beginning of a process. Every student who
enters a classroom whether they are from the street, village, middle class or
upper class has to be seen equal by teachers and school admin.
Educators often identify students’ abilities
by academic capabilities (bright and not-so-bright), leadership roles and
behaviour. What is important here is the fact that regardless of the student,
school has a responsibility to develop every student to live a happy and fulfilling
life – many call it the integral development.
Schools are there as institutions for moulding
and shaping minds and hearts of young people, hence systemic discipline is a vital element.
2.
Home Discipline Vs School Discipline
Many have a preconceived idea that discipline
starts at home. A line must be drawn between discipline at home and at school. Discipline always starts at home. This is true
for those who have decent family upbringing where parents are there to drill
into their children good habits.
Starting to learn about the world at home
is always effective (for sure) and that is where discipline starts by default. But, this can be a ‘dead
argument’ for students who do not have a place call home. What about student
living with 'wantoks, or students from broken and violent homes? And what about
students who have good homes, but are influenced by peers on the streets?
As long as students are in the school,
school takes responsibility on all matters pertaining to shaping good habits.
School as learning institution must instil good attitude in young men and women.
School has the ultimate duty to ensure this happens.
Classroom is WHERE a
parentless child sits with the privileged. School is where a violent dad does
not exist for the day. School and classroom are neutral grounds where character-shaping can
take place unobstructed.
3.
Protecting Students
Welfare of every student and teacher within
school precinct take precedence. More often many school administrators
concentrate on fixing fault instead of proactively building barrier to prevent
it.
By this I mean school admin and BoG often
overlook a few ‘rotten apples’ in school. That does not means those students
are rotten. It is their way of acting contrary to school’s norm and ethos that
is rotten.
In order to protect the integrity of school
and majority of students who are good, those behaviours have to be clearly
IDENTIFIED, MARKED and DEALT with.
4.
Targeting Behaviour Vs Targeting students
I mentioned the difference briefly above.
Most school administrators and BoG often target students instead of their behaviour.
This is where the problem is!
Bad habits, actions and behaviours are always
common year on year in every school. This can be an effective way to discover
students because you never tell from students names. Having an idea about bad
habits, bad actions and bad behaviours can help to solve students’ behavioural issues
forehand.
The point here is to fight the actions and behaviours
that are bad, instead of fighting with students. If it means revising school
disciplinary policy, by all means, do it!
5.
Discipline Within Classroom Vs Discipline Within
School
This is a major challenge for Lae city schools.
This is where classroom/subject teachers, class patrons, deputy principals and
principals are pivotal in application of discipline.
In behaviour management, there has to be
clear communication all throughout the process. Communication with student and
parents is the key; starting with verbal warning, referral to deputy principal,
punishment, warning letter to parents, facing BoG, etc. Expulsion/termination
should ever be considered as the last resort.
Discipline is always the start, not the
end. Applying discipline is about reinforcing good habits, getting students
into a good school culture and ensuring prudent behaviour exits the first time,
every time.
END: Following a clearly outlined disciplinary
process is the best way to control and contain bad habit before it takes
stronghold in students.
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In my next post I will undertake to concentrate on principals and deputy principals as the pillars of discipline and what they should do to foster good school culture ....
