Middle-school teacher David Huber is completely in agreement with an article about the decline of discipline in British schools and the reaction of the educational establishment in abdicating authority.
The original article is by Dave Perks, who teaches physics at a British school:
A quick look at Sue Cowley's Getting the Buggers to Behave, a recent popular survival guide for teachers in the classroom, gives us a few clues as to which side is in the ascendancy. She begins with good clear advice that before children can learn they need to 'concentrate' and 'behave themselves'...
But read on and something else is implied in the book. In tackling the first lesson with a new class, Sue Cowley stresses the need to avoid confrontation. She suggests that allowing the student to win 'will end the confrontation and save you undue stress', and adds 'they only think they have won' because 'you know you are really in the right'...
There is a contradiction built into the advice given in this book and other popular guidelines on behaviour management. It is assumed that, as a teacher, you have no authority over the pupil other than your position as an adult in the classroom - an adult who is in any case severely constrained by the expectation that the pupil's rights come first.
Behaviour management techniques assume that the relationship between pupil and teacher is one founded on lack of respect...This might work if the task is to keep behaviour to acceptable minimum standards so that those who overstep the mark can be removed and dealt with. What it does not do is create an atmosphere based on respect for the teacher...
In one sense, all that books like Sue Cowley's do is recognise that teachers, like all adults, are hampered in their relationships with young people and children by a failure to discipline children in society at large. Society increasingly seems to be losing respect for all adults and authority figures...
Mr. Perks links the lack-of-respect crisis to a deeper one:
Academic standards have become so devalued that students are allowed into schools to study A-levels with such low grades they are nearly guaranteed to fail, which has the effect of packing A-level classes with unmotivated and poor achieving pupils...
The consequent decline in discipline results in a behavioural focus - for instance insisting on the wearing of student ID cards, with students sent home from lessons if they fail to do so....[but evidence]...makes it clear that having large numbers of disenchanted and unsuitable A-level students does much to encourage fights and vandalism within schools.
A focus on high academic standards, even if it means allowing weaker students to fail, would give teachers a much easier way of explaining the need for discipline...
And here's US teacher David Huber's response to the article, where he places the blame squarely on education programs:
One of the "core" classes for my education masters degree -- titled "Behavior and Classroom Management" -- emphasized such "tactics" as third party mediators for teacher-student disputes. One was a thoroughly humiliating video series titled "Discipline with Dignity" which essentially put the teacher on the same authoritative plane as the student. In a response paper to these "classroom strategies," I was excoriated by my professor for my "visceral attitudes" and "controlling personality"...
And as for the "you can't touch me" line so common among students, again, I'd be rich if I had a nickel for each time I've heard that. Whenever I'm confronted with an intransigent student...I offer "Don't believe the myth that I cannot touch you if you refuse to comply with a reasonable request, which I just offered you three times. I will take your arm and escort you from this room if you refuse to leave this time." This doesn't mean that I may not be sued if I end up having to take such action, but Delaware law is very clear on the matter -- I'd be in the right.
The US Dave agrees with the British Dave that decreasing academic standards accompany a decreasing amount of respect for the teacher's judgment:
More and more, year after year, I see "honors students" in my classes who are clearly not such. "Honors" means more than just intellectual ability -- it means superb work ethic. This ethic is clearly decreasing...
This year alone I've either had conferences with "honors" parents or heard news of such where these "honors" parents have complained about "too much homework," "the teachers are not doing enough to 'help' their child," and "you're 'picking on my child' by constantly asking him/her to be quiet in class."
Posted by kswygert at February 23, 2004 03:46 PM