Classroom Discipline

The group with Jason, Cara, and Kirsten presented the issue of classroom discipline. Cara talked about the history. Originally classrooms were set up with students getting one on one attention with the teacher and the rest of the class was unsupervised. In order to keep the class on task fear tactics were used such as physical beatings for punishment if a student misbehaved. Corporal punishment was banned in most places in the United States by the 19th century. The next style of discipline was Bureaucratic. This style was very impersonal and teachers appointed students that were the best to be a ‘monitor’ and make sure the rest of the class behaved. Students were seated according to achievement so students could learn at an early age that achievers would make it in the world and those in the back would not. Humiliation tactics were used to keep students in line. Another style developed around the same time was soft-pedagogy. This style was very personal with the classroom functioning almost like a family. Students obey the teacher because of the guilt of disappointing the teacher. The teacher was seen as a parental figure capable of bestowing or withholding affection depending on the students’ behavior. The post-progressive movement saw the role of the teacher as an expert instead of a parental figure. Student teacher relationships turned into professional/client relationships. In this system students were either punished or rewarded immediately after the action. In this consumer society students and adults are used to instant gratification so schools decided to mirror that connection with discipline. How the students behave has a lot to do with what is expected of them by the teacher. Teachers’ styles fall along a continuum that starts with laissez-faire to authoritarian. A laissez-faire teacher is one that is very relaxed and simply gives off the vibe that he or she doesn’t care what the students do. An authoritarian teacher has everything the students do down to the minute and if students stray from the plan they are punished. I think the best way is to have structure but also allow students freedom with in reason. Students tend to invest more in the class if they feel they are a part of the process and are included in the decision making whenever possible. They then feel ownership of the class. This is called judicious discipline. Of course the best possible classroom management style is withitness. Withitness is when a teacher knows exactly what is going on in his or her classroom at all times. This is commonly referred to as having eyes in the back of one’s head. In this system a teacher can intervene before a situation because an issue.

I think that the group presented a lot of useful information. The history of discipline in classrooms was very interesting because I had always been under the impression that corporal punishment had been used as the standard method until modern day methods were introduced. In some places it still occurs but most places had banned it by the 19th century. I hope someday I might acquire withitness but obviously that takes time and practice.