On discipline in schools

Discipline in schools is very important! It helps to build the foundation for the school children’s success later in life. It is what helps children achieve good performance in school and it is responsible for maintaining order in the classroom, yet it constitutes one of the greatest challenges facing teachers nowadays. Discipline is defined as “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.”

A lack of proper parental and school discipline can result in disruptive behaviours in the classroom. Disruptive behaviour interferes with the teacher’s ability to effectively deliver a lesson, as it requires a large amount of the teacher’s time and attention, in order to be addressed. Disruptive pupils/students can also influence their peers with their actions and encourage them to behave similarly, thereby compromising the teacher’s authority.

Nowadays however, the views of many child psychologists on discipline conflict with what is recommended in God’s word, the Bible, as recorded in the verses of Proverbs quoted above. Their theories collide head on with the counsel we find in the scriptures.

If parents and teachers hold the children’s life interests dear to them, they will not weakly or carelessly let disciplinary action slip from their hands. Love will motivate them to take action, wisely and fairly, when it is needed.  As regards discipline itself, it is not limited to punishing. Discipline basically means ‘instruction and training that holds to a certain order or framework.’ Discipline, rightly given, is evidence to a child that he is loved.

Three types of discipline are preventive discipline, supportive discipline and corrective discipline. Children need consequences to mold and learn the correct ways to function. Without consequences, they will only continue poor behaviour choices, and many will escalate those behaviours over time. Children are always trying to figure out their world, and they do that by testing limits, pushing boundaries until they reach resistance.

However, teachers must refrain from applying such a “black and white” approach to dealing with unruly behaviour and use critical thinking instead to determine whether punishment is necessary. Teachers should always consider alternative options for dealing with bad behaviour, before proceeding with punishment.”

Acceptable forms of punishment include but are not limited to: demerit systems, apologies, time-out, detentions, being made to write essays, being made to pick up litter around the school, among others.

In case of severe problems with classroom management and children that are unresponsive to corrections, teachers should reach out to colleagues for support and involve the school’s administration and the child’s family when necessary.

Daniel Ighakpe, Lagos State.

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