Welcome to Seenu Atoll School

Discipline

Posted on
  • Tuesday, July 10, 2012
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  • You would never think of setting up a math or reading program in your building that treated every student exactly the same. You would not expect all students to use the same reader. You would not place an entire school in the same math book. If you did any of these things, your school board and your community would demand an immediate explanation. Yet, we set up discipline systems in our schools that treat all students exactly the same. In fact, everyone expects us to do just that!

    Just as students function at different levels in reading and math, they also function at different levels, or stages, of discipline. It is possible to set up a consistent system for classroom discipline that will be appropriate for students functioning a t all stages and at the same time encourage them to work their way up to higher stages.

    There are many experts telling us how to handle discipline problems in our classrooms. Yet these experts do not always agree. Thomas Gordon, creator of Teacher Effectiveness Training staunchly opposes Lee Canter’s Assertive Discipline concept. Yet, both have enjoyed a great deal of success all across America. Trying to decide who is right and who is wrong seems quite difficult. Instead, let us assume that both of them are right, that they just are not talking about the same students!

    If we look at the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, we find the piece that will put this puzzle together. For many years Kohlberg studied stages of moral and ethical reasoning in youngsters from the United States, Taiwan, Mexico, Turkey, and Yucatan. One important fact that surfaced in his research is that everyone, regardless of culture, race, or sex, goes through these stages. Although the progression from stage to stage is the same, the rate varies from person to person. It is for this reason that we need to be prepared to address discipline in our classrooms at different levels. Our students are functioning at different stages on the road to self-discipline.