Opinion | Centres of chaos
what has happened to discipline in schools — the bedrock of a good education?
Why has discipline in schools gone out the window?
“Pupils are running riot and have no respect for their teachers”.
This is a common grouse by parents, teachers and other stakeholders in education as discipline among pupils in schools has reached rock-bottom.
This total lack of discipline is one of the many reasons for our education system sliding along a slippery slope towards catastrophe.
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The absence of discipline seriously hampers the teaching and learning process and if unruly behaviour persists, our education system will not succeed.
The questions are, why has discipline gone out the window, and why have schools and classrooms become centres of chaos rather than centres of learning?
A number of reasons can be advanced for this, but blame cannot be attributed to a single stakeholder.
Instilling discipline in pupils is the individual and collective responsibility of all stakeholders.
This includes the Education Department, teachers, school governing bodies, teacher unions, parents, community activists and religious leaders as well as social-welfare agencies.
The general assumption is that the schools and teachers are responsible for ensuring that pupils are well-disciplined since they spend most of their lives under their supervision and care.
The fact is that discipline starts and ends in the home with the family, more specifically with the parents.
Parents are the child’s first teachers and the way they bring up their children will have a defining influence on them as they develop into young adults.
A disciplined home environment will lead to a disciplined school environment. The majority of parents are responsible and care about the education of their children.
They are meaningfully involved and take an active interest in their curricular and co-curricular activities.
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From a young age they inculcate in them impeccable manners, strong family values, good morals and respect for both the young and the old.
These parents serve as role models for their children. But there are also the “unfit parents” who expose their children to immoral and wicked behaviour and social vices.
They imbibe alcohol and drugs, engage in violent behaviour and use unsavoury language in the presence of their children.
The children grow up thinking that these are acceptable forms of behaviour and imitate what their parents are doing.
These attitudes are then transferred to the school environment and the disciplinary problems arise.
Other parent-based factors that lead to a lack of discipline include wrong parenting styles and working parents who are mostly “absent”.
This lack of parental involvement and supervision leads to ineffective parental discipline and dysfunctional families.
It is a given that in order for proper discipline to be maintained in schools, positive parental involvement is of crucial importance.
Parents must work in close collaboration with the school and network with other stakeholders.
The root cause of the problem itself, the pupils, must also be highlighted. Their attitudes are the most significant reasons for the anarchy that reigns at schools.
Despite the fact that every school has policies — of which the disciplinary code of conduct is one of the most important — pupils still transgress the rules and are not properly sanctioned as they are aware that the procedures to be followed are long, and it will be a long time before they will be hauled over the coals.
The procedure when addressing breaches of school rules is akin to a police investigation.
Firstly, a report must be logged by the teacher who witnessed the incident who then has to follow protocol and inform the departmental head and senior management.
If the misdemeanour is of a serious nature, then the Education Department must be informed. A thorough investigation must be launched and all parties must be informed and interviewed.
This includes parents, perpetrators and victims. Only after a long process will the case reach finalisation.
To counteract this, the policies and disciplinary code of conduct must be reviewed so that disciplinary procedures are implemented as soon as the transgression is committed and sanctions effected immediately.
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Another important factor that has led to pupils behaving badly is that of the teachers’ attitude towards maintaining discipline.
Teachers, even the most experienced, can make mistakes that create discipline problems.
Some include the inaccurate assessment of pupils’ needs, a failure to plan daily activities adequately and keep pupils interested, and misreading the reactions of pupils.
In order to maintain discipline in the classroom, teachers should lead by example and allow pupils to participate in rule-making.
The adherents of “spare the rod and spoil the child” will allude to the fact that since corporal punishment has been outlawed in schools, discipline among pupils has plummeted.
But that is a topic for another time.
• Jordan Erradu is a former principal of a special needs school. He writes in his personal capacity.
