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The Forum > Article Comments > The lost art of discipline > Comments

The lost art of discipline : Comments

By Kevin Donnelly, published 11/10/2013

The real problem - and one of the main reasons so many teachers leave after three to four years in the profession - is noisy and disruptive classrooms.

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The lost art of discipline?
What does the Author really want? The return of the cane?
Good discipline starts in the home and with the parents.
If one sees a spoiled "child" still sucking on mummy's breast at four or five, forget it!
The reasons Asians are able to exert more discipline? Is tiger mums expect more from an earlier age and simply won't tolerate insubordination!
The children are not in charge the parents are!
Bring back compulsory military service (boot camp) and school cadets.
No need to flog kids when you can demand forty-fifty-sixty pushups, or worse, ask it of the whole class; and then let peer group pressure sort out the miscreants.
Give the biggest bullies the responsibility, (badge of honor) of prefects and protecting the most vulnerable from the most aggressive.
Bring back Compulsory Phys Ed. And get some physical activity going.
[Give me ten laps around the perimeter Mr Jones, and if they're not completed in the half hour, do twice as many more.]
Say what you mean and mean what you say, don't ever repeat yourself; and do whatever you threatened to do, be it send them to the principle or send them home!?
Excused Pys Ed students will need to produce a doctor's report that claims they are medically compromised or unable. Hole in the heart or cerebral palsy, no legs sir or some such?
Don't dismiss the effective use of an always carried, rarely used authoritarian cane, slammed with effect on a table, with a pistol shot crack, to emphasis a particular point or lambast a disruptive male, feeling all the new found testosterone coursing through his veins. And for all practical purposes, is just a pair of walking gonads!
Separate the boys from the girls, but particularly at puberty. Which seems to be the most problematic time for co-ed classrooms/classes. And yes, the Finnish model is an excellent and effective example!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 11 October 2013 10:56:15 AM
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Rrhosty is spot on. If parents have not instilled - not inculcated - discipline right from the start, delaying gratification, ignoring tantrums etc, then by the time the kids get into kindy, it's all about over, red rover.ipline

My father was a big man but never had to raise his voice, my brother and I knew our place, and we toed the line, not out of fear but respect.

Discipline cannot be imposed by force, it must be instilled from within to work properly. And never by force.
Posted by SHRODE, Friday, 11 October 2013 11:22:34 AM
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And here I was thinking this would be about shot selection and playing a straight bat, wearing down the bowlers and playing to the conditions.

Damn.
Posted by Houellebecq, Friday, 11 October 2013 12:17:25 PM
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When I was a kid and if I told mum or dad I was in trouble with a teacher at school I got a back-hander to go on with. Post-modernist parents march into the Principal's office and bang on about their children's victimization, rights, and the terrible teacher.

Rather than building a phalanx of protective concern around kids who are bemused to see all the hand-wringing over them when they don't give a toss themselves (nor, often, do their parents), it's time to pull them out for special care before Oz loses further ground through their disruptive classroom behaviour.
Posted by Luciferase, Friday, 11 October 2013 12:56:19 PM
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A recent visit to a state primary school left me shaking my head. It was during the first period (when we used to be studying maths) and the noise from the classrooms was appalling. I am sure nothing was being taught or learnt. I made a comment to someone I presumed to be a parent and was told that the place was like that all the time. What hope do out youngsters have with that level of discipline? Maybe we do need to return to the times when if you were in trouble at school you knew you would be in a hell of a lot more when you got home.

Just for interest, my aunt (now in her 80s) after graduating with a science degree went to teach in north Queensland. She recalls being treated like royalty and was held in the highest esteem by the community. She had no problem with discipline. Getting a senior education back then was an honour and a privilege.
Posted by Sparkyq, Friday, 11 October 2013 1:37:09 PM
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Yes but how? I understand the Finnish localise a lot. Surely if parents were engaged with the school and its teachers (and vice-versa) it would be far more difficult for aberrant students to disrupt or for their families to play the victimisation card.

If much more responsibility was placed in the hands of families with, for example, a voucher system for each child, there would be the beginning of a transfer or responsibility from state management to local, personal and family management. We would then see more clearly where parents/guardians needed support and could establish local resources to provide it. The current top down, state management approach which pays lip service to local management, simply leaves too many unfilled gaps and degrades individual rights and responsibilities.

I taught in schools for three years in the 1970s and saw the beginnings of the unionisation of the teaching 'profession' and have watched with some horror as the Australian public school system (with notable exceptions) has deteriorated since then. The decision to unionise rather than professionalise has made a significant contribution to teachers' loss of status and to a reduction in their stature in their communities. Many more teachers perceive themselves as powerless and have joined the workers collective in which there is less and less individual responsibility, rather than seeing themselves as self-assured, professional, figures of authority and respect in their communities. The loss of pride in these people is saddening. I think this situation is inextricably linked to the way we permit the state to control and manage our childrens' education.
Posted by richierhys, Friday, 11 October 2013 4:19:26 PM
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