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Classroom Discipline: Teachers' Preferences

Ramon Lewis
Abstract: 

Although many states in Australia have abolished corporate punishment, are teachers replacing authoritarian beliefs with democratic ones when dealing with classroom discipline?

Journal issue: 

CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE:

TEACHERS’ PREFERENCES

Ramon Lewis
La Trobe University

Classroom management touches upon very basic notions of children and the authority of adults and social institutions. What is actually happening in classrooms?

Arecent analysis of school discipline policies in all states of Australia has led one reviewer to conclude: “It is clear that government guidelines are advocating, and taking firm steps in implementing, a democratic style of leadership in schools.” Most states in Australia have already abolished corporal punishment and generally encourage parent and student participation in the formulation of schools’ discipline policies. The rhetoric therefore is that teachers are currently changing from autocratic and authoritarian relationships to more democratic ones.

As one who has visited approximately 50 Australian post-primary classrooms each year for the last 15 years I would argue that it is undeniable that there has been a lessening of autocratic authority structures in Australian classrooms since the second world war. However this observation is not sufficient to justify the conclusion that teachers are replacing authoritarian beliefs with democratic ones.

This paper looks at the attitudes of almost 1000 teachers towards three alternative styles of classroom discipline.

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO DISCIPLINE

The range of approaches available to respond to misbehaviour vary widely from the teacher visually looking on, at one end of the continuum, with physical intervention and isolation at the other. Between these extremes are non-directive statements, questions, directive statements, modelling and reinforcement. There are three theoretical approaches to discipline, each of which is based on assumptions about how students best learn and each of which is tolerated by Western democratic traditions of schooling. One way of labelling these three styles of discipline are:

Image student oriented

Image teacher oriented

Image group oriented.

The three approaches cover the full range of disciplinary models in schools, although of course, some school approaches comprise techniques from two or three models. The models can be readily distinguished by reference to the answers to two questions regarding disciplinary procedures. The first question is “Who is responsible for determining what expectations for behaviour will apply in schools, that is, which behaviour will be deemed appropriate and which inappropriate?” The second question asks, “Who is responsible for ensuring that students act in a way that is consistent with the expectations, once they have been determined?”

THE TEACHER-ORIENTED APPROACH

The teacher-oriented approach assumes that teachers have the right and the obligation to decide what are to be the rules for appropriate behaviour. Further, by a judicious use of recognitions and rewards for appropriate behaviour, and a hierarchy of punishments for inappropriate behaviour, teachers ensure that their expectations are met. In these types of disciplinary models power and responsibility rest with the teacher.

THE STUDENT-ORIENTED APPROACH

In contrast, there is a student-oriented alternative in which the teacher shares power fully with individual students. This approach emphasises negotiation as a means of handling misbehaviour in the classroom. It is based on an assumption that students who are disciplined by a powerful teacher will not develop self-discipline. Therefore, rather than having an obligation to force or entice students to behave appropriately the teacher has an obligation to indicate to students when their behaviour is problematic, clarify with them their view of the situation and negotiate new ways of behaving that are acceptable to both the teacher and students.

The teacher can also act as a counsellor and a consultant, addressing with the students the likely consequences of their behaviour. In addition, the teacher can provide the students with the opportunity to experience the results of their inappropriate behaviour so that they can choose to modify the way they behave.

THE GROUP-ORIENTED APPROACH

The third approach to power-sharing falls between the teacher- and the student-oriented approaches. This is a group-oriented approach and assumes that students as members of a school community are responsible to that community and as essentially social beings will be willing to act in socially responsible ways to ensure group acceptance. Rather than having an individual teacher control the behaviour of all students or having each student left to negotiate his or her own mode of behaviour, the supporters of the group-oriented approach argue that power resides with the group. Consequently all rules and consequences are determined by classroom meetings at which the teacher is a group leader, with no more right to determine classroom policy than any other member of the group. Once policy is determined, however, the teacher is obliged to implement it.

The techniques which a group uses to police its members may occasionally look a lot like the procedures developed within the teacher-oriented approach. The major and vital distinction between the two however, is that the teacher-oriented approach is primarily focused on the student conforming. In that approach the use of “choice” for students to either do as they are told or be punished with a consequence, is largely a fake choice as continued misbehaviour results in more severe punishment.

In the group-oriented approach the choice is genuine and, although unpleasant consequences may follow inappropriate behaviour, the right of students to make a choice is of the utmost importance. This is because most group-oriented theorists and practitioners believe that only through genuinely free choice can students come to set limits on their own behaviour. One of the most common consequences for students who behave inappropriately is “time out”, that is, being sent to a non-punitive space either in or out of the classroom, where they can reflect on their behaviour and plan for a better future. They are free to return to their class from “time out” as soon as they agree to act in a socially responsible manner.

METHODOLOGY

To assess teachers’ attitudes to these three styles of classroom discipline a questionnaire was developed containing six sets of three items. For each statement (constituting an item) respondents were provided a six point response format comprising: strongly agree, agree, tend to agree, tend to disagree, disagree and strongly disagree respectively. The following nine statements are examples of those provided.

1. How should decisions be made about children’s behaviour in the classroom?

a. The teacher and not the student should generally decide.

b. The teachers and students should generally decide together.

c. The students and not the teachers should generally decide.

2. If two students fight over the use of a piece of equipment for school which belongs to one of them (for example a ruler) and break it, what should the ideal teacher do?

a. Have the students decide with the teacher what should happen.

b. Explain to the students that they shouldn’t have broken it, and provide suitable punishment (for example, pay for it).

c. Let the students decide for themselves what to do about it.

3. Which of the following is the way for an ideal teacher to help students to behave properly, other than by his or her personal example?

a. Let the students work out their own way of behaving after they see how they affect others.

b. Make sure they behave properly by rewarding and punishing them when it is necessary.

c. Continually decide with the class how students should behave.

In each of the sets of three items, one alternative exemplified a teacher-oriented approach where the teacher is in total control and manipulates students’ behaviour by using a combination of rewards and punishments (for example, items 1a, 2b and 3b above). The second approach, as exemplified by items 1b, 2a and 3c, assumes that the power to deal with misbehaving students is exercised by the group which comprises students and the teacher. The final approach is one which allows students to apply self-discipline, and discourages intervention by a powerful teacher or a powerful class. This approach is characterised by items 1c, 2c and 3a. In total there were six items characterising each model of discipline.

RESULTS

Analysing the data showed that classroom teachers support most an approach to classroom discipline which shares decision making between teacher and students. The teacher-oriented approach ranks a close second and very little support is provided for the idea of allowing students to independently monitor their own behaviour. Further, there is a substantial percentage of both primary and post-primary teachers who clearly support the group- and teacher-oriented approaches although they reject the student-oriented approach.

Because of the substantial variation in teachers’ strength of feeling about the various approaches, the data was further analysed on three variables. These were the respondent’s gender, the respondent’s years of teaching experience, and the year level at which the “ideal” teacher was hypothetically teaching. It was found that the level of teacher support for the three styles of discipline varies systematically with the gender of the teacher and the year level of the class for which the issue of discipline was being considered.

Female teachers are more supportive of sharing power with students than are male teachers. This finding holds true for each scale and at every year level with one exception, the group scale at year levels 3 and 4.

This finding is consistent with other research on women’s leadership styles which indicates that:

Women’s leadership styles are expressed through communication patterns which are more typical of collegial than autocratic endeavours. Women’s language patterns create a consensual and participative atmosphere for decision making.

The third general result is a tendency for teachers, both male and female, to desire an increase in the concentration of power in the teacher in higher grade levels. Similarly, they show a lessening attraction for the group- and student-approaches to discipline with increasing grade level.

COMPARISON WITH OTHER STUDIES

It is interesting to compare the findings of this investigation with those of two other related studies, which indicate that teachers are less group-oriented in practice than they would ideally prefer to be.

The first, a study conducted in Melbourne reporting 710 students’ perceptions of their teachers’ behaviour, concludes that “teachers are overwhelmingly seen as…acting in a manner consistent with an assertive approach to classroom discipline”.

The second, an analysis of almost 300 Melbourne schools’ codes of conduct for students, notes that over 90 percent of the codes, which specify how discipline is to be implemented in the school, reflect teacher-oriented approaches.

Clearly there would appear to be some gap between what teachers would ideally like to utilise in schools and that which is practicable. One of the reasons for this may well be related to the findings of a survey of over 1000 parents in Melbourne that notes “parents on average strongly prefer teachers to be very much in charge”.

EDUCATION VERSUS MANAGEMENT

What are the educational and managerial impacts of classroom discipline? This dichotomy is not a recent phenomenon. As early as 1914 Bagley identified a number of functions of discipline when he examined the then, current educational scene. He described the functions of discipline as, firstly “The creation and preservation of the conditions that are essential to the orderly progress of the work for which the school exists.” Currently, this disciplinary perspective, described as a managerial rationale, is one within which discipline is viewed as a collection of techniques and strategies employed by teachers to facilitate order in the classroom. This order is necessary so that a learning environment is developed to maximise the learning of school subjects.

A second function of discipline can be seen as “The preparation of the pupils for effective participation in an organised adult society which while granting many liberties balances each one with a corresponding responsibility.” In the 1990’s this function of discipline is described as an educational function, where discipline is perceived as a learning experience via which students learn about the rights of individuals, particularly individuals who are in conflict. Consequently, an educational view of discipline perceives each approach to discipline as providing a potentially valuable educational experience.

The type of approach selected by a teacher depends on which values he or she wishes to promote in the classroom. For example, consider a teacher who would like to encourage student participation in group activities such as rule development and conflict resolution. Student participation may be seen by this teacher as providing an avenue for students to develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes necessary for future participation in democratic decision making. Alternatively, teachers may wish to implement a teacher-oriented approach, with limited or no student participation in decision making processes. These teachers may prefer to judiciously apply rewards and punishments in the classroom so that they may facilitate in students the development of values of conformity and obedience to legitimate authority.

Given that the majority of teachers, while providing support for both the teacher-oriented and group-oriented approaches, are more commonly likely to be implementing the former it is initially useful to reflect on the strength and weaknesses of the teacher-oriented approach.

It can be argued that the teacher-oriented approach, based as it is on behaviour modification principles, can generally be relied upon to establish order in the classroom. It is quite efficient and generally well appreciated by students, parents and teachers. Further, its use of rewards for good behaviour tends to identify it as a positive approach. The educational impact of such an approach, however, has been the focus of severe criticism. First, the approach has been criticised as emphasising irrational obedience to authority as well as limiting the development of rational problem solving.

Secondly, its emphasis on rewards has been criticised as teaching students to forgo intrinsic motivation in favour of extrinsic motivation. It is suggested that students who are rewarded excessively may come to devalue the enjoyment of achievement and learning for its own sake. Nevertheless, the argument that children should only be punished in order to encourage them to act responsibly but not rewarded to achieve the same ends is difficult to sustain rationally. For example one could hope that any student who is suspended from a school as a result of his or her misbehaviour has first experienced the full range of rewards and recognitions (as well as consequences) in a bid to see if these will keep him or her in school (and on task). It may even be necessary to keep a substantial minority of students working productively in school by “rewarding them severely”.

The third major criticism of teacher-oriented approaches is that if they are not used in the context of a clearly communicated framework of moral norms it can lead to a situation where students do not readily develop self-discipline, even though they may behave in an appropriate manner. That is, the judicious use of rewards and punishments may simply promote conformity to what are someone else’s rules. There may be little guilt or shame associated with inappropriate behaviour, as the responsibility for the students’ behaviour may be perceived by students as resting entirely with the school administration and teaching staff.

Fourthly, and finally, teacher-oriented approaches, particularly those which emphasise, at the expense of recognition and reward, negative consequences applied to unacceptable behaviour, may alienate a minority of students who fail to derive from schools a feeling of competence, usefulness and belonging. Such students may eventually fail to respond to the application of punishments and consequently be permanently marginalised.

It is, of course, possible to argue that students who are in the habit of acting appropriately will eventually internalise the restrictions originally externally applied to their behaviour by teachers. In doing so the locus of control is assumed to transfer from the teacher, who is initially responsible for applying the rewards and punishments, to the student who ultimately becomes self regulating.

To increase the likelihood of such a transition it would be important to accompany rewards and punishments with frequent explanations and discussions with students regarding both the norms of the school community and the inappropriateness of their misbehaviour. It may also require an apology from students and some form of ritual signifying their readmittance to, or acceptance by the school community. Such techniques, which are clearly related to the development of guilt and shame in students, in a reintegrative setting, would appear to be critical to facilitating the internalisation by students of external strictures. Their usage is argued therefore to minimise the likelihood of marginalisation of miscreants and the formation of a counter culture of nonconformers within a school.

Regardless of how successful such an authoritative approach to discipline may be it could still be problematic. According to one researcher:

If our present democratic system is not only going to survive but more importantly develop then, from the very onset of schooling, modes of behaviour and attitudes must be formed that are fundamentally democratic. Indeed, unless such practices commence in the primary sector the chances of involving young people in participatory decision making, even in such informal educational settings as the Youth Service, appear to be slight… by the time they reach their teens they have neither the skills, confidence nor experience to take power even when it is genuinely offered them.

Although it has been argued that the process of schooling does not have to be democratic in order to prepare students for a democratic society it has also been said:

If you want people to live by social justice there is only one way to do it, and that is to initiate them into the practice of social justice. It is not done by teaching about what society might be like if you did. We only come to understand what things mean and how they work through the actual use of language discourse critique and other practice.

In summary, therefore, participation in decision making, which is central to most definitions of democracy, is argued by some to be a necessary component of children’s education. It needs to be stressed, however, that according to many proponents of democratic education, although participation per se is necessary, it is not sufficient to guarantee democratic schooling. Groups of people have, at different times, co-operatively determined the most undemocratic of actions. What distinguishes undemocratic co-operative processes from democratic ones is that:

Democratic decisions are determined within the bounds of the principles of non-discrimination and non-repression.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CLASSROOM

It is clear from the data presented earlier that if teachers are going to persist with even the most rudimentary elements of democratic education, namely, participative decision making, they will need to be sufficiently convinced of its value. Whether one focuses on a broad definition of democratic education or a more limited definition of democratic participation, it is clear that there are curriculum implications. At the very least, students and teachers would require enough substantive knowledge to convince them of the need to persist with the democratic, participative process they profess to support, in a school environment which may be at best unprepared and at worst hostile to any but an authoritative approach to classroom management.

The research noted above has implications for classroom practice, and policy formation, in the area of school discipline. With regard to the former, the research findings emphasise the counter-productive effects of a range of teacher disciplinary practices commonly exhibited in classrooms (for example, the use of group punishments, or lack of recognition of exemplary behaviour). Techniques and styles of discipline most acceptable to students, teacher and parents are also identified.

With regard to policy, the research findings highlight the need to develop a discipline policy that progressively provides more decision making for students as the ages and relevant skills of students increases. In doing so, the research brings into focus a gap that exists between parents’ and secondary teachers’ and to a lesser extent primary teachers’ and students’ expressed desire for teachers’ control over students, and Governmental support for the development of self-discipline in students.

There are gender differences in the findings in that women (teachers and parents) are more supportive of power-sharing in classrooms than are men. Reflection on the results of the research described above could assist teachers to develop classroom disciplinary procedures that would minimise students’ counterproductive reactions, including the likelihood that students will be distracted from their work by the teacher’s actions. It may also make teachers, and the subjects they teach, better liked by students, and in addition reduce teacher stress caused by student disruption. Finally the research challenges schools to develop styles of discipline which are not only based on what works, but which are also designed to transmit culturally relevant values about the rights of people in conflict.

NOTES

RAMON LEWIS combines classroom teaching with being on the staff at the School of Education at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne, where he has specialised in the area of classroom discipline for the last 12 years. His e-mail address is: edurl@lure.latrobe.edu.au.

The following research questions have served as the focus for surveys of, and interviews with, students, teachers and parents, as well as analyses of schools’ and governmental discipline policy statements: What disciplinary techniques are favoured by students, parents and teachers? What reasons do they give to support their preferences? What different styles of discipline do teachers exhibit and what are their effects on students? How consistent with Governmental policy is current classroom disciplinary practice and the preferences of the main players?

Full details of this study can be found in:

Lewis, R. (1994). Classroom discipline: Preparing our students for democratic citizenship. Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, University of Newcastle.

The analysis of Australian school discipline policies is by:

Slee, R. (1992). Discipline in Australian public education: Changing policy and practice. Victoria: The Australian Council for Educational Research.

The review of these policies is on page two of:

Balson, M. (1992). Understanding classroom behaviour. (3rd Edition). Victoria: The Australian Council for Educational Research.

Research on women’s leadership styles is reported on pages 43-61 of:

Robertson, H. J. (1992). Teacher development and gender enquiry. In A. Hargreaves & M.G. Fullan (Eds.), Understanding teacher development. London: Cassell Villiers House.

Other studies on Melbourne students’ perception of their teachers’ behaviour and codes of behaviour for students include:

Lewis, R. & Lovegrove, M.N. (1988). Students’ views on how teachers are disciplining classrooms. In R. Slee, (Ed.), Discipline and schools: A curriculum perspective. Melbourne: Macmillan.

Lewis, R. & Lovegrove, (1989). Parents’ attitudes to classroom discipline. Journal of Australian Studies, 25, 11-12.

Lewis, R. (1994). Codes of conduct in schools of the future. Melbourne: Directorate of School Education.

The functions of discipline described by Bagley are from:

Bagley, W.C. (1914). School discipline. New York: Macmillan.

That a teacher-oriented approach is efficient and generally well accepted by students, parents and teachers is noted in:

Lewis, R., Lovegrove, M.N. & Burman, E. (1991). Teachers’s perceptions of ideal classroom disciplinary practices. In M.N. Lovegrove & R. Lewis (Eds.), Classroom discipline. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

The argument that in order for democracy to survive young children need to be involved in decision making is from:

Jeffs, T. (1988). Preparing young people for participatory democracy. In B. Carrington & B. Toyna (Eds.), Children and controversial issues. London: Falmer Press.

Hirst, P. (1990). A curriculum for social justice. American Educational Research, 17(2) p 51.

The reverse argument, that the process of school does not have to be democratic, is from:

Gutman, A. (1987). Democratic education. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

McCaslin, M. & Good, T.L. (1992). Compliant cognition: The misalliance of management and instructional goals in current school reform. Educational Researcher, 21(3), 4-6.

The differences between undemocratic and democratic decisions are summarised on page 188 of:

Gutman, A. (1987). Democratic education. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.