Cause/Effect Educational Issue the Strict

Cause/Effect Educational Issue

The strict high-disciplinary times in previous decades have been replaced by much more lenient times. However, no one is gaining from this scenario. Students are not learning, parents are becoming sue happy and teachers are leaving the schools for less threatening environments. The introduction of programs that specifically address behavioral concerns as well as enhanced communication among parents and teachers may be one of the answers.

Cause -- Decreased discipline; Effect -- Unruly and unproductive classrooms.

Example of student returning to earlier school and seeing difference.

Rise of sue-happy society

Examples behavior programs: PAR and PBIS.

Need for increased communication between parents and teachers.

Conclusion

In earlier generations, schools were known for their discipline and structure. Teachers expected students to remain quietly in their seats and only respond when being questioned. The instructor, right or wrong, was the law -- keeping order like a police officer. Since then, education has all but eliminated this form of prison tactics. Schools are seen as places where students should have the opportunity to express themselves freely and openly. In fact, it may be that schools have gone too much in the other direction. With greatly diminished discipline provided, the amount of learning has also lessened in many classrooms. Somehow, schools have to find a healthy balance between Gestapo control and students run amuck if the educational process in the United States expects to continually improve.

The magazine article Intervention in School & Clinic (2003) relates a story about Karl P, a student who returns to his alma mater after receiving his college degree in education. However, he is displeased and confused to see that his previous classroom was unorganized and chaotic. Even students without identified disabilities and behavior problems displayed little respect or regard for each other or for any adults. Disruptions to the lessons were common, as were swearing and unproductive trips to the principal's office.

Karl's experience is not unique. The lack of school discipline continues to be the most persistent and quite possibly the most troubling issue facing schools. In fact, many teachers find they have to spend as much time on discipline as on instruction. They acknowledge they are losing control of their classrooms. Further, school district data have indicated that disciplinary removals are being recorded at excessive rates.

One of the reasons teachers have stopped their disciplinary measures is the rise of a litigious society. A national survey of 725 middle and high school teachers and 600 parents released in May found: 1) Nearly half of teachers complain they have been accused of unfairly disciplining a student; 2) Over 50% of recipients say behavioral problems often stem from teachers who are soft on discipline because "they can count on parents or schools to support them"; 3) Nearly 45% of teachers say documentation requirements go beyond common sense and are used primarily to protect schools from potential lawsuits; and 5) Over one in three teachers say they have seriously considered quitting the profession -- or know a colleague who has left -- because student discipline and behavior became so intolerable (District Administration). The bottom line is that teachers should be able to deal with classroom and school-wide discipline issues without undue fear of being hung out to dry.

What is to be done to rectify this situation? Dave Rose, a member of the babyboomer generation, hates to admit that his parents were right. There was something to be said about "duck-and-cover drills and the occasional ruler across the knuckles." The laxness today is not much better, he notes in an article in the America's Intelligence Wire (2004).

Although hitting a child across the hand would most likely cause a great deal of lawsuits, these days, there are a number of newer approaches that are being tried to find a happy behavior medium. Karl P's school, for example, introduced a Prevention, Action Resolution (PAR) Comprehensive Behavior Management system. This is a process-based model where collaborative teams join together to form consensus on a positive and supportive school-wide approach to behavior management for all children. It consists of plans and strategies to Specifically, plans and strategies to 1) prevent the occurrence of troubling behavior; 2) act, or respond to, instances of rule compliance and noncompliance in a consistent fashion; and 3) resolve many of the issues that underlie or cause troubling behavior (Rosenberg, 2004, p.12).

In this process, rules, procedures, and routines allow the adults in the school to communicate the behavioral standards and expectations of the learning environment to their students. Specifically, rules identify, define, and operationalize the school's conceptualization of acceptable behavior, and procedures spell out the steps necessary for the successful and appropriate completion of an activity, task, or operation. Succinct unambiguous rules and procedures serve as the discriminative stimuli for appropriate classroom behavior and actually motivate students to adhere to behavioral standards (ibid).

Another approach is the use of Positive Behavior Interventions System (PBIS), or "the application of positive behavioral interventions and systems to achieve socially important behavior change" (Sugai et al., 2000, p. 133). Under a system of PBS, intervention is focused on proactive prevention at three levels: primary or the entire system, prior to problems, secondary, or small groups of students, to reduce initial problems, and tertiary or individuals with the most intense problems, to prevent crises and long-term failure.

Other schools are relying on some good old common sense and increased communication. The survey noted above (District Administration 2004) indicates that 69% of teachers say finding ways to hold parents more accountable for kids' behavior would be an effective solution to the schools' discipline problems. All sides say it is imperative that schools and parents find a way to work together.

Another study, this time by the Teaching Interrupted, a recent Public Agenda report, finds secondary school discipline problems threaten student achievement and drive teachers out of the profession (Fratt, 2004). More than one-third of teachers have considered leaving the profession or know someone who has left because of discipline issues. The study also showed that About 80% of parents and teachers say discipline issues begin at home; parents' failure to teach discipline is a primary cause of school problems.