My Ideal Level of Disciplining in My Classroom and Challenges I believe May Occur.

 

My Ideal Level of Disciplining in My Classroom and Challenges I believe May Occur. 

Author: Santosh Kumar Biswa, Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan

 

Discipline management in the classroom is one of the most challenging areas for a teacher to manage. As a teacher, I am always aware of any kinds of probable consequences that I may have to face when deciding to punish students in my classroom. Sometimes it becomes quite difficult to handle the type of disciplinary issues we face in the classroom. The most common forms of disciplinary issues that we can observe in my country’s classroom are; irregularity in the classroom, poor hygiene, dress code, use of abusive language, fighting in the classroom, not submitting the homework, sleeping in the classroom, overruling the teacher’s instructions, distracting the class in the middle of the lesson and attending the class after abusing the substance (BBS, 2012). Such disruptive behavior hampers the smooth flow of the lesson and the learning output. Thus, disciplining students becomes a concern for a teacher who can guide student’s behavior that allows them to learn about taking care of themselves and others, but the ineffective disciplining method never does it (Wikipedia, 2021). Thus, A positive classroom climate promotes a positive and supportive learning environment where pupils are encouraged to have a sense of belonging (Young, 2014) and allow students to be strong both academically and socially (Marzano and Marzano, 2003).

Such disciplinary issues are common in my country because most of the students are from broken families who live with their grandparents and there is no one to guide them. Another reason is that they mostly come from remote villages and are found behaving wildly in the classroom. Finally, their disruptive behaviors are due to the disturbed family at home. In such cases, low guiding and medium interacting models of discipline have proven to be the failed approach because I as a teacher had personally tried and had failed. I tried to remain focused on identifying students' disciplinary issues and helping them develop their self-discipline despite their mistakes in hand, guiding them, letting them think of solutions to correct themselves, and letting them take responsibility for the choices they make so that their dignity remains intact (Classroom Management, n.d.) but it proved to be a failed procedure because quite often I find students taking advantage of being simple and considerate. As per Churchill (2005), I tried to provide a sense of power to students to prepare them to be good decision-makers by allowing them to decide for their misbehavior but it ended differently. I noticed that students overtook the decision due to the gained confidence and less intervention from their teacher. Instead of improving their inner force for personal growth through the self-directed process (Classroom Management, n.d.). it was observed that they ended up visiting the toilet frequently for smoking purposes which is against the rules of the school.

Concerning all the above problems, my ideal level of discipline in my classroom is higher intervening from the teacher in which I would have control over my classroom for any misconduct and ensure a better learning experience. It would ensure guided positive involvement of students in any activities conducted for the students. With the set rules and their consequences, no bridging of the rules takes place (Wikipedia, 2021) because it is based on the behavior of the students where children try to develop through guided conditions, making them dependent on external forces in the management of their discipline (Classroom Management, n.d.). I will be acting as a driving force in disciplining them by designing the rules, rewards, and punishment system based on the type of behaviors they conduct in the classroom.

One challenge I believe will occur when planning my classroom discipline philosophy through the higher intervening model is that it may pull down the self-esteem of the students who are caught with the disciplinary issues that would ultimately demotivate them (The International Child and Youth Care Network, 2013). I will be always scared of meeting their expectations and such disciplining may create a gap between the teacher and students due to the strict rules to be followed by them that may have a negative impact on the learning output. The type of reward and punishment that we enforce may not appeal to them and may become the source of demotivation and the demotivated students can’t learn well. Another challenge that I may face would be a willingness to adopt the rules by students as quite often students are seen bridging the rules or students trying to react to the teachers. However, the higher models always work in the classroom where students are disruptive at a higher level. Many a time, in my country, I often heard students breaking the windshield of their teacher’s car for being strict with them because they thought that their teacher hated them and it hinders me that such incidents may sometimes come to me too. 

To conclude, such type of modeling is working in my case because I am able to manage the classroom well these days and students are found adjusted. 

 

Reference

BBS. (2012). Categorising Disciplinary Problems in Schools. Retrieved September 16, 2021 from http://www.bbs.bt/news/?p=11959

Churchill, W.  (2005). Managing the Classroom Environment. Retrieved September 14, 2021 from https://us.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/4932_Moore_Chapter_13.pdf.

Classroom Management. (n.d.). Models of Discipline Chapter 2. Retrieved September 14, 2021 from https://sites.google.com/site/secondaryteacher486/classroom-management/models-of-discipline-low-approach

Marzano, R. J., & Marzano. J. S. (2003). The Key to Classroom Management. Retrieved September 8, 2021 from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Marzano/publication/283749466_The_Key_to_Classroom_Management/links/56f26c0908aed354e57293d3/The-Key-to-Classroom-Management.pdf

Wikipedia. (2021). School discipline. Retrieved September 11, 2021 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_discipline#Disparities

Young, J. (2014). The importance of a positive classroom. In Encouragement in the Classroom. ASCD.   Retrieved September 11, 2021 from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/sf114049/chapters/The-Importance-of-a-Positive-Classroom.aspx