“I
went to Catholic school, and that kind of stuff did not fly there,” is a phrase
that I repeatedly hear myself say when talking to my team members or teacher
friends about students’ behavior and discipline. When I was in school, at a tiny Catholic school
in Dundalk, Maryland, disruptive behavior simply wasn’t tolerated. Little things that I deal with as a teacher
every day—talking back, yelling and being disrespectful to peers, pushing, and
being disruptive in class—simply weren’t allowed. There wasn’t a discussion, there weren’t any
options or second changes. Once you got
in trouble, you were in trouble and that was the end of that.
I believe that my upbringing in
schools (I followed my K-8 Catholic School with an all girl’s Catholic High
School) really plays into how I feel about discipline as a person and as a
teacher. I consider myself a strict
teacher, and I set high behavioral expectations for my students. One reason is that I need non-disruptive behavior
in order to teach the most effectively and also because I am trying to prepare
them to function further in their education and in real life.
The Articles
As I was perusing articles this week
to determine what I wanted to blog about, I came across two articles in the New
York Times that were themed in student discipline. The first article, “The Unintended
Consequences of Taking a Hard Line on School Discipline,” discussed the
unintended consequences of the “Zero Tolerance” policy. It explains the roots of the policy and how
it has been expanded quite beyond its intended reach of stopping gun violence
to suspending students for minor incidences, such as kicking a trash can or
drawing on a desk. The second article, “An
Effective but Exhausting Alternative to High School Suspensions,” discussed
alternative methods to high school suspensions, specifically focusing on
restorative justice and also the need to discuss race and its relation to
discipline.
My Thoughts
The first article that I read was
pretty eye-opening for me. It mentioned
several incidences where elementary school students, even those with diagnosed
disabilities, were being suspended for minor incidences, like drawing on a
desk. Honestly my first thought was where is this happening? Because the people
I have spoken to can’t get any type of disciplinary action taken at all. In some of my own experiences, and in those
of some teachers I have talked to, it is very difficult to get disciplinary
action taken, even for behavior significantly more disruptive, and at times more
dangerous than that. It’s interesting to
me that there seem to be discipline at opposite ends of the spectrum, and I’m
wondering if there’s some type of, to be cliché, happy medium that could be
achieved.
Although I don’t agree with the severity of a suspension for
a minor infraction like kicking a trashcan, honestly if it were me it would
just be easier for me to deal with it in my classroom, I do understand where
those teachers and principals stand. Any
teacher will tell you that one student can change the whole dynamic of your
classroom. It’s very difficult to teach
a room full of students with varying degrees of prior knowledge, and it becomes
even more difficult when you have a student who is being disruptive. I think that these teachers are probably
trying their best to do what is best for their students, and getting those students
out of the room somehow was the best thing they could think of. I also think that in a way, not being strict
enough is doing a disservice to disruptive students. If teachers don’t impart some kind of
discipline, how will the students be prepared to make decisions and face
consequences in the “real world” when they are adults.
I also think, like with a lot of issues in education,
concerning discipline it becomes a question of what is more important. Is it more important to keep this student in
school and to try and work out a problem with him or is it more important to
teach the majority of my students the skills and concepts they need to
learn. Tied in with this idea of
importance is also the idea of fairness.
How is it fair to my students who
are following directions to spend so much time with this one student who is
being disruptive? I will admit I
have thought this many times myself when dealing with challenging behavior
issues. As teachers, everyone wants us
to be fair to all of our students, so how do you fairly decide who gets how
much of your time?
Reading the second article was honestly a little
uncomfortable for me. I mean I came from
schools where I lost recess if my shirt was untucked, got detention if I forgot
to wear my formal uniform for mass, and literally got cornered against a wall
by an angry nun. In comparison to that
the idea of restorative justice that this article was pushing, just seemed so
wishy-washy to me. I keep hearing in my
head that the students should just listen because I’m the adult in the room and
they should know better, but I also realize that not everyone has the same
upbringing that I did in school or otherwise.
I understand the theory behind it, talking out the problems in a calm
way, giving all parties a chance to voice their side, and then determining a
solution, and I think it is more beneficial for students to have this type of
training in the long run, but I struggle with the practicality of it.
My school does not currently use restorative justice practices,
but my sister’s school does, so I asked her a few questions about it. She has to have a morning meeting every day
that focuses on some aspect of conflict resolution, team building, social training. While this is valuable and her students enjoy
that time, it does take away instructional time. I see this as an issue of what do schools,
districts, and the country care about more—the students’ social, emotional
states and their conflict resolution abilities or their test scores.
I have heard through various articles and discussions that
restorative justice works and improves school behavior, unlike the zero
tolerance policy, but I am very interested to see what it looks like
day-to-day. I value the research and
data, but I much prefer to hear from teachers in schools similar to mine about
how these practices actually look and how much they have to do to prepare and
to facilitate and to determine if these practices are actually working for
them. Since there are varying degrees of
restorative justice, I also wonder which practices on that continuum are
working better for students and teachers.
Although this wasn’t mentioned in either article, I think
that discipline and behavior in schools is intertwined with discipline and
behavior at home. I think that it is
crucial to have a home-school connection concerning behavior and discipline so
that students have that consistency, and I think that is what is lacking in a
lot of school systems. I have noticed
from my time teaching and student teaching in various schools, and with talking
to other teachers, that in schools that have lower SES statuses, restorative
justice, and practices like it, are seeming to become closer to the norm. I think this has a lot to do with parental
involvement. I think that in a lot of
instances, in my own experiences at least, students who come from lower
socio-economic backgrounds, or at least who attend schools that are less-affluent,
have less training and practice from home about talking out problems and
conflict resolution, whereas students that come from more affluent schools, with
higher levels of parental involvement, have more training and practice from
home. They come to school with more of
these skills, so they don’t need as much of the training and practice in the
classroom because they are learning about this at home. I wonder if other teachers who have been in
different types of schools have the same experiences that I have had or if mine
is a unique situation to myself or my district.
In general, I found that there needs to be some type of
balance in school systems, and really individual schools, about what
constitutes disciplinary action, such as suspensions, and what can be dealt
with in the classroom through restorative justice. I think that leaning too much in either
direction can be harmful to both the students and the teacher. For example, suspending a student who is
constantly being disruptive—talking, being disrespectful, etc.—is not going to
deter that behavior, especially if they are not getting a lot of social
training at home. However, consistently
allowing a student to be disruptive and disrespectful in the classroom without
any type of disciplinary consequences can take away from the other students’
ability to learn, and that in my opinion is not right. I also think that students need to buy-in to
whatever practices the school is using, which is probably the toughest
obstacle. In the accompanying video of “Unintended
Consequences of Taking a Hard Line on School Discipline,” Bertie Simmons, a
school principal uses a student court to determine academic consequences,
rather than punitive ones. However, I
really only think this can work if the students buy into the idea that they
need to complete the academic consequences.
I think that one of the biggest obstacles to having suspensions actually
deter behavior is that the students are struggling in some way and then are out
of school for a pro-longed period where they are not working on their issues or
their social skills, which leads to continued disruptive behavior and more kids
dropping out of school. However, I
wonder how teachers and administrators get students to understand and to buy
into restorative justice so that it can work for them in their classrooms.
If
you are interested in reading either article, I have provided the links below:
Unintended
Consequences of Taking a Hard Line on School Discipline
An
Effective but Exhausting Alternative to High-school Suspensions
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