Bartmas Blurb #31
Discipline is like an onion! It is not an ogre, but an
onion. We all use different layers of discipline throughout our daily lives. We
have personal, interpersonal, and extra-personal layers of discipline.
Discipline has and will continue to be an integral aspect within our lives as
we continue to live. Ultimately it is our choice how we will be disciplined or
allow others to discipline us. Discipline will always fall into two categories
overall: internal or external. These correlate directly to governance. We are
either self-governing or we need someone to govern us. How we govern our classroom and school says a lot about us. Think about teachers or administrators that seem to just have a knack for a well disciplined classroom or school. How do they do it?
Think back to when your children, or you
yourself were being potty trained. We
tried encouragement, rewards, timing, and other tricks. Some children potty
train much more quickly than others, and some much later; miraculously one day
it just happens. Why? Like any other
lesson of life discipline must be taught. Our ability to train ourselves or for
others to train us depends fully on our making the commitment to be trained. Very few students...let alone adults are truly self-disciplined. These are the people that never have to be guided to do what is right, they just do it. The majority of students that we deal with on a daily basis permit or allow us
to train them. They will listen and be compliant when there is an adult
monitoring them. They are coachable. We only have to tell them why and how, and
they respond by performing the task at hand. The first two groups of children would fit into the self-governing categories. There are other students that
resist the coaching and must be handled by coercing or correction. These
students cause more disruption and are more defiant in the classroom. They will
still be compliant, but only because they are concerned with the negative level
of consequence that might follow their poor self-discipline. This group is
master at weighing risk and reward! The last group of young people we deal with
are the most resistant to any discipline whatsoever. These are the young people
that are in the minority, but cause the greatest disruption in the classroom. These last two groups will fall into the external governing category.
There are a lot of different variables that go into how we
respond to discipline: Genetics, birth order, and environment to name a few. If
we want discipline; we must train discipline. How do we do with our own diet and exercise? Discipline must be a daily lesson
that builds throughout the year and spirals just as we do with any other
curriculum. When we truly train our students to be self-disciplined or
self-governing our job teaching other aspects of the curriculum will come with
more ease because a greater number of our students will be disciplined. Using character building programs fits very
well with teaching discipline. Many of our students are not being taught to be
disciplined anywhere else, so we have to keep this in mind when teaching. Daily
reinforcement of expectations, procedures and rules will lead to fewer
headaches later. Proactively teaching discipline is paramount to building a positive school culture and community. We can use motivational quotes, sports success stories,
personal triumph stories and other short lessons to daily reinforce what
discipline looks like. Having a common
language that is used with consistency will add a cohesive plan of discipline.
A once and done approach will only lead to frustration and failure.
In the next BartmasBlurb we will discuss some common mottoes
and language that might be useful to build self-discipline.
