Re-defining discipline?

Discipline: Influence on Policy and Practise by Meeta Mohanty

This paper is inspired by th teachings of Ms. Namita Ranganathan, Reader, C.I.E., D.U.

Discipline in Latin means ‘to teach or comprehend’. However the schools dictate a different connotation of discipline i.e. to symbolize conformity/ punishments. Discipline forms the social curriculum of the school i.e. transmitted through the expectations , rules & consequences in school. For a child to fair well at school it becomes imperative for him/her to master both the academic & the social curriculum.
A pertinent question to ask here is that can there be a standard code of conduct & pre-decided consequences in a plural country like India where a lot of conflicts arise due to cultural differences. Research studies reveal that children often resort to disruptive behavior due to multitude of reasons as specified below :
Ø Often these children are a victim of coercive interchanges in their families & thus the most effective way to avoid abuse is to become abusive themselves( Patterson,1992).
Ø They face extreme parental inconsistency in rules & consequences.
Ø As a result of unsafe & threatening home & community conditions , children with conduct disorders develop an antisocial cognitive set to bully others.
Ø Disruptive behavior is a form of escapism for them from increasing pressure of academics.
Ø They often are not aware of integrative ways of coping with internal & external conflicts & thus manifest violent behavior as a defense mechanism.

In such a scenario it becomes imperative to educate children to be sensitive & thus provide need based support. This can be achieved by promoting emotional intelligence in schools by:
Ø Building the school capacity to initiate & sustain innovation.
Ø Establish & consistently reinforce school rules , particularly when positively framed , & communicate these rules through school wide campaigns.
Ø Teach social competency skills ( e.g. self control, social problem solving, communication skills ) especially over a long period of time.
Ø Promote emotional intelligence through bullying prevention, mentoring by educators, promoting alternative thinking strategies & teaching integrative ways of coping.

Children resorting to disruptive behavior ought to be sensitively handled & probed thoroughly for the reason for the right intervention & support. Some of the tools that can help the facilitators are:
1) Relaxation training 2) Systematic desensitization 3) Rational analysis
4) Meditation 5) Cognitive restructuring 6) Thought stopping
7) Focus on positives 8) Count your blessings 9) Negotiation & self talks
10)Cognitive modeling 11) Emotional modeling 12) Disputing irrational beliefs

To effectively use these tools an educator ought to be a mental health professional engendering the total well being of the child. S/He ought to keep in mind the four areas of development enshrined in the National Curriculum Framework’05 :
Ø Personal health , physical & psychosocial development.
Ø Movement concepts & motor skills
Ø Relation with significant others
Ø Healthy communities & environment
Generally personal health, hygiene, exercise , academics gets attention in schools leaving aside the other two important arenas of relationship with people and environment. This is what needs attention to resolve the sources of maladjustment and also train children to relate positively to their natural, social, cultural & political environment. This training for citizenship was an important illumination in Gandhi’s Nai Talim , however needs to be revived through practice of democratic or judicious discipline in classrooms. According to Gathercoal ,1993 Judicious Discipline emphasizes the concept that an educator’s professional responsibility is to create an equitable environment that affords every student the opportunity to be successful. It is a philosophy of educating students that encourages self-control by teaching students their rights & responsibilities in a democratic society. It is believed that judicious discipline is the balance between individual rights as guaranteed by the constitution & compelling state interests that serve our society’s need for a safe, healthy & undisputed environment. Judicious discipline entails these rules:
Ø Act in a safe & healthy way . Example: proper footwear in gym, gloves in chemistry labs , moving in corridors, staircase etc.
Ø Treat all property with respect. Example : responsibility to protect toilet walls, classrooms from graffiti, being defaced or malhandled.
Ø Respect the rights & needs of others. Example: use of appropriate language, working in a team etc.
Ø Take responsibility for learning. Example: being punctual for a class, bringing homework etc.
The practice of judicious discipline is analogous to cognitive behavior therapy where the child sets a target behavior, monitors the behavior by keeping a record, changes factors which inhibit target behavior, reinforces one’s approximations to target behavior and consolidates the gains.
As the above mantra applies in self management so does it fit into practice of judicious discipline which ensures:
Ø Improved problem solving skills
Ø Self discipline and internal control among students.
Ø Autonomy to students to resolve their problems.
Ø Good rapport with students and parents
Ø Less stress & more accountability in the system.

Some of the challenges in practice of judicious discipline are:

Ø Giving up power control to students to formulate their rules.
Ø Being genuine, empathetic with children (Rogers)
Ø Giving unconditional positive regard.(Rogers)
Ø Small class size
Ø Being patient, tolerant and consistent

Thus I believe that judicious discipline is a way out from strict codes of discipline which function on the premise of power, control , punishment and authority.Thus a school ought to look genuinely into its school composition, nature of behavioral problems and deal with them sensitively as discipline decides the social curriculum of the school. As enlightened educators we will never want our learners to be inhibited , controlled, passive and breed on fear.
REFERENCES:
Grandmont ,P.Richard “ Judicious discipline – a constitutional approach for public high schools’’ , American Secondary Education 31 (3) Summer 2003.pages 97-117.
Skiba,Russ & Peterson, Reece “Teaching the social curriculum : school discipline as instruction”
National Curriculum Framework ‘05( position papers) on health education.

Education for peace

It is indeed sad to witness terrorist attacks in India and most metropolitan cities being targeted one after the other. But what are we doing to change the scenario. We feel unhappy, talk about issues and still remain consumers of knowledge. As an educationist I feel a strong need to integrate education for peace in curriculum. What is this , a new marketing mantra that can be comfortably used to sell a product to most people out there who are not reading. I read in my childhood about the Boycott movement where Indians had joined hands and said no to British products. I see education still colonized and no torch bearer like Gandhi to conscientize our souls and make us understand that what we need is freedom from information, examination systems and closed pedagogy. Today we are being attacked and India facing crisis in face of this mass destruction. But we continue to be business oriented and be pawns in the system. How can we overpower this crisis. I see education that liberates what Gandhi or Paulo Freire ever dreamt of. 'Freedom from Content' and 'Feel Good Factor' what most textbooks offer- a world of make belief where these terrorism, caste/ class conflicts, religious intolerance, sensitive issues are kept outside the books because that builds in conflict within our inner selves, are radical, and are not best sellers. Its high time we need to awaken from this deep slumber and say no such education. Let our children construe a real world and be well equipped to handle such crisis.

EDUCATION – CONFORM OR TRANSFORM

Education for peace forms an integral part of education. A close look at our educational system reveals an overemphasis of the cognitive functions resulting in weaning of the affective functions. Competition, academics and examinations have assumed centre stage in child’s education. This has given rise to an inner conflict within the child who operates under the shaping influence of biased texts and pedagogy that accentuates a break between the intellect and the heart.

• Most textbooks for primary construe a lively world view for children translated through the content and the illustrations. Rarely an attempt is made to make children aware with the realities and challenges of daily life. For example: a rainy season is depicted with children sailing paper boats and eating pakoras. It is difficult to find texts that depict rainy season associated with floods, overflowing drains, transport troubles, leaking roofs, power failure, epidemics, etc. This dimension is completely overlooked and texts remain exclusive of wide social reality.
• Textbooks too have an implicit writer’s bias that stems from their personal, subjective experiences. Usually a textbook writer belongs to a literate, urbanized strata of society and this gets unequivocally focused through the content, language, context and illustrations of the book.
• Exclusion or marginal representation of different social groups based on caste, class, and culture is also visible in textbooks. Rarely an attempt is made to incorporate different languages and cultures in the text. Imagine the impact of such exclusive text on the child’s psyche in a classroom which is not a homogenous group. Thus he/she feels indifferent, humiliated and develop negative identity due to such impersonal texts.
• Another pervasive effect is that of westernization. Westernized style of eating, celebration, education, greeting, dress up has overshadowed indigenous culture and customs in texts. There is a need for textbooks to break away from the tyranny of westernization and represent our rich, heterogenous culture. Alienation through texts has a negative impact on the child and is certainly not the premise of education for peace.
• Gender stereotyping is also explicit in textbooks. The illustrations remain heavily male dominated and embody men in constructive roles like engineers, architects and women as teachers, doctors, nurse etc. Sexist language like mankind, chairman, postman are still an essential component of our textbooks. Some stories like Sania Mirza or Kalpana Chawla are included as exceptions but hardly are able to mitigate the effect of gender stereotyping. Children are not able to relate to these exemplary women due to their distance from their social context. They need more community specific examples as their role models.
• Value based-textbooks draw stories from religion, philosophy, fables, folk literature etc. These perpetuate values of patriotism, secularism, democracy with a marked degree of impersonation where the agency of the child is lost. He or she becomes the object of education but never the subject. There is no space for subjective personal stories that explore the myths, values and attitudes implicit in the text.
• Textbooks preach values with a didactic, informative and regulating tone. Rationality, critical thinking, questioning, analysis are completely missing. Further such unquestioning obedience to value based texts is legitimized by society that conforms to unquestioned values. J. Krishnamurti, an educational thinker, articulated that ‘education should help us to discover lasting values so that we do not merely cling to formulas or repeat slogans; it should help us to break down our national and social barriers, instead of emphasizing them ,for they breed antagonism. Education should encourage the individual to discover the true values which come with unbiased investigation and self-awareness.’
  The question is whether our texts indoctrinate us in values or nurture a spirit of inquiry?
  
  Possible Solutions
• It is important to present a holistic perspective through texts and not undermine the cognitive capacity of children. Textbooks need to integrate social reality and be inclusive in nature. This is possible through integrated and thematic curricula that transcends subject boundaries. Ironically, what is visible is a gush of value education textbooks that undermine the fundamental premise of education for peace.
• National Curriculum Framework 2005 suggests that children need to be equipped with peace skills like ability to distinguish between facts and opinions, handle information in an unbiased way, analyze problem from different points of view, reflect and arrive at new solutions.
• Efforts should be made to invite authors belonging to different communities and regions as they enliven the cultural diversity of the text. It is important at this point to break away from the hegemony of dominant social groups that might affect the texts. Texts ought to be unprejudiced and not a mirror of wider social order.
• Children need a variety of linguistic input in primary as these being the formative years. No single textbook or a value education book can ever substitute the richness, variety and diversity of cultural story books and picture books. Children need exposure to a variety of children’s literature that incorporate the local language, customs and ethnicity. More children handle different picture books, it strengthens their concepts about print, ushers them into the world of reading with a positive self esteem that stems from identification with these texts.
• Special attention needs to be paid to the language and illustrations of inclusive texts that it should nurture the local customs and cultural practices. It shall be worthwhile to collect oral folk stories that exist in various regions and cultures and publish them.
  Inviting grandparents, helpers in the school, people belonging to different states to share their cultural stories makes the classroom inclusive. It prizes the cultural capital of community and sets an equation for dialogue in classroom. Children can be involved in retelling or writing these stories, making picture books and can be encouraged into writing.
• National Curriculum Framework advocates the use of strategies like questions, stories, anecdotes, games, experiments, discussions, dialogues, value clarification, examples, analogies, metaphors, role-plays etc to promote peace through teaching and learning.
• It is important that education for peace forms the shaping vision of education .Thus it is important for texts to be inclusive. Textbook writers need to evaluate the psychological, sociological and pedagogical impact of exclusive texts on children. Textbooks wield the power to alter the social order. It is difficult to publish inclusive texts that are culturally sensitive, devoid of power influences and are unprejudiced. This is the choice we have to make. Do we want our children to be the pawns in the system and fit into the patterns of society or do we want them to be agents of social change?
  
  http://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htm ( A must read for all educators and parents to know about what actually does NCF 2005 say)
  
  {By Meeta Mohanty, Has taught in both mainstream and alternative schools. Currently editing children’s books at Ratna Sagar P. Ltd.}.