Q1.2 The Essential Elements of an Adequate Discipline Model

Identifying the Source of Inappropriate Behaviour
To begin with a teacher must firstly understand the causes of discipline problems. Teachers can be faced with a multitude of discipline problems in a class room and sometimes have to deal with them all at once which makes the job of finding the right way to discipline a student even harder. But if the teacher can identify the negative outside influences and respond instead to the students’ pain behind the inappropriate behaviour, they can be better prepared to manage the discipline problems that result.

There have been identified three main sources for inappropriate behaviour

Originating in the home.
1. Depravation of attention and love
2. Excessive control
3. Family restructuring
4. Abuses of various types
5. Damage to self--concept

Originating in society
1. Racial and class conflicts
2. Unemployment and poverty
3. Substance abuse
4. Gang activity

Originating in the school
1. Instruction without context
2. Failure to teach problem solving skills
3. Non acceptance
4. Competitive grading
5. Excessive coercion
6. Punishment

Above all an adequate discipline model must be a well planned, individual model of discipline that is compatible with the teachers beliefs, as a teacher will experience personal conflict and confuse the students if they discipline plan is contradictory to their own values.
These are the essential categories of an adequate discipline model a teacher needs to use in building their own; –

Assumptions: a description of the belief systems at the foundations of the educational theory.

Criteria: a set of criteria derived from the teacher’s evaluations of different educational philosophies and their own value, eg, choice theory.

Preventative strategies: these are strategies for preventing misbehaviour, eg, creating a positive, effective learning and social environment.

Corrective strategies: these are strategies for correcting misbehaviour
Such as exchanging students’ mistaken goals for positive goals as Dreikurs suggests.

School wide strategies: these are strategies for inclusion in a school wide approach to discipline models.


References: Rudolph Dreikurs, Rudolph Steiner, "Classroom Discipline and Management an Australian Perspective" by Clifford H. Edwards and Vivienne Watts.