What is Discipline?

There are many different kinds of discipline programs on the market today. How do you decide which program is the right program? Let us start with the basics. What is discipline? I have found that the original definition of discipline no longer fits today’s view; it has been distorted over the years. Today the word or concept of discipline seems to have taken on a more punitive feel or action. When we see a child running loose throughout a store or restaurant, completely out of control, we tend to react to this display by thinking to ourselves, “That kid needs to be disciplined!” or, “Boy, if that was my child…!” These thoughts are punitive in nature.

 Returning to the original definition of discipline, we find that it is referred to as a “body of knowledge” given to or received by a disciple or student. Back in the day, we would have said that a person learns the “discipline of economics,” or the “discipline of education.” Learning a discipline meant that students became proficient in an area of learning through a systematic method of instruction, followed by plenty of repetition and practice. Unfortunately, today’s schools have moved right along with society. With the fast-paced and ever-changing educational system, the concept of discipline has been reduced. What once was a systematic training for students to be instructed as to how to make good choices or how to be proactive has changed to a gotcha, punitive style of catching and assigning consequences.

We can develop a proper discipline or training program that will focus more on developing or training students as to how to make good behavior decisions. There is nothing stopping us from this endeavor but our own limited vision. Let us take off the blinders and start from scratch. Throw out all you know about discipline, and let’s start anew. This discipline or training program need not be held to one classroom or grade level. We can construct a program that continues to train our students as they get older and have to deal with more of the world around them. This is accomplished by developing a school-wide discipline program. With a school-wide discipline program in place, each teacher and each grade is a continuation of the students’ systematic training. Not only does the continued training benefit our students in decision making, but a consistency in expectations and environment will also be significant in the students’ emotional stability.

Tags: classroom management, positive discipline, punitive, school safety, working with parents

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 12:37 am and is filed under On Discipline. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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