Humanistic approach instead of punishment

THE EDITOR: I write to articulate how disappointed I am to note that our education sector is still characterised by administrators, principals, teachers, and even parents who still believe that discipline and order in schools are directly the result of policies, strategies, and formulae handed down by the Ministry of Education. More specifically, I write to express my concern over the appointment of a six-member team to devise a plan of action on a report which has called for the reinstatement of corporal punishment in our schools. It seems that we have not yet extricated ourselves from the corporal punishment debate. Really, I thought by now we had moved into the democratic humanistic domain. Modern educational thought now recognises that improvement and reform initiatives (including the management of discipline) in schools are best implemented by way of change agents who are assisted by in-house think-tanks described as a focus group. Wise men from outside no longer are considered to have a monopoly on the answers to our school problems.

Also, current thinking on the management of discipline in schools subscribes to the following:
• Lack of control in schools is often the result of the existence of large, impersonal groups of students. Schools must, therefore, make every attempt to create within smaller meaningful groups with which students and teachers can identify. The house system properly used can go a long way in helping schools with this kind of reconstruction.
• If we are to move towards more humane environments in schools, we must be prepared to recognise our human relationship responsibilities. Indeed, we must emphasise human relations, interpersonal competence, motivational techniques, support programmes, and the encouragement of growth opportunities for our students.
• Studies continue to remind us that students of punitive teachers express less value in learning, tend to be more aggressive and more confused than students who benefitted from instruction on how to behave in keeping with rules and regulations.
• Research also tells us that schools in which students learn and behave more meaningfully tend to promote lower rates of punishment, but provide greater opportunities for allowing positive reinforcement of student behaviour.
• Other studies have demonstrated that misbehaviour actually increased when greater punitive measures were introduced.
• Modern educators are now convinced that indiscipline is often the result of students who find learning activities boring; poor facilities; deprived classroom conditions; and cramped seating arrangements.
• Research findings confirm that schools which encourage such ineffective classroom management strategies as threats, corporal punishment, and the loss of privileges unwittingly contribute to the cancer of indiscipline in our schools.

Finally, it must be argued that the issue today in schools is not whether corporal punishment should be retained or reintroduced. The reality is whether punishment should be concerned with generating punitive reaction or socialising students along educative lines and getting them to reflect on their behaviour. Whatever is said and done, it cannot be denied that schools have to create and sustain positive humane environments which are characterised by caring, respect, and self control. Perhaps the six-member team can look into how we can move school cultures from mechanistic compliance-generating outposts to democratic, humanistic, purposeful, productive, and caring social systems.

RAYMOND S HACKETT
Curepe