Eager teachers quickly learn that many of today’s students contend with unprecedented hardships. They arrive at school hungry, homeless or exhausted after caring for others, conditions that interfere with or even prohibit learning but clearly manifest in behavior and concentration. Teachers, working under pressure-cooker conditions, often have little time for students whose antisocial behaviors may provoke exclusionary punishment or arrest. Lacking specific training and skills in managing behavior issues, many teachers believe that youths, like themselves, should have the innate skills to manage their own conduct. Unfortunately, frequently used punitive measures send students spiraling toward suspensions, involvement in the juvenile justice system, and diminished motivation to engage in or finish school. Not surprisingly, student discipline correlates with dropout rates, and that’s particularly troubling in Texas where 25 percent of students fail to graduate.
But these patterns for teachers and students can be reversed, and it starts with a radically different approach to school discipline. It is called restorative discipline. Instead of asking what rule was broken, who broke it and what should the punishment be, restorative discipline sees wrongdoing as a violation of relationship and asks what happened, who has been affected and what are we going to do to make things right?
[For more of this story, written by Marilyn Armour, go to http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/opinion/armour-discipline-reform-may-curb-dropout-rate-for/ng6rW/?icmp=statesman_internallink_textlink_apr2013_statesmanstubtomystatesman_launch#feffb94b.3478872.735470]
Comments (0)