The troublemakers. The school punks. The campus violators. The hardheaded students. They are the most common, if not the top concern, attention-seekers of everyone in the school, both the studentry and the school administration. At any where in the world, you could find this “bullies-in-the-making” thus school discipline must be effectively implemented.

Disciplining students, particularly those with chronic or serious behavior problems, is a long-standing challenge for educators. They must balance the needs of the school community and those of the individual student. At the heart of this challenge is the use of punitive versus supportive disciplinary practices.  Though increasingly common in recent years, reliance on punitive approaches to discipline, such as ‘zero tolerance’ policies, has proven largely ineffective, even counterproductive. This holds true both for general education students and those with disabilities. Such effective discipline practices ensure the safety and dignity of students and staff, preserve the integrity of the learning environment, and address the causes of a student’s misbehavior in order to improve positive behavioral skills and long-term outcomes.

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) enumerated the following principles in addressing the school discipline system:

Punish-Based Discipline Does Not Improve School Safety, Learning or Behavior

Research repeatedly has demonstrated that suspension, expulsion, and other punitive consequences are not the solution to dangerous and disruptive student behaviors. In fact evidence, indicates that dangerous students do not become less dangerous to others when they are excluded from appropriate school settings; quite often they become more so. Furthermore, harsh consequences are invoked automatically, irrespective of the severity of the misbehavior or the circumstance involved, and without consideration of the negative impact of these consequences on the welfare of the offending student or on the overall climate of the school. 

Positive Discipline Strategies Improve Safety and Outcomes for All Students

Positive discipline strategies are research-based procedures that focus on increasing desirable behaviors instead of simply decreasing undesirable behaviors through punishment.  They emphasize the importance of making positive changes in the child’s environment in order to improve the child’s behavior.  Such changes may entail the use of positive reinforcement, modeling, supportive teacher-student relations, family support and assistance from a variety of educational and mental health specialists.  

Research has proven that positive discipline strategies benefit all students because:

1. Opportunities to forge relationships with caring adults, coupled with engaging curriculum, prevent discipline problems.

2. Discipline that is fair, corrective and includes therapeutic group relationship-building activities with students reduces the likelihood of further problems.

3. Reducing student alienation through ‘schools-within-a-school’ and other peer relationship can dramatically reduce acting out in schools, especially in large settings. When students are given an appropriate education in a conducive environment, they improve behavior and performance.

Examples of effective proactive behavioral strategies. There are a number of research-based approaches to providing proactive systems of behavioral support in schools, including Positive Behavior Support (PBS), violence prevention programs, social skills instruction and school-based mental health services. These strategies include:

Violence prevention: The most frequent components of a violence prevention program include a prevention curriculum; services from school psychologists, counselors or social workers; family and community involvement; and implementation of effective school-wide discipline practices.  Some examples of proven programs include: Second Step and Promoting Positive Thinking Strategies (see below).

Positive behavioral supports and social skills training:: Interventions that help students with emotional/behavioral disorders and social skills deficits have potential to significantly improve school-wide behavior and safety.  Effective programs include: Stop and Think (Project ACHIEVE) and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS).

Early intervention: Interventions that target low levels of inappropriate behavior before they escalate into violence can significantly reduce the need for harsh consequences later. Examples of proven practices include First Step to Success (kindergarten) and Positive Adolescent Choices Training (developed for African American youth). 

In-school suspension, when focused on continuing the curriculum, while therapeutically debriefing to identify and eliminate the root cause of an acting-out episode, provides an alternative to exclusion.

Adult mentors who work with students to help to improve self-concept and motivation to engage in appropriate behavior.

Teacher support teams  (or ‘Intervention Assistance Teams’) evaluate both class climate and student needs, and provide support and strategies to engage difficult students as a prevention effort. 

Student discipline is an aspect in student learning that is multi-faceted approach, the involvement of the parents, the school administration, and the willingness of the students are all vital in ensuring success and fairness in giving discipline. It is just that, as we are leaning towards a further technology-enhanced teaching education, punishment must be minimized, instead dwell and focus on how to translate the negative actions into a more beneficial situation for the students.

Live by the mantra of “Praising in PUBLIC, reprimanding in PRIVATE.”

By: Aileen L. Lumaban | Teacher III | Limay Nationahl High School | Limay, Bataan