THE PROS AND CONS OF DISCIPLINE
When we are asked to visualize a well-knows, simple object, say a bucket, we generally have no issue with conjuring up an appropriate image. Some might be large, others small; another would visualize one with a handle, or one made of plastic or steel, but overall the visualized image would be similar. But if we are asked to visualize a concept, such as the color red, we do not know how we internally visualize that, it defies description, and is more associated with impressions about ‘red’ experienced in the past.
The same is true with discipline. Ask one to visualize discipline and it is brings up an emotional response associated with prior experience; it is highly subjective and abstract. This stands in contrast with their mental ideas about discipline which often are entirely different. So if someone is faced with a situation that requires some type of disciplinary action, they will not act completely from their mental thoughts and principles about discipline, but will automatically respond based on the emotional impressions generated by experiences with discipline from their own past. That’s why trying to base disciplinary behavior on certain principles doesn’t work – it will always be overruled by the individual’s emotional impressions.
Discipline in essence engraves habits in a person’s life, and a child should be allowed the freedom to do that engraving based on her personality and skills set; it should not be imposed based on a teacher’s own emotional impressions about discipline or founded on general principles about appropriate disciplinary action.
If a teacher knows how to help a child build their own discipline in life - as opposed to trying to move every child into the same disciplinary mold, which always generates resistance – it allows the child to build their own disciplinary ‘flow chart’. This approach has the potential to solve problems in the future life of that child, such as dealing with corporate pressure, peer pressure or managing time. When a child has built its own inner discipline, he will be able to more easily balance his own inner urges with the pressures and requirements which the outer world aims to impose on him. It will be easier for him to say ‘no’ when specific pressure generated by the outside world doesn’t fit his own disciplinary model – as opposed to simply resisting this pressure. When resistance can be verbalized and expressed, it becomes feasible to discuss it, and negotiate towards a resolution.
In a similar vein, when a child has developed her own internal disciplinary flowchart, it is easier for her to make adjustments in life, and to adapt her own discipline to different outer circumstances.
A teacher should guide a child to build her own disciplinary framework, and approach her in a constructive way, but not to tell her what to do, or why to do that, but instead to phrase certain actions repeatedly. For example, to tell the child ‘we always wait for our turn’, ‘we always eat with our mouth closed’, or ‘we always tuck the chair against the table when we leave somewhere’, without any explanation, or any positive or negative connotation. If a positive or negative connotation is associated with the action, it can be manipulated to either become grounds for pleasing or resisting the adult. Explanations about actions can be made once the child asks questions about it; the child is then moving from automatic action to action that is conscious and based on understanding.
Another example; when children run in the classroom, teachers often try to correct that behavior by saying ‘don’t run’, or warn by saying ‘walking feet’, versus saying ‘we always walk when in the classroom’, as a gentle, warm reminder presented in a constructive manner.
The big question now is: can teachers be trained to behave this way when disciplining children? For starters, they should believe in this approach and accept it as the correct course of action that’s in the best interest of the child, and be ready to consciously discipline themselves when in the classroom.