To me, discipline is a process that enables students to learn to manage their own behaviors in a classroom setting. These learned skills will then carry over as valuable assets in their future careers as students, professionals and parents. I have come to look at management as facilitating the process of learning by establishing expectations in a classroom setting that allow for gains in academics, social behaviors and personal growth. Both of these tools combined are symbiotic in that they support each other and provide the teacher and students with a way to function together at an optimal level.
In the article, “The 'Stained-Glass Window' Theory,” David Hill states:
When these students eventually make their contributions to the larger society as adults, they will do well to remember the stained-glass-window theory. While repairing broken windows will be crucial in their lives, I hope they will not stop there. By creating stained-glass windows of various shapes and colors, they will build environments that bring out the best in their employees, bosses, colleagues, and neighbors. And they surely will know that this is possible, having seen in school the subtle power of stained glass as a window to the world. (Hill, 2008)
The power of a teacher to shape and mold a young person is immense and helps pupils learn how to manage themselves through role modeling, appropriate praise and rewards. (Nancy J. Ratcliffe, Cathy R. Jones, Richard H. Costner, Emma Savage-Davis, Gilberth H. Hunt, 2010) Looking at discipline in this way shows that the teacher is not only delivering academics, but social skills and self-monitoring behavior as well.
When I go into another teacher’s classroom to work with individual students or to co-teach, I have to embrace the philosophy of discipline established by someone else. This has been frustrating at times, but my current situation is positive. As a believer in