Discipline: School Types

It doesn't take a lot of research to tell us that discipline in school is different today than it was in the 1950s. But it does take some investigation to find out why. Various studies have shown that students who act up in school express a variety of reasons for doing so: * Some think that teachers don't care about them. * Others don't want to be in school at all. * They don't consider goal setting and success in school important anymore. * Students are unaware that their adolescent behaviors will result in punishment they won't like. * Discipline enforcers have to go through long procedures of due process: hearings, specific charges, witnesses, and appeals.
Despite these hurdles, students agree that discipline is needed in schools. One high school student stated: "If there were no discipline, the school would not be distinguished from the street."
So if everyone agrees that discipline is key to safety in school, why do we still have a problem?
Student-Teacher Relationships
In many schools, teachers are intimidated by their students. Out of fear of retaliation, they fail to report problems or ignore them hoping that the students responsible will quit the bad behavior by themselves.
Troubled Students
State and Federal laws require that some special needs students receive special attention. Many adults and school systems believe that "troubled students" are not responsible for their actions, thus they're not punished as severely as other students.
Legal Procedures
Because of the raised awareness of the civil rights of children, the law requires adults to go through expensive, time-consuming and confusing procedures in regards to school discipline. These legal procedures do protect the rights of children, but make it very difficult to stop school discipline problems.
Modeling
Very simply, too many adults fail to model the behaviors they want from students. Modeling the rules that students are to follow should be required of all adults.