Disciplinkrise i skolen?

 Er der disciplinkrise i skolen? Er børnene blevet mere "uartige"? I Danmark har Folketinget vedtaget skærpede sanktionsmuligheder til skoleledere. Pressen skriver konstant om børn, der ikke opfører sig ordentligt i skolen og forældre, der ikke opdrager deres børn ordentligt. I juni 2010 var jeg inviteret til at give et oplæg ved en konference for den største katolske forældreorganisation i Frankrig om emnet. Mit udkast til oplæg kan læses her:

AUTORISER L’AUTORITE, XVIème Congrès des APEL  - Montpellier
4, 5 et 6 juin 2010
by
Solveig Gaarsmand
School And Society, DK
Parents´Counselling Text

When we discuss the problem of discipline in schools it is important to keep in mind what the project of school is all about. The child goes to school to learn both intellectual and social skills. It is also important to know which part is responsible of what – parents mainly responsible of upbringing and teachers mainly responsible of teaching. But there is also an overlap where parents and teachers cooperate. The question in this context is how they can cooperate about discipline? What can be done?

It is essential in the discussion of discipline in schools to recognise why children go to school. They go to school to obtain intellectual and social skills. The teachers are the professionals but the teachers and parents have a mutual responsibility to enter a partnership about the learning process of the child.

Is there a crisis of discipline?
At all times parent and grandparent generation have said that children did not behave as well as they did themselves when they were children. Our time is not different. Everywhere in Europe you can read in papers about children’s bad behaviour and lack of discipline. Therefore it seems necessary to ask whether there is a crisis of discipline or whether we experience a generation gap.
In 1996 Professor Niels Egelund (NE) and psychologist Kim Foss Hansen made a survey for the Ministry of Education in DK about lack of discipline. They found out that 10 % of the students more or less disturbed teaching, a little less than 2 % disturbed constantly and a little less than 1 % disturbed so much that the teacher wanted them out of the class.

However, according to NE things have changed since 1996 – more children are excluded from the ordinary class because of lack of discipline. New problems are added – for instance use of mobile phones during class, disrespectful language, and teachers who feel themselves threatened by pupils. In an article ”Disturbance stops when teachers become professional leaders” Professor Niels Egelund says: ” …teachers are innocent as the main reason of the problem is not teachers and school as such. Noise in schools goes together with the concentration of families with social problems and migrant background, high unemployment rate, divorces and other social problems. But the influence of these factors is dependent on the teachers’ competences as to classroom management.” NE claims that problems with bad behaviour have increased because of social circumstances in families. So far it seems fair to conclude that there is a crisis of discipline.

To deal with this crisis of discipline it is important to look for the reasons of the crisis and find out what can be done by all partners in and around school to establish a level of discipline that can support the learning and well being of the students and the teachers’ work environment.

NE stresses how important the competence of being authoritative is to classroom management and thus keeping a good teaching environment. He says that ”When we talk about teacher personality it is a question whether the teacher has natural authority, is competent and able to govern.” In his opinion some teachers can learn to be authoritative, others not. To sum up: teacher personality and ability to act authoritatively is an aspect of creating discipline.

Professor Mads Hermansen, Learning Lab, Copenhagen Business School, has  made research of how teachers become professional in the classroom. In his book: ”The Good and the Bad Circles of the Scool” he describes 4 different types of teachers among whom two types are seen as professional teachers, the fiery type and the problem solving type as they involve themselves in their pupils’ social lives. They are able to create a relation to the students. To sum up: teachers’ ability to create relations between student and teacher should be seen as a way to create discipline. 

Another researcher, Professor Per Fibæk Laursen, Danish Pedagogic University, has written the book “The Authentic Teacher”. He says that politicians should make it possible for teachers to gain more education as a means to obtain better results and improve discipline among pupils. Per Fibæk Laursen also stresses the need of classroom management and good leadership. To sum up: education and leadership of teachers are important to create discipline.

Let me link the Danish researchers to what is said in TALIS: Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments.

The report on Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments seen from a parents’ association’s point of view is interesting.  It says:
…school climate can influence student attainment and learning. For example, analysis of PISA data showed that a positive school climate was associated with higher levels of student achievement (OECD, 2004). A positive school climate can also have a positive impact on teachers and their working lives just as a positive organisational climate can benefit employees, increase their job satisfaction and affect their productivity (Lazear, 2000)
The quotation states that there is a close relation between the school climate and the student attainment as well as the teacher’s job satisfaction. This must be the main reason why it is so important that teachers are able to create a good teaching environment, which means that it is important to be competent in classroom management and making students feel comfortable in school both as to the teacher and to class mates and the school as such. To me the report is also a proof that the main responsibility of the student’s behaviour is on the side of the teacher. This is important to face – especially as it is often an issue in public discussion and among teachers that the main problem is that parents do not bring up their children properly.

The report also proves that teachers who develop and have experience manage the classroom better than their colleagues.

What has been done so far?

The Parents Association, School and Society (SoS) has made information materials to inspire teachers and parents with ideas of what can be done to promote good behaviour. One of the booklets we made together with the principals’ trade union. Another was made for migrant parents in 5 different languages including English. Common in both papers is the positive approach to the child. Instead of yelling and punishing the professional and the parent should focus on what the child can manage instead of putting stress on bad behaviour. School and Society also offers parents evenings on which parents, teachers and pupils together develop class rules concerning behaviour. SoS offers courses at parents’ meetings on the topic of children’s bad behaviour and bad language and what can be done to stop this. SoS has focus on the parents’ responsibility as to their children’s behaviour but the teachers are the professionals with the main responsibility in school. Besides SoS has a lot of information on its web site.

The Ministry of Education
It is common knowledge that there is a close connection between the well being of a child and its success in school. As a result of focus on bullying and other aspects the minister established an institution to work for a better environment in education. The Danish Centre of Education Environment develops tools and makes surveys on students’ well being. From the surveys it is clear that bullying is still a huge problem in schools both among students. Besides surveys prove that students feel bullied by teachers. The Danish Centre of Education Environment also stresses that many children are disturbed by noise in the classroom.

After a period with a lot of public debate the Ministry of Education had a committee of the actors in public school create information materials. Everybody agreed that good behaviour should be developed on the basis of mutual respect and acceptance. We got ideas from schools that were known to be successful in creating a good climate without punishing children.  They were exemplified in the information material as role models.

The Danish Teachers Trade Union has made information materials for teachers of how to tackle noisy and badly behaving pupils.  It points out what different actors in society can do and what teachers themselves can do. Suggestions to promote discipline in school are f.i. that the teacher’s involve students in their learning process, that teachers act in the same way and are consequent towards bad behaviour and to find spare time activities for the pupils. Besides there have been many articles about the lack of discipline and the stress it causes teachers in the teachers’ magazine.

A few years ago we had a student indicated on the web that his teacher was a paedophile. We also had a number of cases on which the principal illegally had held back the mobile of a pupil until the parents would pick it up and be told about the bad behaviour of the child. These cases lead to a change of the act of sanctions. The principle is now allowed to expel a student who in his spare time has offended a teacher. He is also allowed to keep a mobile phone for a longer time if the student has broken the rules of the school as to the use of mobiles.   Now the ministry has summoned a new committee with the task of coming up with ideas of how the new act can be implemented as an instrument of modern, not punishing discipline. SoS did not agree that we needed to have a new act of sanctions. We think it gives too much power to the principles to punish instead of improving teaching and environment at the school.

The municipalities are responsible of the schools. In many municipalities schools now have a teacher who takes care of children with problems as to behaviour (AKT).
Family classes (Marlborough method), in which parents attend class to support school in making it possible to include their child in an ordinary school, are getting more numerous. This method makes the parent aware of the behaviour of the child and empowers the parent to bring up the child to behave properly.
Many municipalities have educated their teachers in Thomas Nordahl’s method, the LP model (learning and pedagogic analysis), makes use of a analytic model which makes the professional team cooperate to make a pupil develop its skills towards a goal in accordance with the values of the school.
In recent years the American psychologist Howard Gardner has influenced the method of teaching a lot. He says that a child has a certain number of competences and should be taught accordingly. In Denmark we even had two series on TV where his was tested on students. It was an eye opener to many on the need of differentiated teaching to meet all students’ needs and thus avoid that children develop a negative behaviour to compensate against being too much or too little challenged.

Another popular method to improve school climate and the intellectual success of the student is the Norwegian method PALS (Positive behaviour in learning and cooperation), developed by Professor Thomas Nordahl. It supports the school in creating a good teaching environment and to improve proper behaviour and social and intellectual skills in order to make school more inclusive. In Norway they have had great success with the method on very troublesome kids and even been able to avoid removing children from their homes.

The PMTO method (Parent Management Training Oregon) together with the family classes are the only methods that directly include the parents.
The aim of the method is to stop a negative development in the family and to empower the parents to be supportive of the child at the same time as they are enabled to “draw the line” as to rules. The Ministry of Social Affairs offers courses to professionals in the methods of PALS and PMTO. There has been a great demand as to joining the courses.

Parents’ Counselling
All that I have said are means to run a good school with the discipline necessary for teaching. We have the tools to make all schools improve. Luckily most schools are run very well. But in praxis all the information, all the inspiration, all the data and the reports and the good intentions do not reach everyday life in all schools. This is what I experience in my daily work as a parent counsellor. Parents call the counselling because their child is being bullied during the break in the schoolyard or on its way back from school – the undisciplined students very often perform the bullying. The parents call because they cannot make the teacher understand that their child is bored and therefore disturbing during class because it need further intellectual challenges. They call to ask what they can do about the level of noise in the class that makes their child unconcentrated. Or they call to ask why their child is always the scapegoat of the teacher even if he is not the one who should be punished. Very often the Parents’ Counselling hears about students who need some extra help because of dyslexia but instead of receiving help the child seems to compensate by being noisy and play the role of the clown in the classroom.
What we also experience in the counselling is that problems start up in the schoolyard. But the teachers would tell the parents that they haven’t observed any problems at all.

What we see as the main problem is that teachers are not professional in their dialogue with parents. The main problem is that they take parents’ critical remarks as a personal offence and tend to overhear when parents are critical. Or when they are to talk to parents about a noisy boy they tend to put the blame on the parents’ upbringing instead of discussing with the parents what they can do and what the parents can do. Or the teacher meets parents who ask for more challenges for their child with the remark that the parents are too ambitious. Or the teacher does not listen when both student and parents ask for intellectual support. In general there is a lack of dialogue when problems arise that leads to escalation of conflicts among student, teacher and parents.

Outside the classroom
Neither the Danish researchers quoted nor the TALIS deal with spare time activities in school. It is urgent to focus on the outer frame of the school with schoolyard tools that inspire to physical and intellectually challenging activities to promote health and well being among students. Besides it is important to have supervising of the schoolyard by staff that can engage all students in participating in games and activities. Establishing of a corps of students that can spot lonely students in the schoolyard and make them feel included will be prohibiting against bullying. So the main statement from me is: it is not enough to focus on classroom management to establish a proper school environment with suitable discipline among students and teachers. It is important also to include life in the schoolyard because this is where lack of discipline in the classroom is initiated. You have to look at the school day as a whole: what goes on in the classroom and what goes on during the breaks are linked together.

Steps to be taken
Seen from a parent’s point of view it is important to develop the partnership with parents to make all parents feel listened to and feel a mutual responsibility of their children’s behaviour at school. By improving teachers’ skills as to communication with parents this aim can be reached. But parents’ associations have a responsibility in informing parents about their role as to a positive communication with the teachers. Family classes and family learning (courses for parents on how to support their child’s learning process) are other options.

At school level necessary steps to improve the school climate could be education of teachers as to classroom management, education of teachers of how to challenge all children and teach differentiated, and education to enter a dialogue with the parents and students to benefit from the parents’ resources. The arrangement in the classrooms should be suitable for inclusive pedagogical methods. What is also important and not mentioned by the Danish researchers and TALIS is to enlarge the job functions of every school to have not only teachers but also psychologists, pedagogs and social workers to supervise and help teaching of students with a behaviour that cannot be accepted in the classroom. There is a need of an acute task force to give advice or even take over when the teacher is being stressed by undisciplined students. The cooperation with other professionals than teachers on a daily basis is necessary in schools to let teachers have more time to do what they are educated to do: teaching.

At political level necessary steps would be to make sure that resources are according to the political aims. It is obvious that you cannot give teachers further education without adding a sum to the school budget. Politicians should also assure that research as to learning has decent conditions. What I find really devastating in the debate about discipline is the ongoing accusation that lack of discipline derives from parents’ bad upbringing. Politicians should rise above unproven facts. Besides I think a lot of parents and students would like to ensure their rights as citizens to be listened to in conflicts. So the politicians could make a change of the act that gave the students and parents the right of a hearing process. Further the politicians can initiate and finance projects on discipline and disseminate the results. And last but not least the politicians need evaluate the results of new methods to obtain better discipline.
I’ll finish my speech with a poem by Doris Law Nolte:
If a child lives with criticism, it learns to condemn
If a child lives with hostility it learns to fight
If a child lives with ridicule it learns to be shy
If a child lives with shame it learns to feel itself guilty
If a child lives with praise it learns to be acknowledgeable
If a child lives with justice it learns to be confident
If a child lives with accept it learns self-respect
If a child lives with love and friendship, it learns to find and show love
To me this poem sums up what kind of upbringing parents should be aware of, and what kind of relation a teacher should have to a student.