May 13, 2007

It is all well to say that students should be treated with utmost respect and warmth, but what exactly is a teacher to do when s/he finds themselves frustrated with students – and, scrambling to gain control of their class?

I was caught in this kind of situation recently and after having left the class, felt a sense of shame and disappointment in myself. I had yelled, something I am adamantly against when teaching and something that I find hinders (not helps) student interest and attention in the subject. It made me wonder how teachers achieve order and control i.e. discipline, in their classes and what issues affect this maintenance of discipline. I asked myself, what IS a teacher to do if students will not listen and act up constantly – which hinders both teaching and learning? How is one to achieve discipline and still maintain an interesting class?

Discipline is a subject that should not be looked at in isolation to other classroom factors. It depends on, and is affected by, a lot of these issues; the key ones in my opinion being teacher-student relationship and students’ interest in the subject. Conversely, having a constructive, positive relationship with the students is essential to be able to maintain class decorum. In order to foster these relations though, teachers need time and autonomy to use time in ways that will help achieve these goals of better relationships which in turn will achieve ‘discipline’.

The one obstacle that I believe all teachers face in attaining the goal of garnering genuine student interest in class is the lengthy curriculum. Thankfully, most schools set achievable targets for their teachers; in fact it is the teachers who set the curriculum in most schools. However, we are affected by multiple unforeseen holidays in our part of the world and teachers who teach a number of subjects in the same school may find that it becomes cumbersome to check multiple notebooks, keep up with their planners and rush from one class to the next, without feeling burnt out. Although it is essential for teachers to plan for each class, these plans must not be too ambitious, as what ends up happening in the case of too much planning is too much is taught in too little time. It is the quality versus quantity argument.

In order to build a good relationship with students and to garner their interest , there needs to be room for innovation on the part of teachers, room for spontaneous discussions resulting from course material being discussed at the time. It is these debates that the teacher should encourage and little anecdotes about the course material that s/he must share with the class. We all can vouch for the fact that the teachers we remember for a long time are those who made studying interesting, who spoke of personal experiences that went beyond the textbooks, who gave real-life examples, the ones who did not just make use of the black/white board and give lengthy lectures that entailed ‘pin-drop’ silence.

The problem with interactive lectures though, is that they require time and effort on the part of the teacher. So if one is supposed to finish two chapters in two periods, how can one indulge in the luxury of an open-ended discussion about the merits of the chapter’s plot for instance? This is where the too-ambitious syllabi causes problems in maintaining strong relations and in students having thorough understanding of concepts.

Secondly, through personal experience, I have seen that in order to build stronger connections, teachers need to take personal interest in students. They need to work on students’ weak points that may be falling behind. Once again, it is these connections that in turn foster discipline and more importantly, encourage students to pay attention to what the teacher is saying. A lot of times, students get labeled for being ‘inattentive’ or ‘making no effort’ but no one really questions these labels and tries to come up with alternative ways to get through to the respective students. Moreover, while disciplining the class, these labeled students may be picked on even more, which further adds to the problem. Once again, teachers should take the time out to understand their pupils, and build a strong relationship with them so they feel they are important and they have the ability to do well. These students internalise the labels we set for them, and they consequently give up trying to do better, for they know we don’t expect that of them.

As seen through personal experience, I can vouch for the fact that if a teacher builds that close connection with a student, unless the teacher does something drastically mean, the student will do everything in her/his power to reciprocate that good relationship. That good relationship in turn will ensure that the student pays attention to what her/his teacher is saying, not only because they are genuinely interested but also because they want to do well in that subject (and that they HAVE the ability to do well). This will in the end, achieve discipline.

To sum up, think of a student who likes her/his teacher and whose teacher talks about interesting things that are connected to the course material. This student has a reason to pay attention. And if s/he pays attention, then discipline is simply an outcome of that. If the teacher can do this with most of the students, her/his discipline issues will surely be minimised.

Discipline, in the conventional sense, may be something that is achieved when students fear teachers and when the sounds of teachers’ voices reach alarming levels, but what is the point of such discipline if the student will not take anything constructive from that class that s/he may remember for a long time?

The writer is a freelance contributor