E is for Educational  Excellence          omaisa.com 

There is no single philosophy or way to look at the world that seems to satisfy all the time.  Looking at one aspect, if you have a headache or other discomfort on a certain day, discipline might seem a high priority: children should be seen and not heard.  On that day, the girl with a convict father and younger brother who cuts things may end up in the office for crawling under the desk.

On another day, patience, permissiveness and just a look to the same girl may seem the correct amount of discipline.  Is there any final standard we can use to judge whether the actions we choose are correct?  Just like parents, there's the time when we let the children go and grow up.  If they thrive and are productive citizens, we might consider ourselves successful.  Our firmness or lenience, even when we thought it might have been excessive, was the right thing to do.

Students are Individuals Too

Yet we can't take credit for everything a child does, nor take blame for each thing they do wrong.  There are so many influences on all of us, that we can only hope to be a guiding light.  In the classroom, just one failure to listen at the right time may turn off the light.  With a number of students to attend to, and no perfect teacher, there will always be children who feel un-illuminated.  For whatever reason they may end up being the bullies, the dropouts, the same abusive parents their parents were, continuing the cycle.  If just one or two undisciplined students are in the class, with just the right teacher, I can only hope this cycle will be broken.

Protecting the Other Learners

As we look at the classroom as a part of society, not separate from it, it becomes clear that a teacher role is multifaceted: sometimes a manager, a coach, a friend, a parent and so on.  When discipline comes to mind, it is associated with some sort of misbehavior or unexpected roadblock to the social endeavour.  We want to step in, to protect the valuable time of the majority, the well-behaved.

We might remind ourselves and the students their independent role and power in a situation to stop others from interrupting their pleasant learning.  If students choose not to shush their neighbor, perhaps they like the distraction.  An educator might need to ask if the lesson is engaging, and if not, what could be done about that.  The other possibility is that students could be fearful of controlling others--especially someone who isn't afraid to step outside of social norms.  We know there is real danger in our schools.

In my experience, in schools of China, South Korea, Taiwan, Michigan, and Hawaii, there will always be some students who care nothing for themselves or fellow humans.

I remember distinctly two students in different classes.  I couldn't tell it at first, but one I could succeed with, and the other I couldn't.  The first was a loudmouth six year old, who within the first minutes of the first class decided he wasn't satisfied.  He stood up and shouted "F***!" At the top of this voice!  Through the next week or two, I had him stand outside, stand in the back, talk to the manager, take a role at the front board, and so on.  He was a real future boss.  Though he didn't change his loudmouth ways, what he chose to say improved greatly.

The second student was a girl who attend a class with her sister.  Also in the first class, she decided to chat instead of pay attention, as class wasn't right for her.  The only solution for her came with the fact that she wanted to talk with her sister, and it least the other girl would move to a different spot.  Yet the next week the unruly one brought in her exacto-knife and stared at me as she slowly cut off strands of her own hair.  Introducing a knife into the educational system moves the situation far past discipline and directly to law enforcement.  I reported the girl, but first ignored her so that she put away the knife.  I thought, what kind of gangland leader does this child have for a parent?

  The origins of the hate, willingness to disrupt are even harm others can always be pondered.  But in the classroom, where an entire year could be wasted pondering, it seems best to use effective means to prevent the expression of the hatred, if initial repeated attempts to reach out to the loving side of an individual grasp nothing.

Our Business - never alone

There will always be good and bad, right and wrong.  Judging trends or activities in the classroom requires ethical discrimination.  As the main source of wisdom in the rooms we call classes, we should not forget the wisdom of the children.  They can be resources: it was not a few times that I successfully motivated to more positive activity some young girl or boy by asking the entire class whether their behavior was acceptable or not, even amusing or not.   A few times, I was even surprised!  That helped me to get to know everyone better.  We had a better class.  It doesn't hurt a teacher to be wrong, and I suggest everyone try this.  

We also have, hopefully, wise guidelines from other adults.  In Hawaii, they might be called GLOs or general learner outcomes, which are also guides to proper student behavior.  Books, Tribes agreements, the office, the vice principal, parents, and coworkers are always there to help us along.  Please use the resources and links provided here to assist you when you're not satisfied with your own solutions--but don't be afraid to experiment, as long as your experiments are completely humane!

Your Editor

Brook W. Snyder is a graduate student from the University of Hawaii, Manoa.  He has taught English in Taiwan, South Korea, mainland China, and worked, studied, worked on projects, and traveled in New Zealand, Japan, Nepal, Costa Rica, Thailand, and more.

Assisting people all over the globe to have a more peaceful and neighborly outlook, he travels to visit excited people, giving away his 'global flag' with actual photos of the planets and encouraging people to view themselves as part of the world family.

He is also certified in teaching English to students of other languages.  Along with his trusty teachable robot parrot or other gadgets, he works to bring joy and excellence with a bit of spark and energy.