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One of the biggest challenges in schools today is maintaining a sufficiently disciplined environment in which to foster effective teaching and learning. In this context, discipline (Links to an external site.)is understood to involve the following aspects (SACTE, 2001:35-41):
- Educators exercise authority in the interests of learners, so that learners can attain their potential, becoming self-disciplined and independent adults.
- Discipline has positive aspects, such as guidance, positive influence, giving assistance and support, encouragement, recognition and reward, and instruction.
- Discipline also involves negative aspects, such as control, restriction,
 suppression, disapproval, warning, compulsion or punishment for undesirable behaviour.
You have to ensure that you exercise appropriate authority in maintaining discipline among the learners in your care. This will be evidenced by behaviours such as:
- Exercising sufficient control over a class to ensure the maintenance of sufficient order for effective teaching and learning.
- Daily instruction, practise and modelling in desired behaviours such as punctuality (Links to an external site.), hard work, reliability, perseverance (Links to an external site.), honesty, cooperation, helpfulness, carefulness, accuracy, neatness, critical and creative thinking and mutual tolerance and respect.
- Teaching learners to work cooperatively in groups (a critical outcome) and to play different roles at different times, contributing to the group’s efforts in different ways.
- Encouraging, acknowledging and rewarding positive and acceptable
 behaviour patterns and discouraging, admonishing, scolding or even punishing negative, unacceptable behaviour patterns.
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Think about it ...
Reflect on the importance of the teacher setting rules and and boundaries which inform learners what is expected of them in think class. How could this contribute to a learning classroom?
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If rules and boundaries set by teachers are applied correctly, they give learners security, which helps to create a positive classroom climate. Learners feel secure in a school and classroom where they know what their boundaries are and what is expected of them. This is especially true if they know that the boundaries are there to ensure an environment in which they can learn without fear. The question is, however, how should the rules be applied?
The rules should be derived from well-known values and principles.
- They should be applied consistently and never rigidly.
- They should be applied in a classroom with a warm, friendly and cooperative atmosphere.
With the abolition of corporal punishment (Links to an external site.) (South African Schools Act, Section 10), educators have had to find alternative ways to manage discipline in the school. Behavioural theory suggests that people’s behaviour can be influenced by both positive and negative reinforcement.
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Positive reinforcement (Links to an external site.)aims at recognising and rewarding desirable behaviour in the hope that this will encourage the behaviour to continue. Positive reinforcement could be in the form of a reward, recognition or praise, and should be used in accordance with the following principles:
- The reward should come as a surprise. It should never become a habit so that learners later feel that they have a claim to it.
- Recognition should be given judiciously. There is little value in praising learners for inferior achievement if they have achieved much better in the past.
- The recognition must be of more value to the learner than the sacrifice he or she made in order to complete the task assigned or to behave in a certain way.
- Positive reinforcement should not degenerate into bribery. If an educator says, “If you behave today, I won’t give you homework”, this is bribery (Links to an external site.). However, if she says, “Susan, your handwriting has improved so much, you may take the register for me”, this is a reward.
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Negative reinforcement may involve punishment (Links to an external site.)or suppression.
Punishment such as the following can be used to discourage undesirable conduct:
- Punishment by deed – detention classes
 , punishment work
- Suspension – A learner may be suspended from school for a maximum of one week (which may be extended under certain conditions (South African Schools Act, 1996, Section 9, as amended by the Education Laws Amendment Act, 2006, Section 1))
- Expulsion – Under exceptional circumstances a learner may be expelled from a school by the authority of the provincial Head of Department (South African Schools Act, 1996, Section 9(5), as amended by the Education Laws Amendment Act, 2006, Section 2).
Suppression can be used to weaken behaviour, particularly behaviour that was previously rewarded – for example, when a learner has informed on other learners for a previous educator and the educator welcomed it. The new educator discourages such behaviour and ignores the stories.
If punishment has to be applied, then it must conform to the following conditions:
- Point out to learners who have misbehaved that they have done something wrong. Do not verbally abuse, undermine or attack learners.
Learners must be helped to understand why they are being punished and what they have done wrong.
- Learners who are being disciplined must be given an opportunity to defend themselves.
- A group must never be punished for the wrongs of an individual.
- The punishment that is administered must be fair and humane (Links to an external site.). It must ‘fit the crime’ and take cognisance of the particular nature, sensitivity, temperament and developmental stage of the learner.
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The golden rule to remember when it comes to discipline is to emphasise all positive behaviour and only make use of punishment when it is really necessary. Together with your learners, you could choose one important value as a slogan for a month or even a term, such as human dignity or respect. Help learners to identify ways to encourage and promote human dignity in the classroom and in the school, for example, consideration of other people’s interests, consideration of minority interests, maintaining human life and health, and protecting the weak (elderly people,
disabled people) (Prinsloo and Van Schalkwyk, 2008:153).
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Criticos et al. (2002, pp. 289-312) devote some time to considering the issue of creating and managing disciplined classrooms. They argue that discipline should be seen from a perspective which they call ‘caring management’. In this approach, the teacher views discipline systematically and responds rationally to discipline problems. They argue that the single best approach to maintaining discipline (Links to an external site.) is to prevent problems from happening in the first place.
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