Meaning of Discipline

Preventive discipline is concerned with basic rights and clear rules and consequences.

Good discipline  (Links to an external site.)does not come about by chance. It needs to be purposefully managed. It is necessary to create a positive, disciplined school environment aimed at preventing discipline problems. In such a system, learners experience an educative, corrective approach in which they learn to exercise self-control, respect others and accept the consequences of their actions.

The term ‘discipline’ is derived from the Latin word disciplina, which means to teach. Rosen (2005:1) indicates that the term could mean: (1) A branch of knowledge or learning; (2) Training that develops self-control, character, orderliness or efficiency; (3) Strict control to enforce obedience; (4) Treatment that controls or punishes; or (5) A system of rules. Thus the term ‘discipline’ may be thought of as any training intended to develop moral character or produce a pattern of behaviour. The term is also thought to be a coercive mechanism by some people, while other people view it as a collaborative process of building consensus regarding accepted behaviour within institutions and society.

• Preventive discipline is concerned with basic rights  (Links to an external site.)and clear rules and consequences.

• Corrective discipline refers to teacher actions that are carried out to correct disruptive, anti-social or deviant behaviour (i.e. punishment (Links to an external site.)).

• Supportive discipline is concerned with ensuring that ‘correction’ is received fairly and with re-establishing positive working relationships with disciplined learners.

Although people may use ‘discipline’ and ‘punishment’ interchangeably, these terms mean quite different things.

• Punishment is part of a bigger picture of an authoritarian  (Links to an external site.)approach to managing the classroom or school that is based on the view that learners need to be controlled by educators.

• Punishment focuses on misbehaviour and may do little or nothing to help a learner behave better in the future. In other words, punishment is reactive and humiliating (Links to an external site.), rather than corrective and nurturing.

• Punishment is psychologically harmful to learners and likely to provoke anger, resentment and additional conflict. While discipline is used proactively and constructively, with learners experiencing an educative, corrective approach in which they learn to exercise self-control, respect others and accept the consequences of their actions, punishment is punitive (Joubert and Prinsloo, 2009:107).