The Right Tone for my School – A System of Discipline

During one of my CCE Mentor training sessions, my trainer (an ex-Principal of St. Patrick’s  School) shared on the need for setting the right school tone for students. This sharing reminded me of the communication with my school leader, where she highlighted that our school teachers had consistently brought up the need for setting the right tone for the school. She also spoke on the need to hold dialogues to determine areas that matter and essential for setting of such tone. Such dialogues are needed so that all teachers in the school can build and progress together in setting a consistent school tone.

Discipline is one of the areas I believe matters and is essential in the setting of the tone for the school. My goal for discipline is to develop self-discipline in my students. I believe that once this goal is met, good classroom teaching and learning will take place. Students will find our school a safe and effective learning environment, our teachers will feel rewarded and fulfilled, and parents will have positive feelings towards our teachers and the school.

I started to ask questions. While I have considered these questions, I do not feel much closer to answers. In fact, I have more questions than I have answers. But this seemed like the right thing to do for now. How does our school implement discipline so that it accomplishes the above important results? What are the approaches to discipline that our school is currently taking? What are our teachers’ opinions on the current approaches to discipline? What are the best discipline approaches out there that are possible for our students?  I hope to be able to discuss these questions and learn from my fellow middle manager and school leaders in the area of discipline.

While I believe that there are many exceptionally good ready-made approaches available, we must do more than simply adopt what other schools are using, for the best approach will almost be certainly be one which our teachers modify or develop ourselves. The best discipline approach must be compatible with (1) our students’ needs, (2) the social realities that affect our students (3) our teachers’ capability and (4) our school’s philosophy to discipline. That is why it is important for our school to formulate our personal system of discipline by ourselves. And as we dialogue among school leaders and middle managers, with our teachers and others, interacting with the multitude of ideas, our school can then progressively move towards developing and implementing our personalized system of discipline that suits our school’s, teachers’ needs and those of our students.