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Timeouts,
detentions, suspensions, parent conferences, point systems and therapeutic
counseling only work for those students who have been nurtured and
socialized properly by their parents.
Properly socialized students have nuclear family structures with strong
community support and reinforcement systems in place.
That dynamic, however is missing for students in mostly urban school
systems. As a result, the aforementioned discipline interventions have
been rendered inept at changing behavior or improving learning.
Reasons for
failed Attempts
The reason for these failures
is simple; students have learned to adapt to the punitive measures. There
exists no intrinsic fear by the students and therefore no respect for the
discipline being meted out.
Failed responses to
working with disruptive students
Of greater concern the school
system philosophy of attempting to change the behavioral (of disruptive
students) with the “hope” of improving their academic performance. This
ideology has led to the creation of behavioral concepts such as LAB
"Learning Adaptive Behavior" Cluster and other alternative programs as well
as schools for disruptive students. These are abject failures, as evidenced
by their poor records for student achievement, national standards testing
results, grade promotion, student graduation and high drop out rate.
They have become a veritable “wasteland” for our youth.
New thinking
out of the box
It becomes imperative to
create a new discipline paradigm for working with “disruptive” students. If
we improve a student’s ability to academically succeed in class then their
behavior will be modified. The average human sprit will not pursue
what it is not moderately successful at.
Additionally, educational professionals should begin to hold students
to standards and values that they ascribe for their own children, and not
continue to make excuses for obnoxious behaviors.
Educational
professionals racist / non cultural connections precepts
Educational professionals
condescension and cultural disconnection has only enabled students to think
that misconduct is okay. We must begin to make a cultural connection
with students to build the trust needed for them to allow us to show them
the proper way. Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu stated “ If you cannot make
a cultural connection with a student you cannot educate them”.
What works?
In order for discipline to be
effective in schools it must cause a level of discomfort which resonates
with students and ultimately deters them from acting out behavior.
To achieve this ideal, you must assess what a student values and
use it as dissuasion for aberrant conduct and as motivation for academic
achievement. Without this modeling, our standard discipline forms have
failed.
How The Osiris Group Learning Center
works?
The Learning Center maintains that academic performance and civility are
prerequisites for classroom entrance. By acculturating the student to
understand their purpose in school, their student identity and academic
routine, as well as addressing any inherent academic deficits, a student
will begin to develop the rudiments for success in school life. As the
student becomes successful their behaviors begin to improve and discipline
becomes a secondary issue.
Results of Implementation
The need for timeouts,
detentions and suspensions are reduced once a student becomes acculturated
to academic life and the potential for dropping out declines. Additionally,
parent - school relationships are enhanced as parents are no longer
inconvenienced or penalized for their child’s behaviors.
The Learning Center intervention is not a panacea, however it is a
non-traditional academic approach to behavior modification designed to work
with disruptive students.
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