Do Teachers Make a Difference?

Do Teachers Make a Difference?

“Every person”, said Gibbon, the Historian, has two educations: “one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives himself.” And Sir Walton Scott, a psychologist confirmed this when he wrote: “the best part of every man’s education is that which he gives himself.”  Yes, it is important to know that every educator is called to give what s/he has received. But problems related to discipline are becoming a major source of concern in the life of every teacher today. The majority of teachers are very much concerned about problems of student discipline and they forget the mission they are called to.

Here psychologist like Marvin J. Woodstrup  would mention a list of mistakes that we educators make in facing the student discipline.  According to him teachers could avoid a good many discipline problems if they avoided the word “WHY?”, while speaking to students who are advanced and who misbehave or are suspected of misbehavior.   When a student who has behaved incorrectly is asked “Why”, he tends to react with a flippant response. Instead of asking a student “why?”, Woodstrup recommends the teacher to tell the student that what s/he has done, is incorrect, and then say what is to be done. For example: “Jesper, I saw you smoking in the boys’ lavatory. See me at 3:15p.m.” or again “Arun and Priya, I am sorry to say that I think you cheated on today’s class test. See me at noon today and I will give you another quiz on the same material.” Asking a student “Why?” encourages the student to rationalize his or her misbehavior. We should not demand to hear the reasons, nor should we put students in situations that demand covering up or lying.

Woodstrup also recommends against making threats, such as: If I catch you fighting again, I’ll send you to the office; if you are late just once more, you will have to stay after school; if I ever see you smoking again, I will ask the Head Master to suspend you. The issue about such threats is that the teacher who makes them implies that it is all right to misbehave this time, but not next time. Such a statement confuses the students. What the teacher should do is to say right then and there what should be done about the offense. Thus both the offender and other students learn what the consequences of misconduct are, and the offender is offered a realistic chance to do something to improve his behaviour. Discipline, however, depends not so much on techniques but on the willingness of teachers to respect students as individuals and to take the time and trouble to understand them.

   To clinch the issue, discipline simply means respect for the teacher on the part of a student and respect for a student on the part of a teacher. But most of us look at discipline as punishment. We think of punishment (both corporal and psychological) as a means to instill discipline in the students. On the contrary, most of the psychologists opine that teachers who are most effective avoid punishment and rely on psychological means to control student misbehavior. Even the psychological means are effective only if the teacher has a positive relationship with the pupil and the student in turn understands clearly what it is s/he is being punished for. Imposing discipline on the student by the teacher is necessary to some degree.

As Children grow they need control, direction and guidance. But as they grow, children become more mature, and they want to develop standards of self-discipline of their own.

 Here the problem of the teacher with respect to discipline may be seen in terms of a problem in leadership. Leadership can be identified in two dimensions: ‘initiation of structure’ and ‘consideration’. Leadership activities concerned with the ‘initiation of structure’ include direction, control, punishing, setting limits, rewarding, manipulating, organizing, scheduling, maintaining standards, and the like.  Instead, ‘consideration’ includes such behaviour as extending sympathy and understanding, compromising, helping, inviting the use of suggestions of others, and being supportive. Most leadership roles call for both ‘initiation of structure’ and ‘consideration’, and it is generally undesirable to stress one to the exclusion of the other. We may say that most teachers tend to make a mistake by providing more ‘initiation of structure’ than ‘consideration’. Perhaps the worst learning situations result when teachers provide neither ‘initiation of structure’ nor ‘consideration’.

As I place my pen down, I would like to emphasize that every teacher is called to make a difference in the lives of students. But to the question “Do teachers make a difference?” much remains unanswered today. The subject of discipline is becoming a real source of anxiety in the life of every teacher. Teachers are more worried about discipline than making difference in the lives of students.  One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those teachers who made difference. Let us not forget that teaching is the profession that teaches all other professions.  

Albert Kumar