Teachers struggle to keep order in class

One of my tasks during the last few months has been conducting staff development afternoons with a number of teachers in both Church and state schools. In most cases I was asked to treat the subject of "discipline in school".

Teachers are finding maintaining order in class hard and exhausting, which makes teaching those who want to learn difficult and those who refuse to learn almost impossible.

Teaching today is not an easy task. Not that it has ever been so, but today there are added constraints that make a teacher's life that much more taxing.

Taking a brief look at Maltese society, one can note certain rapid changes, especially over the last two or three decades, which hinder the task of the teacher.

The respect due to people in authority has been weakened to the extent that our children think nothing of challenging and even ignoring all forms of authority in school and at home. They think they have a right not only to question all orders and regulations coming from any source, but also to reject what does not appeal to their way of thinking.

The so-called 'youth culture' is changing very rapidly and drastically, to the extent that young people cannot keep up with its demands on their time, in their style of dress, in the type of music they listen to and in the quality of relationships they engage in. Most teachers recognise a lack of disposition and motivation to learn in students, especially on Fridays when they are gearing up for the weekend and on Mondays when they start unwinding after a hectic weekend. And all this time the poor teacher is expected to teach his or her subject regardless.

The Maltese family, too, has been experiencing an overwhelming shift in its nurturing role, initiating children into the 'world of education' at a very tender age. Parents now seem to be in an anxious hurry to secure a place for their child at the school of their choice, irrespective of whether the child is educationally ready to commence the school journey.

This means that very often the child starts school with a handicap. The teacher is thus, again, expected to assume many of the responsibilities that used to be those of the nanny, more or less.

It seems to me that the bewilderment, anxiety and sense of frustration of a good number of teachers in both primary and secondary schools stems from the fact that they are being expected to tackle these problems single-handedly. They have to continuously try different styles and methods, which may prove useful for just a short time and only with some children.

These teachers end up blaming the parents, society, school administration, education division and finally themselves for having chosen the teaching profession in the first place. They end up angry and frustrated and may be doing more harm than good to generations of schoolchildren.

Not for a minute should one think that the fault lies with the teachers or that they are to blame for their predicament. However, it is the responsibility of the teacher to initiate an alternative style of class management that may work, if two conditions are fulfilled.

First, it is imperative that if a school is to succeed in fulfilling its task of educating children, the teachers, together with the school administration, must work hand in hand as a team in the way they regulate and organise the life of the school. If teachers disagree among themselves on the ethics and rationale of their endeavours and each goes his or her own way, confusion and disorder are bound to be the order of the day. The code of behaviour that each school is being invited to produce, even with the help of parents and pupils themselves, has to first of all demonstrate solidarity between the teachers.

Second, in order for the school good order charter to be effective, it requires constant and consistant effort by the staff. You cannot one day be very strict and the next day very lenient. You cannot have a teacher who allows students to get away with murder while another teacher is a tyrant.

Thus, armed with a common set of regulations that are applied by everybody all the time, behavioural problems are bound to diminish and the teaching/learning process bound to gain a great deal. Once the teachers and the students themselves have come to see the validity of their mutual efforts, life in school will become pleasant and enriching, as it should be.

Bro. Saviour is the director of services in education at the Archdiocese of Malta. In the second part of his article next week, he will deal with the concept of 'cooperative discipline'.