At Bedingfield I was somewhat removed from the discipline. It was handled
basically all by the assistant principals. My only involvement in the
discipline came when an act of such severity required my involvement
such as long term suspended child, possession of a weapon, possession of
drugs or alcohol, something of that sort. And since we didn't have a lot
of that, I didn't have a lot of immediate involvement in the
disciplinary programming. In fact, we established a high school, this is
something the three high school principals put in place my first year
there, we went to the Superintendent and said, (and he was all for it)
we would like to have county-wide high school disciplinary rules,
conduct and consequences for misbehavior. He said, great, put it
together. The three of us spent about two months the very first year
that I was there and we came up with this student code of conduct,
disciplinary consequences for acts of misbehavior. We implemented it and
when I left it was one of the smoother things that was working in the
school system. What it did, it specified what course of action would be
taken for just about act of misconduct that a student could commit. Yet,
it didn't lock you into it. It was a suggested course of action. How
consistently you
Page 9 followed it was dependent upon of
course those implementing it and the disciplinary philosophy of the
individual at the school and it just so happens that we were all very
consistent. We followed it to the letter because if you are not going to
follow the rules, don't make them. So after we took the time to put this
together, we did implement it very consistently. Yet, we always a little
room for the exceptions that needed to be handled a little differently.
Don't paint yourself into a corner. But that was working there. Now what
I found here is the exact opposite. There's only two high schools here,
one 4-A, one 3_A. Not only do we not have specified rules and
regulations and we do not have spelled out acts of misbehavior and the
consequences for such, it is discouraged and more or less what has been
vocally expressed to me is that each incident should be handled
individually and personally. Okay, except from the standpoint that is
hard to define to a teenager. Something that makes discipline effective,
and research has proven this too, the actual act of capital punishment
is not what the taking of another human beings life is not what makes
capital punishment effective, it is the fact that society is aware that
it will be done. That is where the deterrent comes in. That it exists
and it will happen. That is the deterrent--not the actual act of doing
it. If that being the case then it should be made public as it used to
be. Therefore, discipline to be effective has to be firm, it has to be
fair, it has be spelled out for the children so that they can understand
and it has to be implemented consistently. They have to know that all of
them are going to be treated alike and all of them are going to, "if I
do this, this is what is going to happen." Now if I make the decision to
do this, then I need to expect this consequence on the other hand. And
when you handle each and every case individually and you start to weigh
all of these factors in, you lose your objectivity. I am in a difference
of agreement right now--in fact that is something that is going into our
student recognition program that I am establishing consistent
school-wide rules. These are not classroom rules. My philosophy on that
is the teacher is in charge of that classroom. The teacher establishes
the rules for that class and it is my responsibility to support that
teacher when the child cannot follow those rules. If the rules are
unfair, then professionally and one-on-one I need to discuss that with
the teacher without a parent or a child but if the rules are consistent
with good discipline, if the rules are consistent with expectations of
the school, then it is my responsibility to support that teacher when
the child chooses not to follow those rules. Another philosophy that I
have about this is that in administering discipline to a child you need
to be empathetic, need to listen to the child and hear him out and try
to find the cause of the problem, secondly you need to have clearly
defined rules and regulations and what will be the consequences for the
misbehavior, and thirdly, what I call you need to let bygones be
bygones. The
Page 10 children when they have problems with
one another, the teaches and children when they have personality
conflicts or run-in, the administration and the child, it happened, this
is your punishment, learn a lesson from it and I don't want to hear
anymore about it. That needs to be the end of it. The teacher shouldn't
drag it back out of the closet, the kid shouldn't drag it back out of
the closet and the principal shouldn't use it as weapon to beat the poor
kid over the head with it all year long, that he/she did such and such
and I've labeled you and I'm going to keep you down. That happens and
you've got to let bygones be bygones, learn your lesson from it, accept
the punishment, move on, get over, don't do it again but let's move on
to something else. Discipline is not punishment. Punishment should not
hurt, it should correct misbehavior or change undesirable behavior. That
is the purpose of discipline. And if the children know your philosophy,
still even in 1990, or almost 1991, with what our teenagers have gone
through, children will respond to what you expect of them and what you
inspect that they're doing. They will respond to it.