News analysis:

Tactics of discipline

Michelle Pfeiffer is an extremely unlikely marine. But that is precisely the appeal of the 1995 film Dangerous Minds, in which the ex-marine becomes a teacher who uses her combat knowledge to capture the hearts of her tough inner-city kids.
Ten years on, the plot, and film itself, may not have stood the test of time, but the concept is becoming ever more newsworthy as tales of yobs and yobbish behaviour in the classroom and on the streets are continually in the newspapers and on the television. Teachers, apparently, need combat skills in order to teach.
Shops are beginning to refuse entry to young people wearing hooded tops. Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said last week that schools should be able to crack down on unruly behaviour, announcing the establishment of a new working group on discipline. This is clearly the time for action, and everyone is sending out the message that bad behaviour will not be tolerated. But does anyone know how to deal with it?

Michael Fullan, a Canadian academic and one of the world's leading authorities on education reform, was in Barnet on Friday as part of a two-week tour of the UK. Speaking to a group of more than 200 teachers, inspectors and education professionals at a conference in the North London Business Park, in Oakleigh Road South, he held workshops on raising standards gave teachers, in his own words, a shot in the arm' of encouragement.
Comparing Barnet favourably with cities in the United States such as Chicago and Los Angeles, Mr Fullan the former Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto said behaviour in young people was influenced by cultural habits of the past.
He said: “In Canada, bad behaviour is less pronounced than in England. Here, the whole aspect of hooliganism is more evident, and always has been. But if the level of behaviour in schoolchildren has deteriorated like it has, there is still time to nip it in the bud, before it is as endemic as it is elsewhere. However bad we may think it is here, it is not as bad as in some US cities, like LA or Chicago, where you are talking about gang violence.”

And the traditional role of teachers has changed. Where before much of teaching was about instruction, now it is about crowd control, or, more properly termed, classroom management.
“It is like in that film with Michelle Pfeiffer, although obviously that is exaggerated, where teachers need to know how to deal with unruly pupils.,” he said, “Instead of going directly to the learning goal, teachers need to get to the behaviour part first. It is more a case of crowd control, or classroom management, nowadays. But the problem is that it is not taught very well in some teacher training courses and some teachers are totally destroyed when they go into the classroom. It's a very physical job, but more damaging is the emotional drain on a teacher you get dragged down by difficult kids.”
The biggest threats to teenagers on the streets of Barnet are the risk that their mobile phone will be stolen or that they will be rushed' by groups of youths, according to one student, Oyin O-Thomas, who lives in Brent Terrace, Cricklewood. She said she knew a number of people who were scared of being rushed, or mobbed, by groups of people whose sole intention was to assault them with or without weapons and often for no other reason than for fun.

Oyin, who goes to Whitefield School, in Claremont Road, Cricklewood, said: “Sometimes it's just for fun, but sometimes it's also because of an argument from before. When you are on your own, and then a group of others rush you, there are so many of them, they don't need weapons.”
So the way to combat these growing challenges is to change the culture the students are used to and associate with, and to provide strong leadership.
“It starts with good leaders,” said Mr Fullan. “How leaders like school heads can take on the role of not just focusing on school learning, but developing good leaders who can go beyond them and take charge. That is the way forward.
“Take the example of a school in Bristol recently which had problems with behaviour. Morale was at rock bottom and student behaviour was way out of control, but the head and team came in and focused on unacceptable behaviour.
“Most students don't like that culture. It's dangerous and prevents them from getting on with things. So you have to pounce on the individual students who are responsible. But you can't just leave it to the individual teacher, the whole school has to work together to restore stability and begin to stamp out unacceptable behaviour.

“You do it by suspending students. But you also have to get all the staff working together to monitor them more closely, as well as raising their expectations. In the end, you have to figure out how to get the students on a 'we-we' identity, where they associate themselves with the school and want things to improve.
“Future leaders will come from there as well. Some of the student leaders who come out of it would often have been part of a gang and become influential in reaching students.”
His advice seems straightforward: being strict and setting parameters for young people is important, while also looking to give them the chance to take responsibility. But most of all: “You have to be courageous and enjoy being around kids.”

Sophie Kummer
25 May 2005

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