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Freedom Fighters --The Student-centered Caregivers

The Jedi knights, fighting against the dark side, are the student-centered teachers.  Under the crushing weight of experts' checklists, standards, and benchmarks, space must be made to nourish the flowering children.  Aren't there some children who simply reject authority?  Don't forget the authority's fallibility.  Don't give into the dark side.  Even assertive discipline breaks down without the cooperation of the child.

Alfie Kohn, thorough researcher and author of Punished by Rewards (1993), champions the rights of children.  He counsels us gently to defend the overwhelmed child and tread cautiously.  Student-centered disciplinary thought is wide-ranging in its view, with a focus on the outcome, the future adult that now sits under authority at the desk or table.  Behaviorists hold a simplified model of psychological development that simply doesn't fit true childhood needs.  

Complex grade-driven systems follow a straight reward/punishment model with designated pitfalls.  Struggling students fall through the cracks as expected.  Seeing their fate as preplanned by a controlling system, low-grade students lose respect and interest in educators and knowledge.  Yet even straight-A students lack actual skills and attitudes needed for functioning in life after school (Kohn, 1991).  Kohn asks an essential question about assertive discipline: although it may work for keeping order in the classroom, is it helpful to students?  Are grades helpful?

His answer: grades can't make poor students good.  To focus on the student, teaching must unfocus on rewards.  Constant feedback, stars or rewards remove the student from the joy of learning the material.  Negative feedback depletes the child's self-esteem (Kohn, 1991).

Punishments (see this Kohn's video) are even worse, as they undermine the hope for love in the classroom and promote power hierarchy.  The one reward that remains honest and useful is detailed specific praise (or simply comments) regarding student performance.  Better yet is true interest regarding the feelings and state of the child in their learning journey (Kohn, 1991).

As each child is different, a real understanding of each individual can only be gained by questioning and observation.  Rather than nailing problem behaviors, memorizing responses, and solving the problems, a 'Jedi' student-centered disciplinarian observes, questions, and counsels.

Unseen pitfall: if a teacher wants to step back from authority, to listen and watch, who is to protect the other students?  If behaviors are not problems, and we need to understand and release our children from the yoke of institutional authority, we may throw out ethics as embodied in our laws.  A counselor, after all, is perhaps needed by children after they have been abused, or been abusive.  Why let it go this far? 

In defense of this, a permissive teacher will cause students to learn to defend themselves against unruly peers--whether they are being hit, sexually harassed or touched, having their property stolen, or what have you.  If the teacher always steps in, learned helplessness can develop.  Students should learn to stand up for their own rights.

Yet, the consequences students impose on their peers can be very inappropriate, ranging from after school gang attacks, to classroom screaming-fits, to nothing all.

Another freedom fighter, or student-centered disciplinarian is Jonathan Kozol (Wikipedia link). 

This author of The Shame of a Nation, On Being a Teacher and numerous other texts is a critic of unjust educational policy and institutional control.  Student-centered disciplinarians always remember the chance that teachers have it wrong.  In Letters to a Young Teacher (2007), Kozol writes in detail about past educational mistakes.

Issues in the classroom are often viewed as not coming from students, who after all are innocents.  Rather, we have a vast jungle of mandates, slogans, incentives, and punishments within which are youth easily get lost.  It is not even the teacher who is to blame (Kozol, 2007).

A student-centered view comes from a more humanitarian type of person, who doesn't need to be seen as a champion.  Classroom life is a celebration when all goes right.  As for administration, the enlightened principal is someone who can dance with a teacher when the music is playing (Kozol, 2007).

Jonathan Kozol is important for reminding us that labels such as ADHD, lists of ideal traits of educational subject performance to be honored, and charts of proper behavior can all be simplistic and ineffective educational methods that ignore children's endless intellectual variation (Kozol, 2007).  Teachers need patience, virtue, and must control themselves to be positive role models.

This does not deny the need for loving discipline to foster a positive learning environment.  Yet discipline is more of a relationship which must be humane and flexible. Rigid school policies are quickly seen by students as what they are: uninterested in the child or that particular situation the child is in.  Educational policy also often ignores the underprivileged and those who cannot meet standardized score minimums year after year (Kozol, 2007).

 Differentiated Discipline --Expertise in the Middle