I’m delighted to read of a school in England that’s reintroduced fairly strict standards of discipline – well, strict by today’s standards, at any rate.
A school claims to be transforming children’s behaviour and results by introducing Victorian-style rules.
Pupils at Neville Lovett Community School are encouraged to answer staff with a polite ‘yes, Mrs Jones’ rather than ‘yeah’ and stand respectfully behind their desks until the class teacher tells them to sit.
They are also required to wait in the corridor in an orderly line before a lesson begins, say ‘good morning Sir’ as they file into the classroom, arrange their books and stationery neatly on the desk and stand when an adult enters the room.
Headmistress Julie Taylor, who insisted on the revival of old-fashioned good manners and politeness when she arrived in September 2007, says discipline and academic results are improving.
Ofsted reported last term that attendance has improved and the number of pupils having to be sent home because of bad behaviour has fallen.
Inspectors also said that pupils’ progress in key subjects such as maths is improving and that ‘attitudes and behaviour around the school and in lessons are good’.
. . .
While the school has resurrected some traditional school customs, it has left the harsher side of Victorian discipline to the history books – such as corporal punishment and making pupils wear dunces hats.
What I can’t figure out is that this is so noteworthy as to make a newspaper article. I was brought up this way, and my school was even more strictly disciplined than the one described. If I was stupid enough to back-talk a teacher, I could expect punishment, from detention or extra work right up to corporal punishment from the Headmaster – and I’d get another dose from my parents when I got home, too! I didn’t enjoy it at the time, but I daresay it didn’t do me any harm . . . and looking at some of the rap-gangsta-types wandering the streets in some areas, I can’t help but think that a good dose of discipline (including corporal punishment as often as necessary) would do them the world of good!
How about you, readers? I wasn’t brought up in America, so I don’t know how it was here in your youth: but I’m willing to bet many of you had stricter discipline than modern youth seem to receive. Let’s hear your own experience in Comments.
Peter
Peter,
I’ve been a reader for a while but haven’t commented yet (I don’t think, anyway)
For me, there was always strict discipline (again, by today’s standards) in the home. Never physical, of course, more along the lines of losing TV or computer privileges for a week because I hit my brother. I wouldn’t call it strict, to be honest, but very firm and fair.
School, on the other hand, was a different story. Sure, it started off about as strict as in the home, but the further along I advanced in my education, the more and more the public school district lost its backbone. By the time I was a senior in high school, it was amazing what kids would get away with. And on the off-chance a student is given a detention, or even a bad grade for that matter, odds are that Mommy and Daddy will race up to school and yell and scream at, or threaten to sue, the administration and how dare they punish their darling angel-child who would never do anything wrong and is being discriminated against and picked on by the teacher and who needs a perfect GPA and disciplinary record to get into Ivy League College and blah blah blah blah BLAH!
Oh, brother. The stuff I saw then and hear about now makes me want to puke.
Sorry for the rant. This particular topic really gets me worked up.
I was raised by the book- applied to the seat of the problem! The discipline I received would be child abuse today, and Dad (and Mom) would have gone to jail. Did I deserve it? At least 90% of the time! And it warped my little psyche, too. Some acts by children do need to be re-enforced with corporal punishment- like the time I was playing with matches and set the wastebasket on fire. We lived at the end of a dirt/mud road,seven miles from town, and no phone or electricity. Mom wore out two good yardsticks on me, and then I got a time out of sorts. So I grew up to be a mass murder- no, not at all. I’m retired now after 41 years at the same place, am a vet, married, divorced, married again, widowed, raised a son that is doing well, and have a GRAND daughter. I took my lickin’s, learned to be polite, and was taught and believe that honesty and truth are the best policy. I believe and accept the teachings and the word of the Bible; Christ Jesus is my Lord. Thanks to Mom and Dad, and many teachers that did what it took for me and my generation!
Given I suspect we are of an age, I figure we probably had the same discipline at school. Here it was still dress code, clean shaven, no long hair, etc. And this was the public school. Likewise we had corporal punishment by the principal and required manners.
I suspect that the enforced dress and mannerisms removed many distractions from the educational process and forced others off the school grounds – all in all a good thing.
The hard part is getting to agreement on what the dividing line between oppressive martinet like behavior and distraction removal is. American schools seem follow a pendulum arc. Over strict -> just right -> too loose -> just right -> too strict, etc. Right now the pendulum seems to be just starting to swing back from too loose.
I graduated from high school 10 years ago, and discipline had already left the scene…
My kids are in a private Catholic school. All kids, from preschool to Grade 8 are expected to follow the same rules. The rules are geared towards teaching self-discipline and self-control, and the consequences are immediate. My kids are being educated under much more consistent rules than I ever experienced.
Of course, given that the parents shell out money for the school, its no wonder that discipline problems are taken care of quickly. Something about not feeling entitled to be there…
I grew up with a leather belt hanging on a chair in the living room. And it had been put to a good use more frequently than I thought necessary at the time. Looking back now, did more good than harm.
School was pretty much like what that article describes, and it’s hard to find anything in the school my kids go to today that can be called an improvement in comparison.
I believe that the level of firmness isn’t the most influential part, rather that fairness and consistency are. The results coming from this English school are no surprise whatever, and I laud them for making those changes.
Jim
I was born and raised in New Jersey. Teachers were not allowed to discipline students out of fear of lawsuits, so naturally, being sent to the principal or detention was laughable. At least one teacher was verbally abused by students on a regular basis. General rudeness, loud bullying and open cursing, and even bloody fistfights were not uncommon.
And then I moved to TN, and the teachers would paddle the students who got out of line (heck, the janitor once paddled my brother after she caught him saying the f-word). Teachers were called “sir” and “ma’am” and the respect was obvious. The general atmosphere student-to-student was even more courteous.
I don’t recall any corporate punishment in school, but there WAS discipline and rules of conduct. And my parents, like yours, were more than ready to back up any school discipline with an extra dose of the home-grown stuff. Dad favored a belt, Mom either a hairbrush or bare hands, and they were NOT afraid to use ’em.
We were all aware that there was acceptable behavior in our own back yard, with just us kids; with guests or AS guests, in school or any other public place, the standards were higher. (Usually referred to simply as “don’t embarrass your parents in public”.) We didn’t actually get all that much corporal punishment: the mere threat — threat? hell no: the CERTAINTY! — that bad behavior produced unpleasant consequences was enough to prevent it in the first place.
Plus Mom had laser eyeballs: you did NOT want her gracing you with THAT STARE…..
What was my experience? I had some detentions in school, but because I was more inclined to retreat into books, writing, and severe depression than act out I was mostly left alone, as far as school was concerned. But my mom didn’t know beans about discipline or raising me really so by the time I was a teenager I was a real nightmare. Fortunately though she had managed to shield me from drugs and alcohol so I had yet to get into those, but I was about to. I was thinking about joining a coven too, little idiot that I was. The only thing that saved me from the kind of hellish life that comes with thinking the rules don’t apply to you is that Jesus found me when I was 18 and I got saved. Then I went through Navy bootcamp, that helped straighten my mind out somewhat. It’s not easy though, even now. But in raising my kids, let’s just say that I use more discipline than my mom did 😉
It’s great.
When I was in school, the fear of failing was driven into my head. Along with that came the fear of the belt from my parents if I got out of the line.
It worked for me, and I plan on using it on my kids.