Tag: Discipline

Bookmarked When words won’t suffice: behavior as communication by Benjamin Doxtdator (Long View on Education)

Just as I try (and sometimes fail) to de-center myself when addressing student misbehavior, I try to de-center myself when I write. The vast majority of the students that I teach won’t be racially profiled in a behavior policy or by the police and that’s why I think it is especially important for me to seek out literature that reflects on those systemic injustices.

Benjamin Doxtdator unpacks behaviour in the classroom. He touches on knowing your child, student choices and systemic inequalities. This is useful post to read and critically reflect upon various practices. I think that it all often starts with the language that we choose to use to describe these things.
Replied to Is Your School a “Rules First” or a “Relationships First” Community? (blog.williamferriter.com)

My priority was obedience first and relationships later, not realizing that obedience — or the lack thereof — was a direct reflection of the state of the relationship that I had with each individual student. The kids who misbehaved the most were the ones that I’d done nothing to get to know and appreciate and value and celebrate.

Although I wonder if it is more complicated than this dialectic, I agree that an approach on rules and discipline misses the point. I wrote about this a few years back. One of the interesting point that was made to me was the place of rules and discipline within learning, the structures associated with the way things are done. At the very least, this is a question that all teachers should reflect upon as it often raises so many questions to consider.