NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE DISCIPLINE PROBLEM
6. КІЅЅІ NG?
Yes .... 62 77 83 87 91
You Uncertain 20 12 10 8 5
No .... 14 6 4 4 2
Yes .... 34 41 46 49 59
Parents Uncertain 37 37 37 36 32
No «.. 24 16 13 14 8
Yes .... .... 65 78 84 87 91
Friends Uncertain .... 21 12 10 9 5
No .... .... 8 4 2 1 ....
Yes .... .... 17 22 27 26 27
Teachers Uncertain .... 51 52 50 59 59
No .... .... 26 19 17 13 11
Several conclusions emerge from an analysis of Table 6.1. There was little evidence of unanimity of opinion among West Australian youth with regard to the various contentious behaviours.
Students responded that their peers were more approving of the behaviours than either themselves, their parents or their teachers.
Older adolescents are more likely to approve of the behaviours than younger adolescents.
A smaller proportion of teachers than parents was seen as sympathetic towards the behaviours, though a larger number of students expressed uncertainty with regard to their expectations of just what their teachers are prepared to approve.
The implications of these observations are severalfold.
The gap in values between a segment of the student population and teachers, with regard to out-of-school behaviour, serves to colour relationships in the class- room. The teacher is confronted with a cultural barrier when attempting to play down status differences and relate with these students on an apparently co-equal basis. Not only is there a power differential but also a cultural differential constraining the development of student-teacher rapport. Furthermore, teachers and students may differ among themselves with regard to these social values, and may not even share the same educational objectives. Only one-third of all students responded that they would rather be remembered as an outstanding student than a star sportsman or sportswoman, or as a most popular student. These values, whether learnt from adult society or from peers, operate to subvert the role of the teacher in that they are antithetical to major school objectives.
Inflexibility on the part of the teacher in dealing with students at different year levels and with different value systems must exaggerate his social distance from the student and impede communication.
Teacher directiveness
The ideal of democratic discipline is not always attained in Western Australian classrooms. Relative to the conduct of classroom affairs in Britain, the United States and New Zealand, there is evidence to suggest that Australian teachers are more authoritarian in their relations with their students and more reliant on regulating classroom behaviour through the stipulation of rules. Adams (1970, p. 54) writes of a recent, extensive investigation:
The results from Australia are, comparatively speaking, bland, but they do have slightly austere overtones. Australians de-emphasize personal relations, free communication, the use of differentiated groups and permissiveness. Adding to the somewhat traditional impression is the fact that the two items ranked high were: subject matter and the use of prescriptive rules.
The stereotype of many Australian teachers as prescriptive and authoritarian is not especially softened by consideration of responses to the Student Question- naire.
It is evident that Western Australian teachers have developed a strong reliance on various forms of punishment, such as caning, detention or duties. (See Chapter 7.) Though not all students may be recipients of these punishments, their existence must colour perceptions of school and retard the development of a rapport between student and teacher founded on understanding and respect.
TABLE 6.2
STUDENTS' RATINGS OF 'MOST TEACHERS IN MY SCHOOL' EXPRESSED IN PERCENTAGES OF YEAR LEVEL RESPONDENTS
Very Neither Very
strict Strict or Lenient lenient Other Total uncertain
Year 1 .... 20 25 28 7 5 15 100
Year 2 .... 18 26 30 10 4 12 100
Year3 14 30 30 12 5 11 100
Yеaг 4 7 32 33 20 4 4 100
Year 5 3 24 45 23 3 2 100
Total number of
responses .... 794 1,409 1,584 623 254 398
Table 6.2 shows that students in the lower school, where discipline problems are more acute, tend to regard most teachers in their school as strict.
It would seem that teachers react to the behaviour of lower school students by imposing tighter controls on classroom activities. This response is in many ways instinctive, but its effect is likely to provoke further student reaction, increase tensions or, at most, maintain an uneasy status quo.
With highly motivated students conscious of impending examinations and the rewards that accrue from successful school achievement, teacher domination of classroom events becomes not only probable but necessary, since the teacher is the expert and dispenser of information. In these circumstances, the teacher may be highly directive and have absolute control but not be considered strict or overbearing while the class norm is so highly achievement oriented. Hence, most Fifth Year students did not have a strong feeling about the strictness or leniency of teachers. Forty-five per cent held a neutral view.
For many low achieving students, however, whose life goals are not dependent on successful school achievement, a strict or repressive school climate is intolerable.
BASIC N _ 216
21%
/ï /..
,
15%
40%
9%
9%
104 Discipline in Secondary Schools
Figure 6.1 and Table 6.3 underline this point.
ADVANCED N 491 MUCH TOO
STRICT 6%
TOO
STRICT 14%
ABOUT
RIGHT 60%
Too
EASY GOING 14%
MUCH TOO EASY GOING 3%
FIGURE 6.1. PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AMONG STUDENTS AT ADVANCED OR BASIC LEVEL IN ALL FOUR CORE SUBJECTS.
Among students from the lower school, 21 per cent of those working at Basic level in all four core subjects believed that discipline was much too strict, but only six per cent of students at Advanced levels in the four core subjects held similar perceptions. The successful student was, on the whole, much happier with the state of school discipline. It is noteworthy that within the Basic group of students there was a greater divergence of opinion of school discipline. The greater conflict of viewpoint is probably explained by the existence of two factions of students, one reacting against the norm violating behaviour of their fellow students, the other, poorly motivated, unsuccessful and feeling highly restricted by the life that
the classroom offers.
Though the pattern of responses illustrated in Table 6.3, Successful and Unsuccessful Student Perceptions of Most Teachers in Their School, may contain bias owing to a higher proportion of Basic level students not correctly completing the item (the instructions for this particular item were somewhat sophisticated)
TABLE 6.3
SUCCESSFUL AND UNSUCCESSFUL STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF MOST TEACHERS IN THEIR SCHOOL
Very Neither Very
strict Strict or Lenient lenient Other Total uncertain
Advanced in all four core subjects
(N = 491) .... 7 35 36 15 2 5 100
Basic in all four core
subject (N = 216) 33 12 13 2 5 35 100
nevertheless, of those correctly responding, more than half felt that most of their teachers were very strict, a proportion considerably in excess of the Advanced group of student responses.
The creative student
Throughout this Report, reference is made to the involvement of low achieving, low ability students in disciplinary disputes. This type of student, however, is not exclusively the protagonist in clashes with teachers. Friedenberg (1963) suggests that highly creative students, as distinct from those with high I.Q.'s, are also prone to disrupt the social environment of the school and antagonize their teachers. Commenting on a comprehensive study by Getzels and Jackson (1962), he notes how the hostility and aggression of the highly creative student pervades the data. Friedenberg writes:
We do not, of course, know how this spiral of reciprocal hostility starts, whether the youngsters become hostile and sarcastic because they are punished for their originality, even though they first express it openly, innocently, and warmly, or whether a youngster will only think and feel divergently if he starts with a certain detachment from and distrust of conventional, established attitudes and procedures.
Evidence is shown elsewhere in this Report that larger proportions of the students frequently punished by school authorities complain of the monotony of teaching methods, dependence on textbooks and failure on the part of the school to provide opportunities to be inventive. Under these conditions, for many students the day-to-day existence in a classroom is a stifling experience. The danger exists that any divergence of behaviour will be negatively sanctioned by the school.
LIKING SCHOOL Comparison with primary
The public hears very little about students who are satisfied with the way their schools are run, yet these students are in the majority. Overall, only 11 per cent of students felt that their schoolwork was boring, 18 per cent of students expressed a strong dislike of school and 30 per cent of students disagreed that they really enjoyed their work at school. Yet it is primarily on this group of students that the Committee has focused much of its attention and on whom much of the world-wide reform in education is centred.
It would seem that most students begin their high school careers full of optimism and enthusiasm. Table 6.4, Student Perceptions of Primary Versus Secondary School Achievement By Year Level, shows more than half of First Year students responding that, relative to their primary school experience, they are doing better. Only 11 per cent of First Years believe that they are doing worse than in primary school.
TABLE 6.4
STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT BY YEAR LEVEL
Year level
Present achievement Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 N = 1,407 1,392 1,298 593 372
Better now than before 56 57 54 40 37
Worse now than before .. 11 14 18 29 34
About the same .... 30 27 26 29 27
Somewhat surprisingly, the percentages of students who claim to be doing better in secondary school are similar in all three lower school year levels, yet it has been established that, in Second Year, most students and teachers encounter discipline problems. By Fifth Year, one-third of the students recognized that their achievement status had deteriorated, yet it is the Fifth Year group that is the most selected and motivated in the school. The explanations of this trend are probably severalfold. First, the greater maturity of these students would enable them to calculate more realistically the probability of their successful completion of secondary education-measured by public examinations. The criterion of success is externally rather than self imposed. Future success in an external examination is less likely to be the criterion used by lower school students. Secondly, the upper school students are further removed in time from their primary school experiences and their recall of events may be operat'ng selectively. For the
primary school students, life in a high school is an experience to be anticipated.
Various freedoms and responsibilities are associated with learning in the high school environment—new subjects, new teaching methods, and mixing with older students. A third possibility is, of course, that the accumulation of less pleasant experiences in high school, by Fifth Year, tips the balance in favour of the primary school years.
In response to a request for students to nominate reasons why they were more or less happy in secondary school, the more satisfied students generally ascribed their attitude to factors such as maturity, improved academic performance, and a realization that secondary education was leading them towards some form of employment. Typical of comments from students with more favourable impressions of high school were
"I am getting better marks and have more friends."
"I have a more mature attitude towards study now that I know what I want to be."
"I know it is more important for my school and the sort of job I get to have high grades."
"There is more to choose from in subjects and you realize that a good job is important."
"The work is explained more in full and my understanding is better than it was in Grade 7."
"I have gained more interest in myself and now mix with a group who like working."
Students who were relatively less satisfied with their secondary school experience identified a number of factors contributing towards their dissatisfaction.
The comments below are representative as far as possible.
"Lower marks in exams. More outside interests (girls)."
"People make me clown around too much."
"I haven't been studying hard enough."
"I am not applying myself to the harder work."
"In primary school there wasn't as many kids and I could get on better with everyone."
"Teachers seem to spend more time in helping their students at primary school. This is not so at high school."
"In a country town (where I was in Grade 7) there are not so many kids to compete at your level. Here there are."
The less satisfied students attribute a varied number of factors as the cause of their feelings about high school. For the satisfied students the explanation tended to be simple—if they felt they were more successful, then they were more satisfied.
Attitudes towards school
While upper school students may be more enchanted with their primary school days, their overall attitude towards school is similar to that of their lower school counterparts. The responses of students from all year levels to the statement, "I really enjoy my work at school", are shown in Table 6.5.
TABLE 6.5
STUDENTS' FEELINGS OF ENJOYMENT OF SCHOOLWORK—BY YEAR LEVEL
Statement: Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
I really enjoy my work at school N= 1,407 1,392 1,298 593 372 Response—
Strongly agree .... 14 8 6 6 5
Agree .... 39 35 32 34 35
Uncertain 22 22 23 23 22
Disagree .... 14 21 26 29 28
Strongly disagree 6 9 9 5 6
A slightly larger proportion of First Year students responded in the affirmative to a statement regarding their enjoyment of work at high school. Conceivably, this trend may not be apparent midway or towards the end of the school year.
The "newness" of high school may well be acting as a halo over the First Year students' impressions of high school.
In their replies to the statement, "I definitely dislike school", the Second and Third Year students provide a response consistent with evidence presented earlier in the Report. Fifty-six per cent of Second Year students compared with 70 per cent of Fifth Year students were prepared to disagree with this statement.
Table 6.6 provides a breakdown of the student replies.
TABLE 6.6
EXTENT OF STUDENT DISLIKE OF SCHOOL—BY YEAR LEVEL
Statement: Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
"I definitely dislike school" N = 1,407 1,392 1,298 593 372
Strongly agree 7 9 9 3 5
Agree .... 9 11 12 10 8
Uncertain .... 15 18 16 16 14
Disagree .... 41 37 43 46 45
Strongly disagree 24 19 15 23 25
Improving school
Few students have revolutionary attitudes towards the way schools should be run. Most students are prepared to accept the school as a worth-while institution in the community, even if some of them are not happy with certain aspects of their attendance at the institution. As Tenenbaum (1944) noted, the
school is primarily a receiver of attitudes, not a creator of them. He writes: "The child comes to school with preconceived notions of how to regard school and tries to get, and thinks he gets, from school what the community expects the school to give." This observation would seem to explain why students, when provided when an opportunity to record how they would improve school, seemed to concern themselves with matters only vaguely related to the proper educational function of the school. Most students did not consider changes to school organization or curricula. Complaints with matters pertaining to authority and control dominated, though the preceding questionnaire items concerning discipline may to some extent have preconditioned and determined this type of response.
A representative sample of student suggestions for the improvement of school is detailed below.
Third Year girl—I would make school so that it was not compulsory.
And when coming to school you could choose your own subjects.
And at what level.
Second Year boy—I would make all the lessons more interesting, and give more holidays. I would also put a ban on homework.
Third Year girl—I would change some of the silly rules like you can't carry your bag over your shoulder and you can't smoke and other things, too.
Third Year girl—Change the old teachers and teachers who have little control over students. Have more activities in the school during recess and lunch time, e.g., dancing, records and general mixing.
Third Year boy—I dislike the Achievement Certificate because you have to be at your best all the time. Whereas the Junior you only have to study at one time.
Second Year boy—I would not make unerforms conpulsory because you come to school to learn not to ware the same cloths.
Third Year girl—I would see that their is more discipline and that every student wear a uniform if possible.
First Year girl—First I would get new and better teachers get good equipment for sports have nice green lawn new desks and when a desk got written on sandpaper them and re-varnish have a good piano and musical intrements for the music room.
Third Year girl—(I would do) for the typing room I would have proper typist chairs and then you would have eager time for learning typing.
Make teachers wear longer dressers so that you couldn't see their pants when they bend down to a student at a desk (the younger ones).
Third Year boy—Make sure the teachers did not punish students by making fun of the student in front of the class.
Fourth Year girl—I think we (the 4th and 5th years) get a fair deal (entertainment, etc.) but the 1st to 3rd years who are at school for a compulsory period get almost nil as far as that goes. This makes their attitudes to school worsten—surely!
Fifth Year girl—Rid the system of the necessity of studying and learning just to pass an exam. Introduce subjects, and activities with them, which would a quip a student in everyday living when he leaves.
school.
Fourth Year girl—Students would have more say in school matters and more freedom around the school. Subjects would be made more interesting and there would be less accent on assignments done at home.
Third Year girl—I would let the students have more say in organizing and controlling the school such as a school Council, where the students have more say in matter and is not always pressured by a teacher.
Fourth Year girl—Teachers. They should be ready to help you with any problems you have. They should try to make lessons interest- ing instead of an "I'm giving you this lesson because I'm paid for it and I suppose I should earn my wage" attitude.
Among the thousands of recommendations made by students for improving school were many countervailing arguments and ideas. Lower school students were typically more concerned with the more superficial aspects of their education, such as school uniforms, and did not seem either interested or able to suggest changes that would radically alter school organization or the content or scope of courses of study available to them. Many of the suggestions made by upper school students tended to be equally facile, though in fairness to these students the time limits that were imposed may have limited the scope of their answers. A consensus of upper school student written opinion favoured the provision of greater oppor-
tunity for students to make decisions about what they do in school. Yet most of these matters over which students wanted autonomy, either complete or shared with teachers, were very minor refinements of the existing school situation. They were, in essence, irritations such as the compulsory wearing of school uniforms, rather than constructive proposals regarding means of improving teacher-pupil relation- ships, modifying curricula or restructuring classroom organization.
Alienation from school
A number of teachers commented on a prevailing apathy towards school-based activities among a large segment of the high school student population. Many students appear to be opting out of the struggle for high achievement marks. The threat of a poor academic report seems easily dismissed, thereby imposing a strain on the teacher, for what rewards can be substituted for the carrot of school success?
What is more, little attempt is made to disguise this feeling from the teacher.
This detachment in school may be a symptom of the larger picture of psychological discontent rather than a specific malfunction of school operation.
It is not always possible to determine the full complexion of this alienation.
Seeman (1959) has proposed that the syndrome of alienation may be composed of specific factors—inability to control or bring about desired outcomes; inability to understand the events in which he is engaged; the assignment of low reward