purpose of the chapter is to allow some pointers to surface about how we might deal with such discipline problems.
The remainder of this chapter unfolds as follows. The next section contains the conceptual and theoretical framework that served as the lens through which the different forces impacting on South African schools (and schools worldwide) were examined, particularly as they impact on discipline in South African schools (and schools worldwide). The section thereafter gives an overview of the multitude of forces that have an influence on education and secondarily on discipline, and it is followed by a section in which their impact is assessed and discussed in terms of the theory. The chapter concludes with a number of recommendations and perspectives for the foreseeable future.
Conceptual and theoretical
The concept ‘classroom’ is so familiar to readers that we need not belabour this point any further. What is important is that this space is unique in that it is a structured, planned, formal teaching and learning space for young people typically under the age of 18.
Because of the young age of the learners, this space differs from similar spaces at institutions of higher learning. School classrooms are also unique teaching and learning spaces in that they are intended to prepare learners for post-school life (for taking jobs, or going on to tertiary education).
The uniqueness of schools and school classrooms can also be observed in the uniqueness of the discipline displayed in schools.
The learners and students, being young and on their way to maturity, are expected to apply themselves to the task of learning what they are being taught by their teachers in class, to be diligent and committed to the task and not to allow their attention to wander. Put differently, they are expected to display orderly and disciplined behaviour, behaviour that attests to their followership in the classroom, to the fact that they are applying themselves to the task of mastering that which is required for them to pass the particular grade.
The theory also emphasises the importance of ethically and morally justifiable action in the social space, in this case in the school classroom. The teaching and learning that occur in the social space of the classroom do not occur for their own sake, but for the sake of guiding, leading, equipping, forming and nurturing the learner (Nussbaum 2011:23) in order for him or her to be able to take up the responsibilities of life after having attended school for 12 years or more. Put in more technical terms, the didactical interaction between teacher and learner has to grow into a pedagogical interaction. The teacher should also become an educator and the learner has to become an educand;
this is a process in which the innate abilities of the latter unfold towards full maturity, enabling the young person to respond to his or her calling in life and to develop a sense of agency and identity as a unique human being (De Muynck, Vermeulen & Kunz 2017:34, 50). The ethical dimensions of this interaction should be
observable in displays of love and care for the educand, of understanding and empathy and moral imagination (the ability to place oneself in the position of the other).
Discipline, defined for the purposes of this chapter as followership, can be seen as one of the expressions of maturity following the didactical–pedagogical engagement with the young person and hence also as an expression of ethical reciprocity (the readiness to follow where the educator leads and guides). Although very young children are not able to display discipline consciously, older children (learners as educands) are in theory able to display disciplined (followership) behaviour;
they are in theory able to sit quietly and apply their minds to the task at hand, listen carefully when instructed about how to go about the task, and be punctual, diligent and committed.
Disciplined behaviour on the part of the educand can therefore be described as reciprocal ethical behaviour, as an ethically positive response to the engagement of the educator.
It follows from the above that the social space and ethical function or action theory would suggest, conversely, that ill- discipline and asocial or antisocial behaviour could be described as an ethically negative response to the engagement and actions of the teacher as an educator. Such responses can be ascribed to a multitude of possible causes and complexes of causes and conditions. It will be argued in the remainder of this chapter that conditions in the modern world, a world in which a particular
‘future is upon us’, have impacted on individuals’ personal existence and on conditions in schools and in society at large to such an extent that ill-discipline and unruliness in schools could reasonably be expected. We will attempt to show in the following section that the political conditions in South Africa since the late 20th century up to now have been conducive to the growth of ill-disciplined and unruly behaviour in schools. We will then cast the net wider and show how other developments in the modern world, where the future has virtually ‘caught up with us’, seem to reinforce such ill-disciplined behaviour of learners (who ideally should have been more disciplined educands) in schools.