Chaotic Legacy of the Classroom Radicals

March 2012

Apostle of permissiveness: A.S. Neill, founder of the progressive Summerhill School and best-selling author

Halfway through my first year as a history teacher at an inner-city comprehensive in England, I am reeling from the volley of abuse and misbehaviour that makes up my daily grind. I can be sure that at some point in my day I will be aggressively confronted, blithely disobeyed, and probably sworn at. Restless nights are common, and nervousness ongoing. Still, talking to my friends from teacher training, I feel I'm having a comparatively easy ride. I have not yet been physically assaulted, and so far I have avoided the much-feared mid-lesson breakdown.

At schools such as this, the deprived background of the children is routinely presented as a catch-all explanation for bad behaviour. The pupils' chaotic home lives, their lack of prospects, and an absence of aspiration in the local community are all popular excuses for the pandemonium that pervades inner-city schools. These factors undoubtedly have an effect, but such thinking lets schools like this off the hook. The endemic discipline problem within the state sector is in reality self-inflicted. At least half a century of "progressive" thinking on pupil behaviour has had disastrous consequences. In the competitive field of follies wrought by 1960s radicalism, there is a very good case for progressive education being the most socially destructive.

My school's discipline problem is depressingly normal. A survey last October for the Guardian Teacher Network — hardly a bastion of old-fashioned disciplinarians — found that 40 per cent of teachers complained of being bullied by pupils and, of those who considered quitting, 50 per cent named pupil behaviour as the reason. A 2010 National Union of Teachers (NUT) survey found that 92 per cent of teachers believed pupil behaviour had worsened over the course of their career, and 79 per cent claimed that they were unable to teach effectively because of poor behaviour. During the last school year, 44 teachers were hospitalised with severe injuries from pupil attacks at a five-year high. Perhaps most worryingly of all, a 2008 Policy Exchange report showed that the atrocious reputation of British schools for poor behaviour was the main factor in deterring new graduates from becoming teachers.

Despite the recent arrival of an energetic new head, my school's results remain stubbornly unimpressive. It is strikingly obvious to me and many of my colleagues that the fundamental impediment to pupils learning is a lack of classroom discipline. However, when I suggested this to a member of senior management at a training session, he winced at the very word "discipline". "Right," he said swallowing uncomfortably, "behaviour for learning" — this being the trendy euphemism, modishly abbreviated to B4L, favoured by schools too right-on to use the D-word. How, I wondered to myself, did British education get to a state where discipline is a dirty word?

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Philip Arlington

July 25th, 2012
1:07 PM

It depresses me that despite all your criticisms of our awful schools (I am that rare creature who attended one and got into Oxford) you repeat the mantra about "Good GCSEs". Except for a pupil of very low intelligence a grade C at GCSE is a miserably low aspiration. By accepting this mantra you are complicit in grade inflation and the culture of low expectations. If a C is the definition of "good", regardless of the level of achievement necessary to attain it, then all that is necessary to demonstrate that the school system is working is a steady reduction in that level. Grade inflation has been undermining education for a quarter of a century, including in private schools.

Barry from Victoria

May 26th, 2012
6:05 AM

I almost became a teacher in the '60's and remember reading Summerhill. It was an alluring idea, and maybe it would work if the students have respect for their teachers. But I have come to believe that children crave order, and when they misbehave it is actually a cry for help. When they aren't corrected, they interpret it to mean that they are not loved. At least that's my folk psychology theory on the subject of discipline.

Joseph Alan Jones

April 23rd, 2012
2:04 PM

I am yet another ex-teacher who left on health grounds as an alternative to being disciplined for slapping an unruly lout who threatened me. I knew lovely female teacher who also left on health grounds. I shall take care to live long and very happy to make the most of my pension. Just think how much it is costing the nation for being stupid and failing to tackle this school discipline problem. I could, but have no intention of offering a solution to the schooling problem. It is not that difficult. One day someone will wake up! A hint:- You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink!

Jim

April 15th, 2012
10:04 PM

Burkard, you seem to be assuming that I believe my 4 examples are incapable of behaving well. On the contrary, they are all able to behave and learn positively in a well managed classroom. My point was that they all require a different approach because each is a unique individual with differing motivations for the choices they make. I know from personal experience that a "one size fits all" approach to behaviour is not effective. What works well with an autistic child may not be effective with an impulsive child. Your comment that I do not respect parents is presumably also based on the examples I've given. I don't accept your conclusion as I fully recognise the vital contribution that parents make when they do back schools to the hilt - I experience this with the vast majority (95%+) of the parents in my school which has almost 700 children. Home circumstances do have a huge impact on children's conduct and learning and I can say with confidence that for almost all families this contribution is highly positive, regardless of the vast differences in parenting style within this population. Children do best when home and school work closely together and this requires mutual respect and open channels of communication.

sd goh

March 19th, 2012
2:03 PM

In the past, missionary schools in Malaysia, mainly of the Catholic denomination, were renowned for their discipline and went on to produce many high-achieving students who have attained prominent positions, both in the public and private domains here. They instilled in their students respect for the elders, taught them responsibility, civic consciousness, selflessness and dedication in the performance of their duties. During their time it was an unheard of thing for a teacher to be threatened, or worse, assaulted by a parent, let alone a pupil. Those who were products of these schools never regretted having gone there.

burkard@tiscali...

March 7th, 2012
1:03 PM

I fear that Jim's attitude to behaviour is the problem. He takes it for granted that some pupils can't behave, and he largely blames home circumstances. Yet if parents are treated with any kind of respect--something that Jim clearly finds difficult--they will almost always back teachers to the hilt. The cult of 'special needs' is pernicious in that it conditions well-meaning teachers into believing that all manner of problems prevent children from behaving and learning, and that home circumstances is the all-purpose let-out for failure. I'm sorry, Jim, I've just seen too many schools where all pupils are perfectly behaved, despite horrendous social stats. Their teachers don't wring their hands about all the factors which you associate with 'professional' behaviour management. They do have heads and senior management that back them to the hilt. And, perhaps most importantly, they use a very healthy dose of direct instruction, and they group pupils by ability so that no child is out of the loop. When kids are actually learning, they seldom misbehave.

frankvarnold

March 6th, 2012
4:03 PM

Ten years teaching in state comprehensives nearly drove me to an early grave. Some of the reasons: # school management (including headteachers) more interested in the greasy pole and their pensions than doing the job (most of them could not manage a toffee shop); # the system blaming teachers for its failure rather than recognising societal problems; # OFSTED - half way through my teaching experience they changed the goal posts and over- night I became a satisfactory teacher instead of a good one; # the teaching unions who were supine in their responses to state mismanagement; # union bosses who preferred public posturing to getting stuck in (especially my union - ATL); # the zeitgeist which pretended that pupils could do no wrong, and there is no such thing as failure (ie. only "lack of success"); # politicians who manage the state sector but send their brats to private sector schools; # etc. As far as pupils are concerned, authority now resides in the peer group, celebrities, drug dealers, sports stars, PC games consoles and the fairies in their drug induced dreams. Parents? they do not count because they grew up in the same wonderland. Work? why? there is no fun in that. In a society where a banker is villified for getting a million pounds bonus for doing a good job but an ex- England football manager earns 6 milliom per annum and gets a multi million pounds pay off for doing a lousy job what do you expect. Get used to it, because it is not going to change any time soon

elixelx

March 3rd, 2012
10:03 AM

On my first day at a "cutting-edge" (soi-disant) Teacher-training college (read Greenwich) (after 30 years of teaching I required re-training!) I was informed that the "purpose of Education is...ta da..to change behaviour!" "From what to what?" I asked, tendentiously. "Please leave the course if you intend to be disruptive!" I was advised... So I took their advice, left the course, left classroom teaching (online is far more satisfying!) and have never once regretted it!

Jim

March 3rd, 2012
9:03 AM

I agree with the importance of good discipline in establishing a learning ethos in the classroom. I am yet to be convinced that the nationwide malaise implied in this article is actually the reality. I am a Deputy Head in an inner city primary school and in visiting other schools, and within my own school, the usual experience is one of a calm and ordered environment where children are eager to learn and eager for reassurance from their teacher. There are undoubtedly schools and classrooms where this is not the case, but to suggest the solution is as simple as putting the pupils in blazers with regulation haircuts and insisting on silence in the corridors is naive at best. Schools and classrooms where discipline is best established have staff who work hard to consistently enforce the agreed rules (which may well have been set through discussion with the pupils) in a fair way, and clearly communicate about behaviour with their pupils. This is hugely challenging and requires a great degree of professional judgement, patience and emotional resilience on the part of the teacher over a sustained period of time. This is not something that is easily taught as part of initial teacher training (although the lack of focus on behaviours management in ITT is concerning), and not something to be underestimated. We no longer live in a culture and climate where authority figures are always automatically granted respect and so school staff need to create a microcosm of such a culture within their school. Yes, this does require support of leaders within the school and yes, silence in the corridors helps form such a culture, but I would be interested to see whether Mr Hunter can establish good order in his class through force of will alone or whether he will need a little more intuition and understanding about why his pupils are not always respecting his rules. I do wonder also how a teacher who is openly dismissive about the importance of thinking about the reasons behind misbehaviour will manage in a school system where he may have to teach 4 pupils who are all interrupting his lesson - one an autistic girl who cannot make sense of the social norms of the classroom, one an angry boy witnessing mum regularly beaten by her partner at home, an arrogant and dislikeable boy with parents who have never set him any boundaries, and an overactive girl who is used to mum managing her with dictatorial authoritarianism every minute at home and with no idea how to self-regulate. Tell them all to get a haircut and be quiet?

Anonymous

March 2nd, 2012
12:03 AM

I see a major problem in the fourth paragraph "a member of senior management"! How many "managers" are there? it's been a while since I was at school, but what happened to the Headmaster and his Assistant? Strikes me that the education system is afflicted with the same bureaucratic paralysis as the NHS!

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