SCHOOL INDISCIPLINE: HOW CAN WE MEND THE FAULTS?

There is a growing concern on students becoming audacious and intrepid to discipline, moral values and tradition. Everyone thinks school should teach and change their behaviour. The school policies on discipline management has become mere tool for school, without much accountability being shared by others.

Last week, I had the privilege of sitting on the first panel of educationists who reviewed the School Discipline Framework 2010 at Eco-Lodge Hotel Wangdiphodrang. A team consisted of principals, teachers, school counselors and officers from Education Monitoring  Division. This was the beginning to the call on a very important policy document every school look forward to.

Schools have confronted challenges, some even dragged to court, while many had to face the threat parents posed for hurting their children, even when rebuked or tapped to discipline. When reports of parent and student displeasure reached Dzongkhag or Ministry, there was more eye sore in the teacher than on students who failed to behave and abide even after repeated advices and caution.

This time we propose clauses to shift barrage of accountabilities to parents and guardians, and share equivalent Dzongkhag education office and the Ministry to be more supportive. Teachers are doing experts at teaching not at managing and counseling students the way society expects, yet they have done their best so far.

The schools have not failed in their efforts to guide, correct and provide chances for students to grow and change. Only school teachers will know how much concern and care, how much guidance and activities they do. So much time is spent by schools to correct students, to make them ‘nationally rooted’ yet teachers are tested to their limits. Parents cannot discipline one or two at home and they get hurt when teachers have to discipline hundred and thousands! 

The guideline we worked on will undergo several reviews, and will need to be comprehensive, scientific, traditional and progressive, while also maintaining stringent measures for severity of misbehavior. It is hoped that the new guideline will prevent misbehavior before it happens and use a variety of different approaches to guide their behavior positively.

It has been about twelve years since the Education Ministry provided with School Discipline policy Guide and framework to enable schools manage indiscipline and students’ offenses. This was a yardstick for schools to overcome  levying corporal punishment which was banned in 1997 with explicit reference to article 109 of the Penal Code 2004.

Schools were suggested to practice Positive Discipline strategies for resolving student indiscipline and to ensure a safe, secure and child-friendly school environment. While it is easy to speak from the theories, it has always been a challenge to deal with student offenders. 

The schools either used the framework directly or created school level policy based on the 2010 discipline framework which was one of the outcomes of 13th National Education Conference. However, different schools had different strategy and often students are handed sanctions which are not constructive and supportive for behaviour change. 

While it is necessary to have stringent rule to prevent and intervene indiscipline issues, there must be ways to also correct and counsel students in their failure. The guideline will not be prescriptive. It must be flexible within which school can use, considering vast array of diversity and subtleness in student behaviour.

Positive Discipline is the strategy of teaching-learning process to teach children to become responsible, respectful, resilient, and resourceful members of the community. It is based on the fact that children are constantly changing, growing, and developing.  It teaches important life skills in a manner that is deeply respectful and creates an inclusive environment for both children and adults, leading to mutual respect and self-worth. What about those who fail to abide and be corrected, those who are caught in repeated misdemeanor or severely denigrate school norms? If school cannot penalize stringently some of the misbehavior that is detrimental to other students and school culture, others will be promoted and influenced become a challenge. 

We cannot mold clay to create a pot, we cannot chisel rock to carve a statue, we cannot train oxen to plough with some tough measures upon few. If laws we make snare us to attain the expectation of a nation’s future leader, we must make laws that serve the purpose. We must find balance between science and situation, tradition and aspirations to optimize in the future in our schools. 

How much can teachers advice, how many times a child must waste a teacher’s time? In a week a principal spends on average dozen hours, sometimes with teachers too, in sitting a court house to make judgements. How many students can school Counsellor counsel if everything student misbehavior and failure must be referred to him. The support of parents and superiors, of relevant agencies have become critical to ensure teachers spent more instructional time.

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SOME WAYS PRINCIPALS MUST CHANGE

If I am asked, what are some critical things that must change about principal’s leadership for the new vision Bhutan First, I suggest us these:

1. Become a powerful speaker

Power of speech, with clarity, depth and wisdom makes a lot of difference in inspiring others. Our inability to be eloquent, distorted with aah, and-da, that-ta, but-ta, etc proves our inadequacy and hesitancy. 

This can be improved by lots of reading and practice in speaking. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of USA, was born to a farmer, but grew up reading every book he could find. He was one of the powerful orators of his time and a indomitable leader.

2. Keep a common touch

Principal is a title that defines leadership in a school. It is not a position of power. We must treat both teachers and support staff as colleagues, while playing out roles of guide, facilitator and leader. It is important to understand that people must be led with firmness and understanding than with arrogance and autocracy. Our success will depend on how we well we can motivate and manage rapport with others.

3. Avoid domineering habits

A wise leader will manage any differences, short comings and challenges with calmness and quiet reticence than by yelling and blaming. Demonstrating hatred and anger to teachers and support staff may appear to make people obedient when in fact, their displeasure will demotivate them to work with enthusiasm and happiness. Lack of happiness within a system cause burnouts and this will be visible in the happiness of those who celebrate their transfer from that place.

4. Walk the corridors and corners 

When principal frequent the corridors, campus and others places like offices, store and kitchen, when he visits dorms and toilets, he understands what needs to be done where. When principal in present where his staff work amd become part of them, he will learn to help and appreciate their efforts.

Principal’s position of authority is not merely defined by how long he sit in office, how many papers he signs and what directions he gives, but by how visible he is to others at their workspaces. 

We can take this example from our beloved King who walks the valleys amd hills, towns and offices to learn the lives he is king for.

5. Acknowledge and gratify small things

A success of an organisation is a cumulative contribution from everyone and everything people do. A principal must appreciate and acknowledge students and staff when they contribute  in little ways, for effort and even attitude. When small efforts are honoured and thanked, people begin to learn faster, change better and contribute more. Gratification can be words, a pat, a token, a certificate and recognition to show appreciation. 

When we draw on the failures of students and staff, naming and shaming the hiccups, people become demotivated and displeased. 

6. Show empathy with fairness

Everyone looks at the leader as source of support and strength, guide and hope, when they face difficulties and discomforting situations. While there are rules of work, a leader must be able to demonstrate empathy and provide help with fairness. A principal must not differentiate between support staff and a teacher, between sweeper and a teacher. The more lowly their job, the more we must understand them, support and guide, without being lenient and gullible.

When a student or staff is facing painful situations, we must be able to reach out, represent or be present as a family. We must be able to cross borders, without disparity, disregard and divisions. School is a family, and when family needs helps, everyone must be able to help.

7. Make your office their home

An office of a leader must be a home to find solution with ease. It must never be a place where people have to enter with fear, bracing for harsh words, unsure what will their fate be, even for usual works. A principal must be a teacher, someone everyone turn to for answer and solace, a place where a role model by thought, speech and action resides. Everyone feel a sense of psychological safety, feeling free and respectful to share work dilemmas and personal issues. A warm and lively culture of school begins from principal’s office.

8. Work as a team

An organisation fails when team fails, and accomplishes as a team too. A leader’s responsibility is to manage his people as a team. A herd accountability is what drives performance at work. A principal’s primary responsibility is to manage how his people work, how he optimizes on everybody’s strengths and time. We must never disregard anyone for what they cannot do, as each will have their strength. A wise leader will always honour individuals for their strengths and services. He will attribute all achievements to the whole and failure upon himself.

9. Help your team grow

One of the best resource in school is the skill and knowledge of teacher. Principal must be able to raise awareness, skill and aptitude of his staff through talks, guidance, training and other opportunities. Our ability to motivate each member to learn, experience and grow contributes to transforming school culture to a vibrant system.

The growth of soft skills has more profound and everlasting impact on student learning and behaviour change than by infrastructural growth. The richness of school library has no use unless principal can inspire everyone to read, a variety of chemical amd equipments in science lab is a failed showcase of principal do not drive teachers to utilize and experiment.

10. There are many things I must improve to become a specimen as a leader. For the coming year, I shall tap into students’ strengths and teachers’ potential, and look more at how and what I must grow most about myself .

What others things you think our principals must grown on??

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TALKS IN THE CONFINES OF OUR HOMES

This is a personal opinion, but this is a fact some can never deny, and they will walk with pride and celebrate the road taken, but there will be guilt that cannot be talked.  

I don’t intend to harm how people I know have lived and served and accomplished, I intend to plant a sense of accountability His Majesty called for in my small ways, as always.

When we have written DSA for service we in fact did not provide, had we demonstrated integrity and accountability the National Day Speech brought to light by His Majesty The King? 

When we got promoted to P-1 position and higher with research paper we actually didn’t write, were we accountable as a leader of example, even when we don’t have papers read or written in decades? 

 When we left office before time and took leave to play archery instead of serving people who came for services, was that a display of responsibility and accountability we so much talk about only?

His majesty is stark aware about what every Bhutanese talks about at our homes and bar, at a gathering and on a walk, telling us that His concerns are “ part of daily conversation among our people while expressing their concerns, hopes and aspirations.” 

In these conversations we talk about policies and leadership, service delivery, quality, fairness, integrity and accountability. We talk about our authorities, about parliamentarians, about people in authorities, about the powerful and rich, about the crooked and the caring, about those who deliver services, from the common to the corridors of the elite. 

 If it is for schools, teachers talks about principals, sharing displeasure that they cannot stand to voice before him. When he is around, all things are praises and compliance. Principals talk about education officers and others who matter to our work life, pouring aspiration how things must be delivered, leadership must be exemplified and matters must be understood. But these are conversations in the confines of our telegram, WhatsApp and walls. 

 Even if the common cries are heard, even if those who can make people’s lives better deny to change in how they deliver, if they talk and serve in the ways they have for decades proving their pride on years and experiences, the future everyone expects will remain as common conversations. 

It is time that we are accountable to what we do and who we are. While our small community may limit us to raise voices and be responsible without fear or favour, there should be a beginning from where our way of service is toughened with fairness and justice. 

 His Majesty the King touched the very essence of our aspirations, that “Accountability must henceforth become the cornerstone of governance.” This is a Royal call for leaders like you and me. The higher our roles, greater our accountability has become. 

 If we account to good things that happen because we worked, we must also be accountable to lesser things that need to change. Thus, I am accountable to every success and failure of every individual I work with, and to every services we work together. I am accountable to the foot prints on the carpet, I am accountable to footprints I make on my students moral conduct. I am accountable to a truant student who disappeared from class, I am accountable to a student who becomes brazen as a military officer. I am accountable to lateness of my teacher, I am accountable to outstanding performance of another. Perhaps, I am accountable to failure of those around me. 

 “We must not hesitate to expose those who engage in corrupt practices, so that we send a strong signal to deter others from doing so.” His Majesty The King was clear on how we must begin to correct our organisational machinery, our society and individuals. 

This year, thousand of students failed as a result of increase in pass marks and change is assessment criteria. This has been felt painful by teachers and parents, and we are unable to remain strong. Teachers worry about repercussions on their performance rating more than about celebrating this change we all talked about declining quality of education. 

 We have lived within minimal challenges in our life, cared for and served well through our schools and career life. Complacency has become synonymous with compassionate service. Our life, our happiness is a promise from the morning we rise. Any change in system and ways of work that tends to create challenge becomes painful, and to overcome pain, we are compelled to seek ways to create happier circumstances. 

 The call of the nation to adapt to the future must begin from the attitudes of our people. We have talked about how everyone need to change their work mindset, how everyone must be as professional as possible by the theories we learnt. People have traveled overseas to learn and experience, people have read and been trained and provided skills to be good leader and servant to the organisation. 

We have heard our beloved Kings for decades, amd quoted the golden words, yet we have barely changed in our own ways. The sovereignty and security of our country begins from our behaviour as a citizen, and more so as a leader. If we still think “I know, I have experience,” and that “ This is my way of doing things. I have always had good intentions,” we have not begun to change. 

Let us know that, behaviours can change, and it begins the moment we accept that ‘I must change’ for the welfare of those I serve. This shift from I am, mine and my need to Bhutan First will make a huge difference in how we communicate, deliver and live. There is in fact no greater fulfillment than in balancing well our personal lives to the life we live as servant to the nation we so much hold pride. This is a reflection for my own change than for anyone. I learn about what I must not be by drawing out what fracture I see and hear in our homes too!

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