Sue Taylor
Guest columnist
Recently I was looking through an old children's history textbook that showed a sketch from colonial times of a boy being disciplined with a hickory switch. How times and methods of school discipline have changed.
The most recent issue of American Educator, the American Federation of Teachers quarterly professional journal, reported that a staggering 21 percent of teachers in urban areas lost four or more hours of instruction per week due to disruptive behavior. Teachers are spending far too much time disciplining students rather than teaching them.
Cincinnati, like many school districts, has its share of discipline problems. Today, we don't take a switch to students, nor do we paddle them like teachers did when I was a Cincinnati student. Truly antisocial behavior is dealt with through suspensions and expulsions. But this is far from a perfect solution; no one is proud of the very high rates of expulsions and suspensions in the Cincinnati Public Schools.
Rather than shaking our heads and letting out sighs of frustration, a group of teachers, administrators, parents and community representatives is working to improve the district's policies. An example of this is the establishment of two Alternative to Expulsion Centers for high school students at Withrow and Taft High Schools. The centers are staffed by teachers who work with students on instruction and study skills in lieu of expulsion. Other services include mental health professionals who assist with conflict resolution and anger management skills. But we can't wait until students reach high school to address these problems.
Researchers in education, psychology and other disciplines have made progress in better dealing with defiant, disruptive and aggressive behavior. Many behavior-management practices that work with typical students do not work to manage chronically disruptive and antisocial behavior. One-size discipline programs don't fit all.
Chronically disruptive students often have problems at home that become problems at school. When these behaviors become habit, it is often difficult to develop the cooperative skills needed for classroom success.
Three researchers, Hill M. Walker, Elizabeth Ramsey and Frank M. Gresham, have demonstrated that early intervention can effectively and inexpensively prevent disruptive and antisocial behavior. According to these experts, who outlined a three-tiered approach to school discipline in the winter edition of American Educator, the key is to start with children when they are young. First on the list is "universal" interventions, which are school and classroom practices designed to affect all students through social skills training and well-enforced discipline codes. Such interventions improved almost all students' behavior, but had the greatest impact on students who were "on the margins," or just beginning to exhibit aggressive or defiant behavior.
The second concept the researchers described is strategies for selected students who need more intensive interventions to reduce the frequency of disruptive behaviors. This intervention requires parental involvement to be most effective.
Their third level is to provide assistance to the most troubled children, often from the most chaotic home environments that require intensive and individualized interventions that are typically family-focused and involve social service agencies.
CPS has taken a bold first step in establishing Alternative to Expulsion Centers for our high school students at risk. The challenge is to establish and expand the type of interventions that will work districtwide, beginning in the early grades. Schools must promote and incorporate social skills training in every classroom and provide interventions that foster cooperative behaviors needed by every student to experience academic success.
We don't need to take a switch to our students - we need to whip our discipline program into better shape.
Sue Taylor is president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers and has been a social studies teacher with Cincinnati Public Schools for 23 years.
