Dr. Elsa Bosman is a community builder par excellence and a lady with tons of experience. She finished a Ph.D. in Education at age 77 and continued to play a role in building the next generation of leaders. We asked her what the current school situation is regarding discipline and why we should fight for better discipline in schools.
“I love children, and I wanted to make a difference in their lives. In my younger days, women could only become teachers, social workers, nurses, or typists (secretaries), and I chose teaching as a career. I taught in dominantly so-called white schools, and I taught in townships for many years pre-1994. Over the broad spectrum, I have found that children are generally eager to learn. The standard level then was good, and children were disciplined. Sadly, it has changed post-1994.”
“Discipline in schools starts with the teacher. Other studies have found that teachers are not interested in teaching as it is a springboard to where they want to be. To give you one example: In one of the schools I researched, I found 72 children in one classroom for one teacher. How can a teacher, under these circumstances, have any control over the children or discipline them?"
“It is all about discipline in schools. If you talk to teachers, they complain about the lack of discipline in schools. The complaints vary from corporate punishment that was abolished to children knowing their rights and using it as a weapon against teachers. Parents make it worse as they come into the classrooms and argue with teachers in front of the children. I would say that this is the case in most public schools. The discipline is very bad, and in most cases, the results are chaos in schools, drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, and a myriad of other challenges that impact us all.’
“Discipline affects a child’s total development process, and bad behaviour disrupts the entire class. Bad behaviour eventually hurts the rest of the class, the teacher and the school.”
Indiscipline in schools has many negative results. This is not only for the learners but also for the health of the educators and the county's economy because learners drop out of school. This hurts their future career possibilities.
Read the full story in our sister publication, Devoted, Issue 33 online: www.devotedmag.co.za
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