I must be in a reflective mood. Last weekend, I visited my old high school, Bishop Ireton, in Alexandria, VA. This time, it was for Homecoming, but also to present my cross-country and track teammate, Sam Imhof, for induction into the Ireton Athletic Hall of Fame. The weekend was great fun, celebrating the 30-year celebration with Sam's Class of 1981 (our 30th reunion is next year).
This weekend, I'll be at one of my other alma maters, Wagner College. I haven't been to Wagner in a shade over 20 years, and it will be totally different this time since I'm going for our first meeting as elected members of the National Alumni Board of Directors. Seeing as we also had a reunion of the Class of 1978 for St. Mary's Elementary School at Kathy Sutton's house back in May, it looks like the trifecta has been completed for 2011.
Anyhow, I found an earlier writing about my thoughts on classroom discipline with youngsters and figured that today would be a good time to re-display these thoughts from a few years ago. Guess the walk down Memory Lane is going to last a few more days.
XXX
My childhood experiences with discipline, at home and at
school, have had a great impact on the philosophies of classroom discipline and
management of children which I believe in and use today.
My early educational experience was in a very liberal situation.
I began school at the age of four at the now defunct Chichester School in
Alexandria, VA. I don’t have lucid memories of my two years there, except that
it was a much different setting that what I found later in parochial school.
The teachers at Chichester probably followed the discipline models of that time period, but I
remember it was a very nurturing atmosphere and very laid back. I don’t recall
ever being disciplined at Chichester. In fact, I only spent a week or so as a
first grader, and got bumped up to second grade. Fortunately, my parents
re-enrolled me into second grade at my next school, St. Mary’s Elementary, also
in Alexandria.
Discipline was taken more seriously at St. Mary’s and to a
small degree I bucked its presence. At school, I wasn’t really a problem child,
but grew up in an environment of problem children. The kids from my
neighborhood were different from the children I went to school with. Suffice it
to say, I usually knew the curse words before my classmates, hung around with
people who had started smoking before my classmates, and knew people that went
to detention center or jail, unlike the St. Mary’s students. I do remember not
enjoying the few times I was disciplined at St. Mary’s. However, instead of
making me stop, my first thought was always that I would never be this mean and
cruel to somebody else. That remembrance has had a large impact on my
discipline philosophy. For the record, a lot of these mean and cruel thoughts were mirrored by my classmates at our May 2011 reunion.
After seven years with the sadist nuns, I graduated from St.
Mary’s with most of my pride in check. My next stop was Bishop Ireton High
School, and the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. The Oblates are a religious
order dedicated to teaching. Their teaching methods were very avant-garde and
laid back. The year before I arrived, they were still working on a class
schedule which they called (E.A.), or Education by Appointment. The classrooms
were mostly study coves and students made appointments to meet with their
teachers a few days a week. Most assignments were self-taught and the teachers acted
more as facilitators at the one-on-one meetings. To some extent, students
roamed the halls and worked on assignments at their own pace. There was little
formal discipline in this environment, and it lingered throughout my high
school years. We did have a formal disciplinarian for a principal, and for our
dean of students. Unlike St. Mary’s, my memories of being disciplined at Ireton
are not bad ones at all. When I think of going to detention, I recall being
able to get out early by answering one of our dean’s trivia questions, such as
“Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?”
These experiences have influenced my feelings about
discipline and managing children. I know that my dealings with children involve
a good deal of two-way communication and letting them have some input into what
we do in class. If I raise my voice or discipline a child, it usually draws
attention because it is unlike my normal demeanor. Of course, in that case, I
do it for effect because it does get attention. When my students see me angry,
they know that I am really upset because it happens so rarely. They also know
that they can talk with me about school related problems, or anything else.
Fortunately, I had parents and many teachers who listened to me. I try to
remember that when dealing with children at school.
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