School Rules and Regulations: the Impact of School Discipline
Traditionally, discipline in school administration meant punishment that is pain and fear. To some discipline can connote something negative as obeying orders blindly, kneeling down, doing manual work, fetching firewood and water for teachers and parents, caning and other forms of punishment. Bull associates this as physical discipline that leads to threatening condemnation to a child. According to Okumbe, discipline is the action by management to enforce organizational standards. In this school rules and regulations essay will be an attempt to reveal the topic of discipline and its importance.
Indeed discipline involves the preparation of an individual to be a complete and efficient member of a community; and a disciplined member of a community is one who knows his /her rights and his/her obligations to their community. This means that the individual must be trained to have self-control, respect, obedience and good manner. Okumbe and Galabawa see discipline as an activity of subjecting someone to a code of behavior that there is a widespread agreement that an orderly atmosphere is necessary in school for effective teaching and learning to take place. Discipline, according to Gossen and Lockes in Castle, is reasonable in the eyes of those who receive it and in the eyes of a society as a whole. It is expected that the rules are known by all and are consistently enforced. In order for an action to be good, discipline must also be reasonable. A person is able to deny himself or herself to his or her desires and serves for others.
Types of Discipline
According to this study only two types of discipline were investigated: positive and negative discipline as identified by Umba, Bull and Okumbe.
The first type, positive discipline is sometimes known as self-discipline. Selfdiscipline is the kind of discipline that comes from the aims and desires that are within the person, where there is no element of fear. Okumbe relates positive discipline with preventive discipline, providing gratification in order to remain committed to a set of values and goals. It is encouraged self-control, individual responsibility in the management of time, respect of school property, school rules and authority, good relationship between students and teachers.
The second type of discipline, negative discipline, occurs when an individual is forced to obey orders blindly or without reasoning. The individual may pretend to do good things or behave properly when superiors are present but once they are absent quite the opposite is done. For example, a teacher may behave well before his/her head of school, perhaps in pursuit of something like promotion or other favors’. Likewise, students may behave well when their teachers are present, but resort to mischief as soon as they are out of sight.
Effective Discipline Skills
According to Robbins, the essence of effective discipline can be summarized by the following eight behaviors. Respond immediately means the more quickly the disciplinary action follows an offence, the more likely that the person responds positively. Also provide a warning this mean you have an obligation of issuing a warning before initiating the disciplinary actions. Disciplinary action is more likely to be interpreted as fair if it is preceded by a warning. Furthermore state the problem specifically by giving the date, time, place and individual involved and any mitigating circumstances surrounding the violation.
Also allow the person to explain his/her position regardless of what facts you have uncovered, due process demands that you give another person an opportunity to state his position. Likewise keep the discussion impersonal and penalties should be connected with a given violation not with the personality of the individual violator. Besides be consistent by fair treatment of individuals’ demands that disciplinary actions be consistent. Inconsistency allows rules lose their impact, moral will decline and your competence will be questionable. Finally take progressive action andpenalties will become stronger if the offence is repeated.
Theoretical Framework
This study was conversant by McGregor’s theory X and Y which is substitute to the classical organizations theory of Max Weber about organization. Theory X refers to a set of assumption about behavior of people at work (or at school) it viewed a school as an organization composed of teachers, students and non-teaching staff who use discipline as a means to enforce external demands for responsible behavior in achieving the desired organizational goals and objectives these group need discipline by setting rules and regulations and punishments to lawbreaker. The use of punishment in schools is to instill discipline and is melted on student who violates the agreed rules and regulations in schools.
Theory Y viewed a school as an organization with leaders as person who work effectively by efficiently apply leadership skills so as to gain willing support from teachers, students and non-teaching staff through the use of rules and regulations set by management. McGregor’s Theory X and is Y help education managers to identify extreme form of management style which can be used for effective management of rules and regulations, disciplinary actions mainly punishments and time management especially when administering punishments in the school.
The key variables in application of McGregor’s theory to this study will be school rules and regulations for efficient management and administration of punishments to both deter and retribute the offenders and time management that refers to the effective utilization of time allocated to individual activities in an education institution. According to activities to be done includes both classroom and outside work such as sports, gardening and cleaning work or house work.
The Conceptual Framework
For the most part in the period of education worldwide, the concept and knowledge of discipline was narrowed and circumscribed. The idea of punishment was predicted upon the punishment model. Punishment is considered necessary as a disciplinary measure in the schools and therefore used as a means to maintain “good discipline,” often referring to conformity and order in schools. In this case, punishment as a social institution is intended to control, correct or bring into the desired line the behaviour of an individual or group of individuals.
However, corporal punishment is often problematic and it is still a problem today, unless strictly monitored. Gossen and Omari argue that punishment does not teach the correct behaviour, it destroys even the opportunity to demonstrate the acceptable behaviours. From the age of eighteen onwards there is a growing opposition to any use of physical force in disciplining individuals. This view brought to the surface two opposing views on discipline and these are in line with Douglas McGregor’s Theory ‘X’ and Theory ‘Y’ assumptions about people. There are those people who regard discipline only as a punishment as applied to Theory ‘X’ assumptions. In schools, for example, a teacher or a student just does not want to follow the code of behaviour.
To make them disciplined threat punishment, control, rewards and incentives have been seen to be the most effective measure in maintaining discipline in schools. Another group of people are those who are against corporal punishment. Among these are educational philosophers and psychologists. They look at discipline as a process of encouraging teachers and students to behave more uniformly, towards meeting the objectives of education. This group of people are applying Theory ‘Y’ assumptions about people. They argue that external coercion and control are not only means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives.
Conclusion
Taking into account the aforementioned theory and scientific works, management cannot provide a man with self-respect, but to create conditions that would encourage self-discipline. Punishment in school according to them creates in the child a tendency towards blind imitation and fear. On the other hand, Omari’s conceptual framework for Quality Assurance has also integrated with Theory “X” and “Y” assumptions by providing the basic school and extra-school inputs to reveal connectedness in bringing out influence of school discipline and academic performance.
