Learner discipline: An Australian perspective
Australian schools by and large are safe schools. Nonetheless discipline problems do exist – including bullying behaviour. For this kind of problem schools should have management policies in place. As traditional behaviour-management practices – including corporal punishment – are largely prohibited in Australian schools, contemporary practices centre on management through supportive school programmes, including appropriate curricula and school-support structures. This article supports the belief that measures such as the exclusion of misbehaving learners should be treated with caution. Measures such as this might not reflect accepted international principles and practices and should only be exercised in the most extreme circumstances. The article also supports the view that it is part of the school’s role to ensure that all learners are aware of the reality that while they have rights, they also have corresponding responsibilities. This awareness is more likely to be achieved in a supportive school culture where each learner is recognised as having unique qualities that can mature and grow in an appropriate learning environment.
Judicious Discipline
Democratic classroom management is necessary to the success of character education programs. Judicious discipline provides the democratic approach that is often overlooked. he issue of character has T emerged once again as a major topic on the IJS. educational scene. In thecomplex, diverse, contentious world of the dawning millennium, it is only natural that character education, or the lack of it , would return as a curricular issue. Many believe that today’s students often have few socially acceptable values and morals, that they lack even rudimentary social skills, and that many come from homes with few models of what it is to live in a civil society. Furthermore, because we lack defining policy, consensus, or an agreedupon approach, many methods and procedures for teaching character are being touted. U S . education has focused on character development from its inception (Field 1996). The very first law dealing with public education in 1640 made the development of character a central aspect of education. However, U.S. education has increasingly turned away from character since the 1930s. In fact, in the past two or three decades educators have largely excluded the teaching of character from the curriculum. Some attribute this situation directly to the reaction
Psychological and biographical differences between secondary school teachers experiencing high and low levels of burnout.
A total of 750 teachers from 16 government and non-government schools from areas of contrasted socio-economic status (SES) responded to a questionnaire designed to investigate associations between selected aspects of burnout among teachers working in secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. By comparing high and low burnout groups on biographic, psychological and work pattern variables, differences between teachers experiencing high and low levels of burnout were identified. Multiple regression analyses assessed the relative importance of these variables in accounting for the variance in each of the three burnout subscales. School type was related to perceptions of stress and burnout. Higher levels of burnout were associated with poorer physical health, higher rates of absenteeism, lower self-confidence and more frequent use of regressive coping strategies. Teachers classified as experiencing high levels of burnout attributed most of the stress in their lives to teaching and reported low levels of career commitment and satisfaction. Further, teachers who recorded high levels of burnout were characterised by lower levels of the personality disposition of hardiness, lower levels of social support, higher levels of role stress and more custodial pupil control ideologies than their low-burnout counterparts. Psychological variables were found to be more significant predictors of burnout than biographical variables.