POSITIVE DISCIPLINE

Spain 2017-2018

What it is and what it is for

Discipline, understood as the assumption and fulfillment of basic rules of coexistence in schools, is a fundamental element for the management of the school coexistence and education in values.

If we understand education as the main instrument for building a culture of democracy and positive coexistence, we must replace the traditional models of punitive discipline based on authority and punishment with models of positive, democratic or educational discipline.

The traditional disciplinary model can be effective in terms of control and accountability.

In terms of the maintenance of order, but in terms of the moral and autonomous training of students, this is less appropriate. It is precisely self-regulation that is the objective of positive discipline and, to this end, the participation of students in the elaboration of rules and their consequences is essential. In order for students to understand, accept and support classroom standards, they must have the opportunity to participate actively in their development and in their review or follow-up.

The consequences of the rules have an essentially educational character, as opposed to punishment understood as a negative reinforcement to be avoided. These are understood to be sanctions or corrections of a remedial and not merely punitive nature, aimed at redirecting inappropriate behaviour, that is to say, learning, until the behaviour is such that the student adapts to the norm established and accepted by the group.

Following Cruz Pérez (1999), a programme of positive discipline in the classroom has as its main objective"...to elaborate, through the democratic participation of the students, a set of rules and consequences that allow the self-government of the group-class and the improvement of the level of autonomy, cooperation and responsibility of the students".

Developing this program in the classroom requires planning a tutorial action that organizes and directs the activities needed to achieve the objective defined above.

The process is divided into two phases:

In the first, the norms of the class group and their educational consequences are elaborated in a consensual manner. This phase usually takes place over several tutoring sessions in the first quarter of the school year.

The second phase involves the implementation of the new regulatory system. The application of consequences when a norm is not met is always the task of the teacher and, ideally, all the teachers who teach the group assume and reinforce the agreed norms.

The process of creating standards and their consequences in the classroom involves the following phases:

Phase 1: Review of existing implicit and explicit regulations.

Phase 2: Awareness and awareness of the need for regulation in any group or organization.

Phase 3: Proposal of classroom norms and their educational consequences.

Phase 4: Negotiation and consensus on standards and their educational consequences.

Phase 5: Review and monitoring of the functioning of the new regulations.