HIC Research - Interview with a Teacher

I spoke with a teacher within my school to get their opinion on what the present standard for discipline in schools and what the future holds for students and discipline. Their strong belief was that children have been the same throughout time, they will always find a way to cause disruption and they are always smart enough to know when a teacher isn't in control. Teachers didn't have as many restrictions to what they could do to discipline a child in the past, they could grab a child and throw them out of their room if they felt it was needed. however this wasn't necessarily a good thing. They believed that for good discipline there needs to be a good relationship between the teacher and student. This good relationship requires a mutual respect from both teacher and child, however, the teacher must be in charge of their classroom but not show that they are in charge so the child feels included and respected in the classroom. The child also needs clear boundaries, consistency in rules and behavior from the teacher and fairness in their judgment. There needs to be constant communication with the students, especially the ones who tend to kick off, the way to respond to a child who is making a fuss is explain clearly what is going to happen if they don't stop then if they don't explain what you are going to do and why to them. The children need to 'see the teachers teeth' so to speak, the child must know that their teacher has the ability to be a threat to their comfortable lives, in the standard way (detentions, phone call home) but also showing them the bigger picture of requiring an education to help later on in life. The children need this as they might not get it at home, some parents rely on teachers to take over their role but a teacher can't take over completely, there are somethings a parent can get away with that a teacher can't. The parent-child relationship is different now to what it was years ago, it is more open and positive and so the relationship between teacher and student needs to mirror that. My interviewee believes that experience is key in responding to badly behaved children. They also felt that new teachers generally try to create this semi-friendship with their students, but this never works as the student then lacks the clear boundaries that they require. They find that male teachers generally find that a misbehaving child is a challenge to their masculinity and so the male teacher then retaliates in a way that just makes the situation a lot worse.

We then discussed what the future holds, they think that mental problems like anxiety and depression is going to play a big part in how students act around school and so teachers must be well equipped to deal with these issues. They believe that all teachers must be equipped to deal with mental issues now let alone later as students with particular problems, such as autism, react to things differently than most students and so need to be taught and dealt with in a different way. For instance a child with autism will replicate situations so if they are being shouted at they will shout back and the situation gets out of hand. One thing I did pick up on is the comment made that a good teacher is a good actor, when a teacher is at work and in front of a class they aren't being themselves, they put on this facade of a strong, level headed person, who knows what is best for them. A teacher doesn't really know what is good for them, they don't know what the future has in store for them, they can only prepare them for life by getting them the best possible grades that they are capable of and train them to hold as many personal qualities (ie. responsible, respectful, prepared, punctual etc.) that they can.