“Train up a child in way he should go,
so when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
-Proverbs 22:6
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic shapes the lives of every individual particularly in terms of education. It has a great impact on the students’ discipline practice and school functioning. A gradual transition from virtual learning modality to face to face learning bring a lot of challenges especially in terms of addressing classroom discipline and managing student’s unruly behavior. According to Ross (2012) unruly behavior has a direct effect on the well-being of a student particularly in terms of the amount of instruction and academic standing. Effective discipline style helps to create peaceful environment that helps minimize interruptions and distractions and for this reason positive discipline would bear its significant impact. Positive discipline creates an atmosphere of understanding over punishment and educates the students in becoming responsible citizens in the future (Somayeh et.al 2013). A comprehensive and realistic intervention could be a better foundation of a well-structured discipline program of the school. This will eventually promote a healthy and peaceful school environment which will attract more students to come to school.
Positive Discipline in Classroom Context
Gregory Ross (2012) in his research entitled “Effects of Positive Behavior Interventions and Support” states the importance of early intervention as component prevention in terms of behavioral problems, he added that prevention is better that cure. Conduct disorders are destructive in nature however if provided with a good intervention plan may result to behavior modification. He posits that negative behavior is dangerous in nature and could bring harm to one’s psyche if remain untreated. Furthermore, this act as blocking force to learning process and prevents a healthy assimilation of knowledge which eventually affects the academic aspect of development and for this reason, teachers’ effort managing unruly behavior would highly be beneficial. From here, positive discipline would arise to promote non-violence method of correcting behavioral patterns. According to Thakur (2017) positive discipline is a method formulated and designed to develop and shaped the lives of an individual by means of promoting respect, responsibility, accountability for them to become effective members of the society soon. In addition to this, positive discipline is not punitive but constructive in nature which involves setting one’s goal in life and finding constructive solutions to various maladaptive behavior.
Counseling as Handmaid of Behavior Modification
Counseling plays an important role in implementing positive discipline method. According to Barisov Sergey Valentinovich (2018), theory and practice complement each other and an essential tool in making things work. The main purpose of Valentinovich’s research is to identify the role and place of philosophical practice in the field of counseling as important component of positive discipline. He further indicated that counseling serves as the foundation of positive discipline and eventually create a suitable environment for learning. This suggest that the fundamental tool in counseling is the best means to solve problems pertaining to disruptive behavior. In this regard counseling is considered to build mental, intellectual, emotional and self-care. Positive discipline therefore is practical and is not solely theoretical. This is the main concern of modern educators nowadays. In addition to this, Steven (2018) considers maladaptive behavior as a serious phenomenon that needs to be prevented so as not to inflict further damage. In responding to unruly behavior several factors need to be consider: first is that students must have adequate knowledge of the rules and procedures, second they must be given a scenario on the possible consequences if the action is not treated accordingly, third there has to have a strong consistency and firmness, fourth is that in case of punishments there must exist a therapeutic value and must be educational in nature.
While Thakur (2017) posits in his discussion of moral development stressed that inductive discipline is effective in behavior modification. They agreed in the principle of no punishment. According to them the more you punish a child the more he become resilient and for this reason positive discipline spring out in his idea. Positive discipline for him must be constructive in nature and not a punitive one. He added that positive discipline in a strict sense must be an organon in pursuit to oneself discovery and identifying purpose that would eventually bring to self-realization and fulfillment in life. Moreover, Thomas (2020) posits the importance of prevention as a major component of character education and behavior modification. He provided the readers with three levels of prevention: the universal prevention, selected prevention and indicated behavior. Universal prevention is composed of collaborative effort on the part of significant others. This type of prevention is considered as collaborative team approach (parents, teachers, administrators). They will work together by closely monitoring the subject and keeping their eyes always on guard of the situations and occurrences that might happen. Selected prevention means giving a preventive measure on the students who are at risk (such as those who have suicidal tendency). The school or the institution provides a continuum of care and protection to keep the students away from the possible factors that may occur. Indicated prevention is given to students who are not responding to the treatment or intervention that continues to perform unpleasant conduct and therefore a great time and effort is required. Furthermore, Joy Burnham (2009) in his journal article entitled “Contemporary Fears of Children and Adolescents: Coping and Resiliency in the 21st Century, stated that fear is a major contributing factor why a child decides not to perform unpleasant behavior. He is afraid of punishment that might be inflicted once the expected norm is not performed. In his analysis, he found out that fear is a major contributing factor towards alienation of oneself and others and this would happen in the absence of positive discipline. According to him children should act freely and responsive to the call of behavioral intervention. Adult supervisors must correct the children without inflicting harm to one’s psyche. Lastly, according to Mitchell (2006) in his journal article entitled “Strategic Application of Crisis Intervention” states that a good intervention plan will further enhance behavior modification. Mitchell provided various strategic formulas to cater to the needs of crisis intervention: first is the target audience, type of problem, benefits of the intervention and the last is the procedures. These are some important key elements of preventive methods. Preventive method must be accompanied with design strategic plan. This will serve as a blueprint of the whole preventive method.
In a nutshell
To capsulize everything, as educators and guidance advocates, we need to be attentive with the needs and the demands of our children. Nowadays, unruly behavior is one of the arising problems of various classrooms. There is an increase of number of people who are diagnose with conduct disorders and commonly started from a simple ridicule that eventually develop into disruptive behavior and would probably lead to other behavioral illnesses like bullying and aggression. For this reason, there is a strong call for teacher counselors’ education. An increasing number of persons with unruly behaviors signals the counseling profession to arise and a strong mandate to practice positive discipline. Classroom discipline and monitoring are essential components of behavior modification. There must be concrete and strong policy guidelines in terms of addressing unruly behavior in the classroom in any form. The teacher must be vigilant in monitoring children’s actions. This could be done by strengthening the monitoring and follow up system of the school inside the classroom. The teachers must always be present and aware of what is happening inside the classroom, especially during activity time and non-teaching hours. As classroom managers it is mandated to practice a strong preventive method anchored in positive discipline and not a punitive one.