The teacher should aim to help students think through situations and solve them rather than provide the solutions

Prerna Shivpuri

“A dialogue is very important. It is a form of communication in which question and answer continue till a question is left without an answer. Thus the question is suspended between the two persons involved in this answer and question. It is like a bud with untouched blossoms . . . If the question is left totally untouched by thought, it then has its own answer because the questioner and answerer, as persons, have disappeared. This is a form of dialogue in which investigation reaches a certain
point of intensity and depth, which then has a quality that thought can never reach.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is quite unusual to think of these two words – dialogue, discipline – together. Especially when one thinks about discipline in the most reductionist, traditional sense of the word and then reads J. Krishnamurti’s lines above, it might sound rather conflicting. But it is actually not. It is our limited understanding of these words and our conditioning from schools where discipline was something done to us, rather than something we inculcated within ourselves through a journey of risk-taking, failing, reflecting and, layer by layer, achieving deeper awareness of ourselves, which then
resulted in action spurred by self-discipline.

Discipline is all around us – in the life cycle of organisms, in seasons and planets and even in the symmetry of the tiniest flower. There is a certain order and beauty in this discipline. No one tells a butterfly how to come out of the cocoon. No one orders the fruit to fall from the tree. Then why do we feel we have to tell our children how to do everything or they won’t learn otherwise? There is an innate capacity in all of us to understand, live with discipline and to enjoy order in things around us.
As educators, we need to rekindle this capability in our children and empower them for a
life of self-directed discipline.

What we often try to achieve in schools is fearbased conformity. We think that by using fear
and punishment, we are teaching them valuable lessons such as punctuality, work ethics, neatness, kindness and so on. The truth is that unless children confront real-life situations where they have to face the natural consequences of some laziness or wrong-doing, they will not develop the discernment and judgement you and I can ever give them with even the best of disciplinary practices.

We can, however, give them intentional dialogues that make them introspect and think of
ways of self-regulating their behaviour. Dialogues can be extremely powerful gateways to self-enquiry. And like Krishnamurti suggests, dialogues don’t have an agenda, unlike us teachers who want to lead students to a result. Rather, dialogues are windows and serve as means to observe oneself and reflect more deeply each time.

Here are a few ways in which dialogues can be used to build this capacity of self-directed discipline:

• Prevention and Response

Educators can hold dialogues during Circle Time to build a reflective mindset in students. For instance, using some stories to discuss bullying or conflict situations and how the characters in the story resolved these using creative solutions. We can even use videos and invite experts to talk about how self-directed discipline helped them in life.

Another issue is how we respond when we see certain behavioural patterns which might be detrimental to students’ learning. Such situations are great opportunities to build self-discipline. Teachers need to refrain from giving in to the temptation of correcting students. Instead, they should hold a dialogue to have them introspect on the underlying issue and how they can alter their habits. Our role here is to support them by asking questions that help them reach their own solutions –
without supplying them ourselves. We need to agree on a timeline and review the progress.

•Reasoning and Consistency

We need to be careful about separating the person from the problem. Instead of saying “You are irresponsible” or “You are lazy”, we need to say “What you did the other day did not reflect your most responsible behaviour” or “I have noticed that you have not been following/ respecting the expected timelines”. When we engage students in a dialogue based on reasoning, logic and evidence, they understand better and are more likely to self-correct and act more judiciously. Refrain from using
value words such as “I don’t like…” or “I feel…” or “It is not good to…”. Instead, discuss reasons
why certain behaviours might not be effective/ healthy for them. Students should not change because their teachers don’t like it, but because they have reasoned that something is bad for their growth or learning.

We need to be consistent in our responses to them and the expectations we all set together
as the classroom community. If we ignore one situation but spend hours on another, they will get mixed signals and it will be difficult for them to trust us.

•Conscious Capacity Building

The intent in all our dialogues around self-directed discipline is to enable students to be able to practise this by themselves even in our absence. This implies that whenever we face a situation where a student has not fulfilled what is expected, we help them identify the root cause and break down the problem into steps.

We also need to help them identify their emotions in such situations. Very often, behaviours and problems persist because students don’t have emotional literacy and are unable to accurately state how they feel about something. For example, if two students are in the middle of a fight, help them pause and ask them what is the topmost emotion they feel. Are they angry/ disappointed/ hurt/ sad/ feeling left out? Give them the Feelings Wheel (developed by Dr. Robert Plutchik, expanded by Geoffrey Roberts) to pinpoint their feelings. In my experience, the moment the feeling is acknowledged, the intensity of it goes down by half and students reach a calmer state of mind where they become ready to engage in a reflective dialogue.

•Review and Consequences

It is quite possible that in spite of trying all the ideas mentioned above, certain behavioural patterns and issues will persist in some students. We then need to review the expectations and agreements
with them individually as well as with the whole class. We also might need to set certain consequences and contracts with the students to ensure they regulate their behaviour and move towards more self-directed discipline.

Inquiry Question

Think about your own experience as a student. What are some of the punishments you received or what fears did you have around discipline? Were there any aspects of your teachers’ expectations that you didn’t understand and were never reasoned out to you? Did you start doing things to please your teachers and never actually found them effective?

Now compare this with a habit of discipline you developed on your own as you were growing up. What was this and how did it happen? Did it become a part of who you are now and why do you think this is so?

Try a Tip

One of the greatest gifts we have as a teaching community is the diversity of experiences we have with our students. Try a weekly or monthly fish bowl session where two teachers volunteer to sit in
the centre and all the other teachers sit around them in a circle. One of the teachers in the centre shares her experience of practising the above ideas in his/ her classroom and her findings/ struggles/ successes. The second teacher can interview her and have those in the outer circle observe, ask questions and offer suggestions. Try to have all teachers share over a period of six months or a year. After some time, all the teachers in the school will have a wider repertoire of practices to work
towards self-directed discipline.

Prerna Shivpuri is Academic Head, I Am A Teacher, Mumbai. IAAT, a not-for-profit organisation, is committed to building a model of excellence for teacher education in India.