More democracy needed in classrooms

More democracy needed in classrooms

Simon Marcus Gower, High School, Harapan Bangsa School,
Kotamodern Tangerang, Banten

A major concern for parents in Indonesia, and indeed for
Indonesian teachers, is the need for discipline in schools.
Parents will consistently question their child's school principal
and teachers about how they maintain discipline. So great is the
concern for discipline that some parents will even be insistent
that their child receives harsh, practically militaristic,
discipline.

Indonesian parents are by no means unusual in their desire for
good discipline within schools. In the West discipline has for
decades been one of the primary concerns for school parents,
rivaled only in importance by the relatively recent worries of
drugs in schools. But discipline that is truly beneficial to the
child and successful in maintaining order can be quite illusive.
Furthermore, without the right kind of approach to discipline a
school's whole educational philosophy can unravel and become
irrelevant.

The nature of the information and global age is such that
schools that are successful can no longer be viewed as assembly-
line factories within which educated people are produced. More
and more schools must recognize that they are not dealing with
machines or creating an output of robots.

The challenges of the information age create very human
problems that require thinking skills and adaptability that only
humans can bring about. Machines or robots lack such a
sophisticated and flexible touch. In this sense schools have to
become a kind of "second home" for students.

But how is disciplined maintained in such a "home" where
groups of students have to be controlled in some way so as to
maintain order? Some would claim that militaristic methods are
most appropriate, as they will make the students understand where
they belong, their position within the school and what they must
do to conform and, in effect, survive.

In such a militaristic mode of discipline the teacher becomes
the center of attention. All authority lies with the teacher and
the students are both consciously and subconsciously forced to be
submissive.

What this creates, then, is teacher dominance that borders on
dictatorship. Any hope of democracy in the classroom is squashed
as the teacher makes all decisions, determines the rules and
keeps all the control. Students, in their enforced submissive
role, are left with the perception that someone else is really
responsible for their control. They must hand over control to
someone else more responsible.

This is a truly sad predicament. Look up the word discipline
in a dictionary and you may find it defined as "training oneself
or somebody in self-control." Dictatorial, militaristic
discipline robs the person of self-control and leaves them
without responsibility. The message could be read as "they are
unable to control themselves" -- effectively learning disabled.

The search for alternatives does not mean simply handing over
control to students. That would represent loss of control and the
likely end of discipline. The best and most disciplined and
educationally valid approach has to be one in which control is
shared between the teacher and the students. In this mode the
classroom operates, and will likely succeed, as a democracy.

This has to be the most appropriate way for schools to respond
to the disciplinary challenges of the early 21st century.
Creating and nurturing a sense of shared discipline gives
students the opportunity to appreciate and understand their own
position of responsibility within a community -- the school and
the community in which the students live and will become active
citizens of.

In Indonesia there has been a consistent tendency towards
maintaining authoritarian control within schools -- a style of
militaristic discipline that coerces rather than encourages
students. Discipline then becomes a concept that the student may
reluctantly obey rather than willingly and truthfully respect.

But the application of these methods in Indonesian schools has
all too obviously not had the desired results -- students run
riot on city streets. So severe has school violence become that
it has led to deaths and increasingly Indonesian teachers are
living with the fear of becoming victims of violence themselves.

In our changing, and challenging, times militaristic attitudes
in schools are doomed to failure. Teachers can no longer exist in
the belief that they are controllers and inspectors of their
students. Teachers have to be mentors, guides and leaders that
the students may genuinely respect rather than reluctantly and
grudgingly follow and obey.

Militaristic styles of discipline undermine the possibilities
and potential for students to take responsibility for their own
actions and so gain a sense of self-discipline that is truly an
effective learning experience. Dictatorial teachers are caught in
a trap in which motivation is dependent on them rather than being
in the students' domain. Discipline becomes a near mindless
adherence to rules, defined by the teacher, rather than students
gaining self-discipline.

Perhaps most disturbingly, though, schools that adopt
militaristic style regimes towards discipline are implicitly
designating the student as a product. In this sense students are
not really viewed as learning people but as the product of
learning. Students should, and really have to in our modern
world, be the active creators of and participants in learning.
Where authoritarian and dictatorial discipline is applied, it is
implied that the students are merely passive and submissive
objects that are shaped and molded by an educational process over
which they have no control or influence.

Indonesia, as a whole, needs to grow and develop its own sense
of democracy. What better place to help with this growth and
development could there be than schools? By definition schools
have to be concerned about helping to foster the best possible
prospects for future generations. It follows, then, that where
schools are able to make their classrooms more democratic places,
where students have a voice and can take on responsibilities,
that future generations will be better placed to appreciate and
work within a more democratic society.

The quick-fix mentality of dictatorial, militaristic, enforced
discipline should not be allowed to undermine the chances of a
more sophisticated, responsive and empowering discipline to
emerge. Discipline that is shared and based on a consensus is far
more likely to be lasting and fruitful in establishing and
keeping order.