This excerpt continues from and should be read in conjunction with Blast from the past in the July 2002 TCFNews

Some of the popular textbooks advise that good discipline is a function of good teaching and ……that if he (teacher) prepares his material thoroughly and presents it in a sufficiently attractive way, discipline will be a produced as a kind of by-product.

Interest should not be equated with good behaviour. One of the functions of education is to create interest in things that are worthwhile.

If discipline is to be an integral part of education it must be taught for its own sake. Whether we want discipline, of course, depends on our whole view of education, which in turn raises many other philosophical questions. If we do not want it (and this is a sobering possibility) order will be sufficient to establish satisfactory conditions for learning, but learning what? If preferred, it (discipline) may be regarded as evidence of a moral dimension in all education.

A teacher can not strive intelligently for discipline if he does not know what good behaviour is, nor help his pupils to do so if he cannot convey something of its meaning to them. The onus of enquiry rests more heavily on the Christian teacher. His belief that only God is good is the beginning, not the end of the matter. Failure to pursue truth is indeed more reprehensible in his case for it indicates a disregard for the divine command to love God with his mind and to love his neighbour by making the good known to the world at large. ……..That agreement is not likely to be reached on the meaning good is no excuse; truth has never been a matter of consensus.

Some of the popular textbooks advise that good discipline is a function of good teaching and ……that if he (teacher) prepares his material thoroughly and presents it in a sufficiently attractive way, discipline will be a produced as a kind of by-product.

Interest should not be equated with good behaviour. One of the functions of education is to create interest in things that are worthwhile.

If discipline is to be an integral part of education it must be taught for its own sake. Whether we want discipline, of course, depends on our whole view of education, which in turn raises many other philosophical questions. If we do not want it (and this is a sobering possibility) order will be sufficient to establish satisfactory conditions for learning, but learning what? If preferred, it (discipline) may be regarded as evidence of a moral dimension in all education.

A teacher can not strive intelligently for discipline if he does not know what good behaviour is, nor help his pupils to do so if he cannot convey something of its meaning to them. The onus of enquiry rests more heavily on the Christian teacher. His belief that only God is good is the beginning, not the end of the matter. Failure to pursue truth is indeed more reprehensible in his case for it indicates a disregard for the divine command to love God with his mind and to love his neighbour by making the good known to the world at large. ……..That agreement is not likely to be reached on the meaning good is no excuse; truth has never been a matter of consensus.

Five logical components of school discipline

(1) Discipline involves some limitation of behaviour. A disciplined person or class does not do certain things, which it is perfectly capable of doing, might do or may even want to do.

(2) Some degree of self-direction which in turn implies some freedom of choice in the limitations imposed on behaviour. Constraint, conditioning, coercion, taken to the point of no self-direction or choice is possible, may bring about a tyrant’s coveted result but it can hardly be called discipline.

(3) The limitation is for some common purpose, goal or principle.
The limitation of behaviour in school discipline, as in all group discipline, must be in accordance with some common purpose, goal or principle.

(4) Good behaviour. Limitation of behaviour, even when self-directed and for a common purpose, is not sufficient. People may refrain from good acts as well as bad. But refraining from goodness is never regarded as discipline.

(5) Permanency or consistency of behaviour. If good discipline is only intermittent, the class is considered not to be disciplined. Lapses occur of course and are accepted as normal but they are regarded as lapses from discipline.

True discipline then is learned not imposed and the absence of discipline is the result of a failure to learn and in the context of education and the school, the result of a failure to teach.