farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
Let's have better methods please, but not necessarily subtler ones. Behaviour management in schools has not necessarily moved towards logical explanation of the needs for reasonable conflict resolution. Some schools are enforcing stricter uniform codes as though these were fundamental to deeper disciplinary issues. Many primary schools, and I've taught in a few of them, use emotional re-inforcement - children are made to feel secure or insecure according to whether they conform to a code. The code itself is not always explicit. Authoritarianism of a subtle kind becomes internalised. Positive behaviour re-inforcement is no substitute for mutually understood boundaries.The parallels between school teaching and the police are in my mind too...
...I continue to think it is understandable why police culture as a whole leans towards the authoritarian. But I think teaching culture has shifted over the decades. In days gone by, the approach was largely to beat the kids into submission, and now, there is much better understanding of achieving the desired behaviours by subtler and better methods. So there is hope the police too can change; but only so far, within the parameters of the job we ask them to do.
When conflict follows in Secondary schools and these behaviouristic methods fail, then there isn't much scope for reason and fairness - ideas that take longer to develop.