Phoning Home in High School

Stone, Randi. Best Practices for High School Classrooms: What award-winning secondary teachers do. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, Inc, 2002. 8-10.

In an article published in Stone’s Best Practices for High School Classrooms book, secondary teacher Carey Jenkins from Paterson, New Jersey writes about her experience with teaching in an inner-city environment in a low socio-economic part of town. In a classroom flooded with Latino and African American students with poor working-class parents, classroom management was a daily issue. “I will talk about discipline because it is the biggest problem facing inner-city classroom teachers. The average teacher cannot control an inner-city class for several reasons: The teacher is afraid of the students and afraid of the parents of the students. In addition, teachers will say they do not have the support of their administrators or that their administrators will not ‘back them up’ when they attempt to discipline a child” (Stone 8). Jenkins acknowledges that discipline problems are often school, district, community and city-wide, so many teachers have little to no help in managing their immediate classroom. I like what Jenkins says in response to this problem—that yes, discipline problems exist everywhere, and they’re often much larger than the immediate classroom issue—but that teachers need to discipline their students in order for learning to take place. An out of control classroom does no good, and if we view the classroom as a microcosm for society at large, setting rules and enforcing them is an important part of what we do as teachers. So, how to do?

At the heart of every discipline problem, suggests Jenkins, is an issue of respect (or disrespect). Many teachers, especially at inner-city schools, do not respect their students. This is reflected by school codes and guidelines, the tracking systems, the weak curricula and the short career length of teachers at such schools. “The students are very much aware of this lack of respect, and they show it” (Stone 8). Jenkins suggests that if students were regarded with higher respect, discipline problems diminish. Her policy for discipline is “A child who did not follow the rules in my class had to leave class for that period and could not come back without his or her parents” (Stone 9). Jenkins realized that most of the parents of her students had jobs, other children and responsibilities and could not afford to visit the school to deal with their child’s behavior problem. As a result of this policy, Jenkins found that parents would force their students to behave so they wouldn’t have to leave their jobs, kids, etc. Jenkins refers to her policy as parental involvement and claims that “it works every time” (Stone 10).

The strategy seems practical from a teacher’s standpoint—it removes the responsibility of enforcing consequences for misbehavior out of the classroom entirely by placing it in the hands of the parent or guardian. However, I find it interesting that Jenkins explains her discipline policy within the framework of respect. I can imagine some students may view a parent call from a teacher as a sign of disrespect, suggesting that the student is not adult-enough to be reasoned with. Further, I can only imagine the hardship and inconvenience this policy placed on the families of these students; Ms. Jenkins certainly could not have been the neighborhood favorite teacher. Lastly, I have often heard that repercussions for misbehavior should be related directly to the infraction. For example, if a student defaces school property, they should serve time cleaning up the school grounds and removing graffiti from school walls. So, if every time a student in Ms. Jenkin’s class misbehaves, their parent is called and they receive (possible) punishment at home, I wonder what connection the student makes between the action and the consequence.

I suppose it all comes down to teaching philosophy. I envision my classroom as one where I treat my students like adults and peers, acting toward them as I would expect them to act toward me. I certainly wouldn’t want my students to call my mom if I gave a poor lesson or had an off day. I find value in giving students the benefit of the doubt. Just as Jenkins admits in her article, discipline problems are so rarely about the classroom in the first place. Wouldn’t the time spent calling and explaining the situation to the parent be better spent talking with the student, finding out what’s really going on and helping them to work through it?