Commentary

Peta-Anne Baker, Contributor

As the beginning of a new school year beckons, the establishment and maintenance of discipline in schools is high on the agenda. Incoming president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), Nadine Molloy, is reported as welcoming the announcement by Education Minister Andrew Holness that progress is being made to establish a new "time-out" facility for students who are deemed uncontrollable by school officials.

According to the news report, the JTA president expressed the hope that this would be the first of several such facilities because it would mean that there would be fewer "disruptions" in the schools, and teachers could get on with their instructional tasks. While I have a lot of admiration for the work Ms Molloy has done at Buff Bay High, and I anticipate her providing high-quality leadership in her term as JTA president, we are on different sides of the fence on this issue.

While there is considerable debate about the causes of disruptive behaviour and school violence, there is growing recognition that punitive or exclusionary methods do not produce lasting results. Indeed, word is that the Jamaican educational authorities should already have evidence to this effect, as the beneficial effects of removal from school were reportedly not sustained among the two groups of Jamaican students who were put through such a process last year.

"Teach students not content." This comes from a research report produced by a graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Master of Social Work (MSW) programme. Herself a teacher, Sian Wilson sought social-work training in an effort to make sense of her experiences in the classroom, and to become a better teacher. "After my first year of teaching, I began to ask myself where did these children come from, because I [didn't] remember being this way when I was in school. These kids seemed to demand more than we could possibly give them. When I was a student, teachers walked on the right hand, and we on the left. I could not understand why children wanted you to hug them, and wanted to come in your company and sit with you and talk. During teacher training, the emphasis was on content and methods. I thought that this was not my job; they have parents; I was not trained to do this; the Government cannot pay me enough.

" I spent almost half the term complaining about the students. My solution was to join my more experienced colleagues in chasing students out when they were talkative; ignoring them when they slept in class; using shouting, cursing, insults and other aggressive techniques to maintain class control. I needed to show them who was the boss. My business was to teach not to spend time correcting students. I became strict and rigid and listened to no excuse. I decided: 'one more year'."

Happily, Sian Wilson did not leave the classroom as she had resolved. Instead, following an encounter with one of her students that caused her to question her attitude and approach, she decided to try to become a more effective teacher. Her efforts included pursuing a graduate diploma, and then a graduate degree in social work. The research paper from which the above extract is taken was the culmination of her programme of study. Out of the process of interrogating her own assumptions and motivations, as well as the system of which she was a part, she came to the conclusion that addressing the problem of inappropriate student behaviour and unsatisfactory academic performance meant that teachers needed to understand that they needed to teach students not just content.

She also determined that the task of dealing with so-called problem students was the responsibility of all the members of the school community, not just the guidance counsellor, principal, or school board.

While recognising the value of her social-work training, especially following her promotion to a supervisory role, Wilson does not believe that every teacher should also be a social worker. She does, however, encourage the appointment of school social workers, who are different from school guidance counsellors. Her recommendations include making changes to the teacher-training curriculum to increase teachers' knowledge of the psycho-social needs of children, and developing skills for working with children deemed at risk or vulnerable.

She also recommends the more strenuous promotion of continuing-education workshops to equip teachers already in the system with a similar range of knowledge and skills. Recognising the stress teachers experience, she believes there should be regular opportunities for reflection, and recreation for teaching staff. She proposes a mentoring programme, not just for students, but for teachers, to assist their own ongoing formation.

This is actually the approach employed by the Change from Within (CTW) programme, conceived in 1992 by the late Sir Phillip Sherlock and coordinated by Mrs Pauletta Chevannes of the Institute of Education at the UWI. (Chevannes is a former teacher and principal of an inner-city secondary school. She was earlier this year awarded the Prime Minister's Medal of Appreciation for Service to Education.)

Working from strengths

The Change from Within programme sets up peer-support groups among the principals of the schools participating in the programme. These groups, known as the Circle of Friends, provide a mechanism for learning and support for principals who must confront the day-to-day challenge of managing their schools. The programme also calls for direct engagement with the community, with principal and teachers undertaking "walkabouts" in the community to mobilise residents' (not just parents') support.

A 2006 comparison of the CTW with a Canadian Safe Schools programme in the province of Ontario found that "a punitive, punishment-oriented, coercive intervention does not cure school violence; suspensions and expulsions simply "download" violent youth to other custodial institutions." The study found that the Change from Within programme succeeded in reducing school violence "by identifying and building on positive features in schools, and by changing a culture of dependency on external interventions to one of self- reliance" (Solomon & Down, 2006).

The recently completed review of the Kingston YMCA Youth Development Programme came to similar conclusions. This programme targeted adolescent boys who had been excluded from the formal school system. Over a four-year period, the programme succeeded in effecting improvements to the boys' conduct and academic performance to the point where they were able to re-enter the formal school system.

More important, a tracer study that formed part of the evaluation found that most of the changes in behaviour that were achieved were sustained for more than 10 years after the boys had graduated from the programme (Guerra, Williams, Meeks-Gardener and Walker, 2010).

The boys' comments about the YMCA programme are instructive. "Teachers treat you like they should treat students; they care about you and try to help you instead of getting mad at you and punishing you." Another boy reflected: "I was slow, slow. When I came to the YMCA, I started picking up on more work, started getting high grades. If I wasn't here, I don't know where I would reach. Now I have manners and respect and a future."

These Jamaican experiences add to a considerable body of knowledge elsewhere that indicates that integrated, multi-stakeholder, community-based approaches, founded on the principles of mutual respect, indigenous resource use, and support are more likely to produce sustained reductions in school violence than other approaches which focus on "fixing" individual psychopathology. This does not mean that psycho-therapeutic and even restrictive strategies are never needed. Their use must, however, accord with clearly stated criteria applied by competent professionals.

Out of sight, out of rights

There are several questions that need to be answered about the time-out facility planned for the community of Malvern which we are told will be classified as a high school. Uncontrollable children will be "transferred" there from the school they currently attend - with their parents' permission, of course. This sounds like an excellent strategy for ensuring the child's continued education while receiving "treatment". Education officials cheerfully give the assurance that most children will return to the formal school system within three months to a year. (What is the scientific basis of this estimate?) Regrettably, some children will "resist" change, in which case they will remain in the facility until they "age out" of the system.

From all appearances, this strategy side-steps the provisions of the Child Care and Protection Act, which would require that the removal of a child from his home be approved by the court and monitored by a children's or probation officer. Indeed, there is no information about what steps are being taken to protect the best interests of the child. Rather, it would seem that the primary impetus is to remove the child from the sacrosanct precincts of the school in order that teachers can get on with the business of teaching.

I wonder what is going to become of the estimated 900 children who have been identified as "primary victims", i.e. lost a family member, or witnessed the killing of a member of their family or community in recent events in west Kingston. Those children are returning to a wide cross section of schools in a matter of days. Not all of them will develop intractable behavioural problems, but some of them will. It is entirely possible that were it not for the space limitation (the facility will accept only 50 students), many of these children will, in coming years, be dispatched to Malvern.

There are many more questions needing to be answered than what can be covered here. For example, given the dire shortage of skilled professionals, how will the facility be staffed? Have we learnt nothing from our recent experiences of warehousing conduct-disordered youth? What steps are being taken to transform not just the home, but school and community environments from which these young people will be taken and to which we expect them to return?

Let us hope that in our anxiety to bring "order" to our schools we are not embedding even more deeply the conditions for more widespread disorder.

Dr Peta-Anne Baker is the coordinator of the Social Work Programme at the University of the West Indies. She may be contacted at pab.ja2009@gmail.com. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com