Introduction
The problem is that millions of students in the United States are expelled in a single academic year due to indiscipline. Additionally, there is a correlation between discipline and academic attainment, which raises the question of how effective the school discipline policies are. Educators have a role not only to facilitate academic excellence but also to ensure that learners develop into responsible and respectable human beings.
Main body
The main issue with indiscipline can be highlighted using statistical evidence. For example, 11 million instructional days are missed by students due to out-of-school suspension in one year (Camera, 2020). The distribution of these days is highly uneven across the races with 103 days lost by black students per 100 students enrolled (Camera, 2020). This means that black students lose 82 more days than the 21 lost by their white peers (Camera, 2020). Debates regarding the need to rethink school discipline have been around for several years. A press release from the White House in 2016 revealed that 2.8 students received out-of-school suspension in the 2011-12 academic year (Office of the Press Secretary, 2016). Discipline affects academic performance, which means that the teaching practice should take this aspect into account (Claver et al., 2020). Scholars have established that discipline can be a matter of personality traits, including self-control and grit (Zamaro et al., 2020; Hagger & Hamilton, 2018). Therefore, it is apparent that indiscipline can be costly to learners.
Conclusion
In conclusion, educators have a problem whose solutions are extensively studied and yet the learners keep losing instructional days due to discipline. Effective solutions to this problem can help massively improve the country’s education system and safeguard the future of modern youth. Overall, the multiple debates on the subject have revealed that there is an urgent necessity for the country’s education policy makers to rethink discipline
References
Camera, L. (2020). School suspension data shows glaring disparities in discipline by race. U.S. News.
Claver, F., Martinez-Aranda, L., Conehero, M., & Gil-Arias, A. (2020). Motivation, discipline, and academic performance in physical education: A holistic approach from achievement goal and self-determination theories. Frontiers in Psychology, 11(1808), 1-11.
Hagger, M., & Hamilton, K. (2018). Grit and self-discipline as predictors of effort and academic attainment. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(2), 324-342.
Office of the Press Secretary. (2016). White House report: The continuing need to rethink discipline. White House Archives.
Zamaro, G., Nichols, M., Duckworth, A., & D’mello, S. (2020). Validation of survey effort measures of grit and self-control in a sample of high school students. PLoS One, 15(7), 1-16.