Yesterday the discipline mistress announced a new measure to nip tardiness in the bud - any male student late for school ten times in a year will receive a caning. (If you're wondering, female students will be sentenced to detention instead.) Little wonder then that when the students filed in for flag-raising this morning, those who were still walking in from the school gate started making a run for it, instead of casually strolling in as they would have done on past occasions.
It would appear that draconian decrees are effective in this instance. It does illustrate the point that discipline is fundamental in facilitating learning. Only when the pedagogical machine is well-oiled can it produce the best results.
I can't help but cringe at the thought of subjecting children and teenagers to such rigid rules though. I've been witness to one such public caning, and I don't think it's necessary to resort to such extremes. Not when it involves stripping a boy of his dignity with each stroke of the cane.
Having had the privilege of attending institutions that follow very different schools of thought when it comes to discipline, I've come to the conclusion that discipline should only be strictly enforced in the absence of self-discipline.
My attendance record was absolutely perfect in my primary and secondary schools, both of which were run like concentration camps. They were schools exclusively for girls (which should be indication enough of how authoritarian and conservative they were, subscribing to the belief that the opposite sex is an unwelcome distraction that should be kept out of sight) and severe enough to insist on homogeneity among their charges. That meant cropped hair, nondescript bags, skirts of a minimum length... generally regulations that ensure a uniform appearance.
Did all these restrictions make me a better student? Definitely. Bearing in mind the fact that I've always been lazy, it was fortunate that I had teachers breathing down my neck and hounding me for all my late assignments. But all this pressure didn't exactly produce a brilliant scholar. On hindsight I could have done a lot better for my PSLE - 265 is a decent score, but my parents had harboured hopes that I would be one of my school's top-scorers. As for the O levels, my L1R5 aggregate was 7, one point too many. At the risk of sounding masochistic, sometimes I wish my teachers had been harder on me. I think I would have produced results that my parents would have been really proud of then.
In any case, all this discipline served me in good stead when I went to JC. Here, I experienced a culture shock. There were rules and penalties, but they weren't enforced. It was far too easy to bend them, break them, and work around them. We were pretty much given the freedom to do as we pleased, based on the single premise that we were young adults and that alone was reason enough to entrust upon us the task of deciding for ourselves where our limits should lie.
Take tardiness for instance. Latecomers were made to stand in a special box during flag-raising. Since I didn't particularly desire to join them there, I would resort to either of the following:
1. Feign a stomach upset and hole myself up in the toilet until the flag-raising ceremony was over. Then I would sneak out and blend into the crowd of students streaming back to their classes.
2. Make myself comfortable at the McDonald's near my school. It had a little bakery within its premises, so I'd buy myself a croissant and a cup of soya bean milk, and pore over the day's newspapers.
Sometimes I'd get into one of those moods where school seemed like the last place in the world I wanted to be. Whenever that happened, I'd park myself at MacDonald's and work on my assignments or revision. And just so it wouldn't seem as if I'd played truant, I'd sneak back into school around noon, when the main gate would be open and my entry wouldn't raise any eyebrows. The trick was to at least attend my civic tutor's lessons since he was the one who took special note of attendance.
If I happened to be in school on time, I'd still end up skipping lectures or Chinese lessons. You'd find me hiding in the sick bay or, more frequently, some corner of the school with some of my friends.
So how the hell did I end up with the best results ever in my academic life? Four As, A1 for GP, and a Distinction for S Paper?!? Surely this must prove that discipline should be thrown out of the window.
It was nothing short of a miracle. But it wasn't all that surprisingly, really, because quite simply, I was actually quite disciplined when it came to my schoolwork. I was busy reading my Literature texts, poring over my Economics Ten Year Series, working on Math problems, or highlighting and scribbling on my History readings whenever I snuck off somewhere.
Yes, I was quite the muggertoad. I attribute it all to the training I received at my secondary school. The school culture there instilled in me some degree of self-discipline that became a life-saver in JC.
The point is - I now believe that it is necessary to enforce discipline in the formative years. While I don't subscribe to the use of physical punishment, I do advocate coming down hard on students. It's just one of those things that are painful in the short run but absolutely beneficial in the long run.
ying @ 7:10 PM
