Discipline and effective instruction in school are based upon obedience.
Disobedience, then, is the teacher’s most serious problem.
The school is an especially organized community. It has its internal
interests; its chief aim to be attained; its regular head and a variety
of relations between teacher and all who attend, patronize or support
the school.
School obedience is nothing more nor less than the continuous act of
fitting one’s self as a pupil into a social machine. A pupil who is
disobedient at every point can not be a pupil in fact. In proportion as
a child is disloyal to the school, he cuts himself off from connection
with it.
In the school community, adults are appointed to lead. The state, town,
school district appear before the child and say, “This way.” The school
board stands as an agent of the district or town, and actively
supervises the school. The superintendent and teacher make specific the
plans that have been broadly laid down by the state and school board.
Now a child has all of these individuals and bodies politic to heed if
he enters school. He places himself in their hands. When he enrolls he
pledges conformity to the plans established for the control of the
school. Consequently disobedience is rebellion and anarchy. Obedience is
quite as essential in a good school as in an effective army on a
military campaign.
Every child is a citizen in the making. A citizen must live and toil in
harness with his fellows. “Teamwork” is a necessity now more than ever
before in human history. The home and the school are the finest
training-grounds for developing skill in team-work. Obedience is the
essence of such coöperation.
The smooth running of the school machine conserves time for effective
instruction. Loose government wastes effort, is destructive to mental
training, and hence a fatal obstruction to school efficiency. Every
disaster in school management is more or less of a lesson in immorality,
whereas training in good morals is the duty of the teacher. A good
disciplinarian can, of course, turn these occasional errors in school
government into educative experiences, but the fewer they are the more
advantageously can the moral education of the pupils in school be
accomplished.